Slušná káva (Decent Coffee) or how to troll journalists

Corporate communication for LMC

Sometimes it pays off to make the journalists a bit angry. They notice the problem, try personally what it means to be part of it, and then happily write about the whole issue. You just have to find the limits you can go to.

Martin Frýdl

Executive Partner

CONTEXT AND CHALLENGE

Czech HR suffers from one bad habit. As much as 68% of people do not receive a reply from the company to their CV in time (within 2 weeks). This damages the image of the companies, but also our client, LMC. People lose faith in the whole system of online job market. The AC&C PR campaign showed what it looks like when someone just ignores you. The client even approved the brave step to troll the journalists.

SOLUTION

We wanted both journalists and other target groups to personally experience the situation in which the other party ignores them. Creating a fictional company called Slušná káva (Decent Coffee) with it´s website and FB was the solution. We offered the journalists free delivery of coffee to their offices and we also sold coffee at a stall in the street. What we did was that we let the customers wait at the stall. We did not bring the coffee to the journalists and did not reply to any claims. We disclosed the aim of the game only the following day at a press conference – the journalists went to a LMC press conference about “a problem on the labour market” and only at the conference did they learn that Slušná káva, which made them angry, was in fact us. At that moment they understood the feelings of the people who do not get any replies, when they send their CVs.

OUTPUTS AND RESULTS

In 14 days 6.017 million people learned about Slušná káva online, 1.28 million in daily press and specialised media, including the most significant – Blesk, Právo and iDnes.cz. The Facebook campaign was aimed at HR specialists, the video was viewed by 33 709 people, who were watching it on average for 2:36 minutes; the Slušná káva website was visited by 136 930 people. The amount of timely responses to CVs rose due to the campaign from 38% to 47%.

6 mil.

readers hit online

1,28 mil.

printed daily and specialised media readers hit

136 000

visitors of the Slušná káva website

TOOLS USED

We put up a stall at the farmers’ market and were (reluctantly) selling coffee. We created a video using hidden camera showing the customers’ reactions, information about the core of the problem and comments by experts (see link below). Video was the cornerstone of the campaign. The reasoning was backed by experts – the etiquette expert, Ladislav Špaček, social media guru Eliška Vyhnánková, psychologist Marta Boučková or Alza.cz’s HR Director, Marek Premus. We also secured the cooperation of several other influencers on social networks, who helped drive the “flame” against Slušná káva.

Most importantly, though, we trolled tens of journalists. We offered them coffee delivery into the office, did not bring it and did not reply to their complaints. Only the following morning did they receive a package containing an apology and a press release. Concurrently, we announced the connection between Slušná káva and the problems on the HR market. We were able to show real “victims of the problem”, who we found sifting through LMC Facebook comments, and won them over for our cause.