FOCUS Typewriter

Background

The media environment is becoming more and more cluttered. So in a world of blogs, wikis and forums, FOCUS Magazin – Germany’s largest news magazine – decided to highlight the quality of its reporting by putting the focus back on solid, fact-based journalism.

Idea

The agency decided to put the mechanical typewriter into the online world as a symbol of quality journalism. Users could experience the old-school feeling of typing and writing through the website – then use the good old-fashioned postal system to send the letters they type online (using a traditional offline medium) anywhere they like in the real world.

Results

In the first two weeks, the page registered more than 33,000 hits. During the test phase, no fewer than 1,780 physical letters were sent. The response was so strong that offline activities had to be stopped after just one week to prevent postal costs from skyrocketing.

Target Audience

Web-savvy information seekers between the ages of 20 and 49.

Our Thoughts

I have shown this to a lot of people already because turning your MacBook Pro into an old-fashioned typewriter that goes clack-clack ting is so gloriously counter-intuitive. For me, the connection between typing and quality journalism is a bit tenuous and what is that buzzing fly about? But these are small complaints against an idea that is genuinely delightful.