TBWA, The Glue Society Worked With Top Geo-Locator To Hide Nissan Patrol On 33,000-Acre Sheep Station

TBWA\Melbourne relied on the expertise of one of the world’s best geo-locators and the passion of Nissan Patrol fans to pull off an activation that spanned the length and breadth of Australia.

“When I first heard that we were going to hide a car somewhere in Australia and let people go looking for it, it was like, a) that sounds really exciting, but b) that could be quite dangerous if we just literally do that,” Jonathan Kneebone, co-founder of The Glue Society, told LBB.

“We quite quickly arrived at the idea that we needed to hide it, but give people clues. There's a lot of people who like to do online searches and use ingenious ways to find locations, so we knew there was an opportunity to use that skill or that interest to offer people the chance to say where they thought it might be. 

“That became a way of essentially reducing the numbers from the thousands of people that entered to the people we then selected to find the car in a limited area – a safe zone, albeit a very adventurous safe zone.”

A new Nissan Patrol was hidden in the Flinders Ranges in South Australia, camouflaged amongst 33,000 acres of a sheep station. A commercial had never been shot on the property before. Prospective finders were given a series of cryptic clues to help them uncover the state, region, and exact area in which the car was hidden. Paul Reardon, chief creative officer at TBWA\Melbourne, told LBB, “The lengths that people went to to enter this competition was amazing.

“They had to go through and use open source intelligence methods to decode a series of clues, that's hard in and of itself, so it requires a lot of engagement. Then beyond that, once they've narrowed it down and they got through the second part where they went through the website and vectored into where this might be – those clues were deliberately not easy – then they've got to go and make a video with their co-pilot saying why they're right for this, what their four wheel drive experience is, and why it means so much to them.”

TBWA\Melbourne creative director, Stephanie Gwee, added, “It's almost a thing that can only happen in Australia, just because of the scale of all those different terrains. It was harder than finding the needle in the hay stack, which makes it all the more exciting.”

Deciphering the clues was made all the more difficult by the fact they were overseen by Oscar Pearce, competitive GeoGuessr and Australia's representative at the GeoGuessr World Cup.

The competition sees players dropped into a random location on Google Street View, and use clues like street signs, language, plants, and architecture to work out where they are on a map.

“He gave us a lot of steers on how we could choose the best images for the clues. He was helping us out with things like metadata, he was giving a lot of good advice on what we should be actually communicating,” said Stephanie.

“I think one thing he wanted to do was to make it quite frustrating for people. Something as simple as soil – either you know it or you don't know it, but the effort needed to go through that process to find out exactly where that location is also adds to the entire complexity of this campaign, which makes it a little bit more fun.”

Once prospective contestants had cracked the clues, the final group of adventurers were selected based on their experience behind the wheel in challenging terrain, whilst also maintaining a broad representation of the Australian four-by-four community.

Paul said another key factor in choosing the group was “something which is almost intangible … that generosity of spirit within the contestants.”

Jonathan agreed, “Everyone came with the right expectations.”

“That's actually the most important thing when you work with members of the public, making sure that you're managing their expectations in the right way. They all want to have a good time, they all want to be part of something like this, and they all want to win a car, truth be told – but, but at the same time, we had to make sure that when one of them does win, the others aren't annoyed, they’re actually pleased for them. There's a certain tactic to that.”

To add to the adventure, on the day itself, the contestants didn’t only have to compete with the terrain and each other, but also the weather.

“The rain made quite an additional element of excitement as well for the contestants,” said Stephanie. 

“Obviously it's a test for the car and what it can do, but also it created something a bit more memorable for all the contestants who were taking part live. It was a drought-ending weather event. Those four words kept being repeated throughout the entire day.”

Whilst one lucky contestant ultimately won the car, Jonathan laughed, “When they were looking for the car, we were going, ‘What if they don’t find it? We really want them to find it before the sun sets.’”

The wider campaign rolled out over the weekend, and includes a 30” TVC.