Well the papers have all started picking it up, one of the most fun marketing campaigns I have been a part of.  Almost as funny as the stunt itself is watching the story get more and more dramatic each time it's covered.

The Melbourne Leader:

Melburnians fall victim to comedy show hoax

PUNKED: hoax evidence bags handed into Richmond Police Station

The Australian:

Citizens fooled by Comicide marketing ploy

LAW-abiding citizens become victims of a comedy show prank

The Daily Telegraph:

Cops blast NSW for comedy hoax in Melbourne

Melburnians become victims of prank, police blasted NSW organisers

Now, I took the call and it's hilarious that papers are reporting that we were 'blasted', it was one phone call and it was brief. The officer who called had a good sense of humour about it, I explained that a spoon and cornflour is a reference to cake, part of our name, and we had a laugh.

But more about that soon... here's the real deal.

TalentCake.com sponsored Sydney based sketch comedy group Comicide at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Now these guys are funny, awesome-funny, their show went down a treat with everyone who watched it, they got rave reviews and this was their second year in Melbourne.

AJ Tennant, show producer and cast member described the show as "pushing the boundaries but ultimately rewarding people" so we needed a campaign that did just that.

Renee-Lea Thackham, our Marketing Director came up with this idea a few months ago, everyone in the office knew it would ruffle some feathers but as Renee-Lea said herself "that's the point - we're marketing comedy and rock & roll, we're not supposed to just follow the beaten track."

The idea was to get a heap of evidence bags, write official sounding stuff on the front and put a sticker on the back saying to report to www.policeevidence.com.au which we bought and directed to a 'you have won!' page of talentcake.com.

So we pitched the idea to Comicide. AJ, with a background in advertising and a wicked sense of humour, didn't hesitate; "When talentcake.com presented the idea, we had a laugh and I threw my hat in the ring straight away."  The rest of the cast had mixed feelings about the campaign but were ultimately excited to be involved.

"I first thought the idea was mental!" was Patrick Magee's reaction, Comicide cast member "It's a high risk, very new idea, it's going to be interesting to see how it goes down with the public"

"Honestly I was pretty apprehensive to begin with, I laughed with Renee I wasn't going to do jail time for her idea" says Felicity Robertson, Comicide cast member, "but it's been fun, at this time of year in Melbourne, everyone has a sense of humour. Let's just see how it goes."

So I ordered the bags and Renee-Lea took charge of the rest so I let her run with it and didn't really get involved. That was until I walked into the office one day to find Renee-Lea and a couple of staff on the floor with a bag of cornflour and 300 plastic spoons.

"A spoon and white powder? That looks terrible, what will people think!?" was my first reaction, there is no way I would have approved this. Renee-Lea laughed and explained it away, saying something about the spoon and flour being a reference to 'cake' - as in talentcake, a very subtle branding move.

Hmm... That's not what immediately jumps into your head when you see white powder in a sealed evidence bag. Nobody was going to assume this was from a crime scene where someone was cooking a criminally delicious cake, either way it was a good enough cover story for me to let it slide.

So the campaign started and 300 bags hit the streets of Melbourne, the phone started ringing and lots of people claimed their free tickets to Comicide. It wasn't long though, until we got a phone call from the Victorian Police.

I took the call and it's hilarious that papers are reporting that we were 'blasted', it was one phone call and it was brief. The officer who called had a good sense of humour about it, I explained that a spoon and cornflour is a reference to cake, part of our name, and we had a laugh.

In hindsight, we should have called them first but there was absolutely no harm done and it was in the first couple of days that they called anyway. Once they knew what was going on, I believe an email went around so that Melbourne officers would know not to waste any time if they came across one of the bags which is great.

It just shows how the Melbourne International Comedy Festival has a great effect on people.

The calls that came in were fun to answer, everyone thought it was hilarious and I had a laugh about it with everyone who called -everyone had great things to say about what we were doing and they all had a funny story about finding their bag. They were all exactly the right people who would get the biggest kick out of the Comicide show, it was loads of fun.

Overall, the results were fantastic for what was a cheap campaign in the scheme of things. The stunt got national coverage, heaps of people who found the bags were talking about Comicide, and it stirred up some attention for what really is a brilliant show.

So Renee-Lea, now you have had your fun - lets go with some nice normal newspaper ads for the next couple of months ok?

What would you like to do now?

Find out more about Comicide: talentcake.com/Comicide

Tell us about your upcoming project: Contact Talent Cake

Join TalentCake.com: Get my own site

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