Lonely Finger
5FM
Issue 1 | July 2008
Agency
proximity#ttp
Creative Team
Julian Watt - Executive Creative Director ;Stuart Stobbs - Creative director;Este du Plessis - Copywriter ;Darren Cronje - Art Director
Production Team
Gloo Interactive - Online; Plank Productions - 60 second commercial; Rex - Teaser viral movies
Other Credits
Delia Ferreira - Client Service;Caroline Switala - Agency Producer
Date
December 2005
Background
South Africa’s leading youth radio station 5FM needed to attract more younger listeners.
Idea
To generate buzz, proximity#ttp came up with the concept of Lonely Finger: an underground campaign centred around a sad, lonely finger wandering the world looking for friends, later revealing that ‘life is better with 5’ when he finds them. They deliberately kept Finger unbranded in the teaser phase, giving the media-sceptic target market time to take ownership. They started with a teaser campaign consisting of various guerrilla elements, all acting together to drive people to the website: lonelyfinger.com.
They sent emails from the Lonely Finger to 5FM’s database, homeless people held signs, they graffitied walls, parodied singles’ classifieds, put up banners, stickers and posters and ran little TV teasers showing the finger in various sad situations – all carrying the website address lonelyfinger.com. On the site people could read about his lonely life, interact with the finger, send him emails or download viral material to mobile phones and PCs. This material was updated every few weeks. Finger responded directly to emails, creating a relationship with the market.
Three months later they revealed 5FM’s connection to Finger with a 60-second reveal commercial (flighted online and on TV) showing Finger finding happiness with four finger friends, making up a hand with five fingers saying, ‘Life’s better with 5.’ The site also changed and became happy upon reveal.
Results
The response to Lonely Finger was massive in the South African online community, which was particularly impressive given that traffic to the site was not generated through an offer or competition prize. They simply generated genuine interest so people wanted to visit the site – and return. In three months the site received 2,477,489 hits and 108,472 unique visitors, each spending an average of 7.13 minutes on the site. Lonely Finger himself received 9,258 individual direct emails in which people photographed and sent in their own finger characters (and even some toes).
In addition Finger discussions popped up in at least 14 worldwide blogs and a competitor radio station even created their own rival finger.
Target Audience
Young South Africans, aged 18 to 28