That image above represents the conclusion of a two-month campaign which centered around a scavenger type hunt for a "stolen" Audi A3 which contained evidence to help solve an art museum heist. Those two people played characters Nisha Roberts, an art theft recovery expert, and Virgil "King of Code", a character that specialized in game development.
The campaign involved physical and digital elements. For the physical components, the agency actually had the windows of the NYC Audi dealership smashed, and a new car driven off the lot. That car became the focus of the audiences search, as it supposedly contained an SD card that was loaded with evidence from the heist.
We created actual websites for the characters that were used to draw the audience in. These sites contained hundreds of bits of "evidence" that the audience could use to help solve the mystery, in addition to those pieces found on the SD card.
The site above was so convincing that it garnered attention on the national news as the press tried to figure out if there really was a such thing as an art theft recovery business.
Hundreds of pieces of fake "evidence" were created. These clues built upon the heist narrative and included items that the supposed theives had collected: yellow pages, magazine and newspaper tear-sheets, marked-up maps of the museum, escape routes, and surveillance photos.
