Hide and seek for grown-ups

By Billie Andersen

Johannes Leonardo has launched a mysterious and (potentially) engaging social advertising campaign around New York and it will be interesting to see how New Yorkers respond to it.

Fragments of an advertisement have been appearing all over the city, containing a Twitter hashtag. People can either search the city for the images or respond to clues provided via the company’s twitter account. The idea is then that people take a picture of the fragment and upload it to Twitter revealing the advert (a supposedly explicit image) and the brand behind it.

So will people join in the game? As an indication of popularity, from looking at Twitter people are definitely talking about the campaign, but it will be interesting to see how many people actually take part. While the vast majority of those following the campaign will probably take a passive interest, it will only take a small number of those engaged enough to participate for it to be a success (although with the amount it is being talked about it arguably already is). In any case, the campaign is truly social, requiring collaboration and clashing together the online and offline worlds.