A haunting solution for the student market

The student market is a tough crowd. Over-saturated with commercial messaging. Skeptical of being 'sold' to. And discerning about where they spend their limited disposable income. So, if you're a brand marketing to students, how do you surprise, engage and coerce them? You box clever.

As one of Ghost Pops’ periodic targeted bursts to students, M&C Saatchi Abel’s creative team went undercover, placing an online ad for ‘dirt cheap’ student accommodation in a fancy Saxonwold house.

The webpage, www.awesomestudentdigs.co.za, was hosted on Gumtree and looks exactly like a Gumtree ad for a fully furnished home: close to all amenities including Wits University, recently revamped, with four luxury bedrooms and a sparkling pool, ‘ideal for students’, ‘pets recommended’, for only R5000 per month.

The catch? When you browse the photos of this too-good-to-be-true property, weird stuff starts to happen. Spooky voices, sinister music, howling wolves, panicked cries and fearful screams. Yup, the mansion is haunted, thanks to some very clever back-end development and front-end design.

And in case you don’t immediately get that it’s all a parody – a form of webpage possession, if you will – you’ll work it out when you land on a Ghost Pops-branded landing page, with a Share icon. Clever, clever, clever.

M&C Saatchi Abel
M&C Saatchi Abel
It is at the heart of everything we do. From creative thinking to creative work. From how we are structured to the systems we use. Brutal Simplicity runs through the culture of every single one of our offices, all around the world.

 
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