CITY OF NEW ULM
New Ulm is a small, quiet hamlet about an hourish south of Minneapolis whose main export was, well, how German it is. The downtown streets are festooned with oompa-like regalia, from a full-on glockenspiel to authentic restaurants. It’s fairly obvious from the moment you roll into town that the city embraces its heritage like no other. But conjecture alone wouldn’t draw throngs of crowds. No, they needed something bigger. And thus was born the, um, “legend” of Hermann the German’s footprint.
Creative Director: Troy Longie
Art Director: Craig Nordeen
Copywriter: Andy Zetzman
We made up the most insane story ever, about a massive footprint left by the giant statue who stands in the heart of town. What’s even more insane is that the client bought it, constructed said footprint and tacked it on to the side of the Chamber of Commerce building (where it still stands). To promote it we had about $27 to work with (the footprint ate up the entire budget), so we relied on a lot of word of mouth, some social and a Minnesota Fringe Festival play. I still can’t believe that last part actually happened.
We kicked things off on Facebook, where we invited users to interact virtually with the footprint. By clicking on it, it brought you to a landing page where you could have even more fun. From there, we were able to convert clicks into day trips.
To further seed our very false legend, we enlisted the help of two “Factcheckers” who revel in any kind of conspiracy they can get their Cheeto-stained hands on.
Here’s one of the images our intrepid sleuths were able to “uncover” from the basement of the Chamber of Commerce. Peep the footprint next to Klaus over there.
They also found a “letter” that proves the existence of the footprint and tells of its legacy.
If you were to ask me what the favorite part of my career has been to date, it was when I found out that this play was happening. To make a very long story short, when word got out that a footprint had been “discovered” in New Ulm, Minnesota, the Associated Press decided to write a story. Which ran in papers from Miami to Seattle. The story wasn’t about the marketing stunt, but rather the “cover up” by the city in disseminating a bald-faced lie. And, for whatever reason, these fine fellows decided to write a play about it. Craig and I went. It was awesome.