Nova hoaxes rival stations
Sydney’s Nova has pulled off an elaborate stitch-up on its rivals, tricking them into playing ads for its new breakfast show.
The hoax – dreamed up by the network along with Three Drunk Monkeys and Mediacom Sydney – involved creating a fictional product, Cowman Milk.
When listeners went to the Cowman Milk web site they were shown a video ad for Nova’s new breakfast lineup.
Bahahahahahahaha.
What a classic. I imagine the ROI comes from articles like this one, but great idea!
Trojan Cow!
Very funny ambush. A genuine wish I’d thought of that moments!
but exactly what was the hoax?
Nice idea,Triple J did it about 12 years ago.
“But i dont drink Merrick, Dooles and Ricky Lee I listen to them” – Boooooring.
mini epic fail on using unpaid istock photo stock on the testimonial microsite page http://cowmanmilk.com.au/testimonials.html
yes, I understand it might be deliberate inference but at best it’s an inside baseball joke for marketers that will appear amatuerish to majority of the radio audience looking at “all things cool” about their fav program/station.
If only radio was an effective way to drive traffic to a website. Sadly it’s not. Interesting idea though
Swap milk for beer and this was the award school kids’ team concept in last year’s BADclub creative challenge. Which was sponsored & run by Nova.
Going down the same line as the Volley Warehouse.
I would suspect it would be effective if they chased more mediums rather than just radio – could still have a great effect if it picks up in the Facebook wash.
Interesting how they talk of what a great idea it was but there are no stats on how many people actually went to the website as a result of the ads, like really who’d go to a website to look up Cowman Milk anyway?! In theory a great idea but I’d doubt it really worked…and WSFM’s Jonesy played a prank on Nova years ago by posing as a ‘caller’ on April Fools day, was alot funnier and made me switch to check out WS.
Well it would have anyway 🙂
Heard it on the radio, saw the link on Facebook, visited the website but totally missed the video. So I guess I totally missed the whole point and was left puzzled and weirded out. Could have been done better I think.
Presumably they paid for the placement of the ‘hoax’ ad plus the cost of the video. Wonder if it was worth it? I don’t get it but again, I’m not in the demographic.
Old concept, well executed, but with bad content. When JJJ did this to MMM in the 90s it was well executed with great content.
The NOVA “SOUNDS DIFFERENT” brand is now “COPIES DIFFERENT” – the brand has lost most of its significant on-air personnel and its breakfast and drive content is weak.
Likewise I compare this to the launch of the vega brand “ON YOUR WAVELENGTH” – a few great personalities, but, FAILURE.
Re-positioned with a more music VEGA VARIETY format – FAILURE.
Re-positioned again with a more music ROCK LEGENDS format – FAILURE
Now when I listen there are no presenters, just music.
Until the nova/vega radio group understand that audiences see through cheap bullshit they will never be the power that they set out to be.
JJJ did this ages ago.
The beach alert was done in Europe.
Product placement was done in the 80s.
Madmen was a much better TV show.
But hell, looks like the guys are having fun riding on other peoples coat tails.
Agree with David’s post, except to say perhaps “Old concept, mediocre execution, and with bad content.
Copies different. I’ll pay that.
who cares whether it’s an ‘old’ concept from the 80s or 90s, a rehash, whatever
only you wanky narcissistic creative types
there’s nothing really new under the sun anyway and the client only cares if it WORKS
sometimes it feels as if large chunks of the ad industry have deluded themselves into thinking ‘originality’ = sales