buzz magazine

While competitor LA Magazine played into every cliche about Los Angeles, we positioned the more culture-savvy, literary, Buzz Magazine as the voice of the real LA--all by creating realistic, "only in LA" billboards and radio spots, then later, revealing them to be fake. Because if the services and products had been real, you'd have read about them in Buzz.

With a (highly) limited production budget, some barter radio spots and only 7 billboards, we took LA by storm. Everyone was speculating about the mysterious ads, from morning show DJs to local newscasters to the Tonight Show, and especially a poor DMV inspector from Sacramento who kept calling the number to determine who might be running an unsanctioned topless traffic school.

Newsstand sales skyrocketed the first week of the reveal, and the campaign was the first to put Deutsch LA on the map with numerous Gold Beldings, One Show awards and national Andys. Best client ever? Let's say, they were up there. 

Wall Street Journal: Topless Traffic School Billboards Drive State Investigators to Distraction [no paywall]

LA Times: Red Stoplight District

Orlando Sentinel: Satirical Billboards Keep Clueless in LA Guessing

LA Observed: Only in LA