Notorious Beam Team

Ex Publicis Group Creative Director David Droga has teamed up with Mark Ecko the creative jack of all trades from New York to plug a new Sony film by filming him tagging Air Force 1 - or at least a mock up of AF1!



Droga's new agency, called Droga 5, is an inventive leap of faith... that really embraces the idea of 360' thinking.

Here's what Droga said about the stunt:

"We produced a film that seemed like a real event and seeded it anonymously on 20 websites," Droga says. "It was so controversial, it exploded into the mainstream."

According to Droga, the film was initially seen by 20 million people online, but when TV news networks such as CNN and NBC picked up the story, 30 million viewers across the US saw it on more than 100 news reports.

"The Pentagon had to deny it three times," Droga says.

Although the event was a hoax filmed in California using a plane painted on one side to look like Air Force One, disclaimers were attached to the film. Fans of Ecko were the first to get the joke: "Still free" is his company mantra.

"We literally did have seven lawyers sitting in pre-production meetings telling us what we could and couldn't do," Droga says. "[Ecko] came out with a public statement saying it was him."

Droga says the campaign was a "pop culture moment" that lit up the Ecko Unltd clothing brand "like a bright flare". According to reports, 87 million people viewed the film, which remains available at stillfree.com. Phase two of the campaign then began, featuring Ecko backing street artists in a court challenge against laws banning minors from buying spray cans. Two weeks ago a Federal Court judge ruled in Ecko's favour, preventing New York City police from enforcing the law. Ecko, according to Droga, is a rare commodity among today's marketers in that he understands his audience's media habits: they're online, and they want to "discover, debate and share" information.

Thanks to Sarah Madeley for this.