Jay Z and Bing 'Decoded' campaign

Decoded

Jay-Z’s advertisement campaign for his autobiography, Decoded, is probably one of the best examples of promotional and interactive marketing. In order for his book to receive full exposure to as many people as possible, he teamed up with the creative agency ‘Droga5’. As well as Droga5, Jay-Z also teamed up with the search engine Bing. Droga5 produced a campaign that saw 320 pages of Jay-Z’s book put in all obscure places across the world that had relevance to the content of the book. For example, cheeseburger wrappers and on the side of buildings.

This idea was genius as it exposed the book to virtually everyone; not just Jay-Z fans. People all over the world could see the advertisements for the book which only increased the anticipation and excitement for the release of the rappers autobiography. Interestingly, the places in which the pages of the book were displayed had relevance to the content of the book, such as places where Jay-Z grew up. As well as this, the advertisement went further as it allowed Jay-Z’s fans to actively interact with the advertisement as they could log into bing.com/jay-z and see where the next page of the book was going to be placed. By doing this, not only did it promote Jay-z’s book but also increased the number of people using the search engine Bing. To get more people knowing about the release of the book, Bing created a game where people could find where the next page of the book was going to be placed with the first person discovering it had the chance to win tickets to see Jay-Z live.

This genius promotional campaign benefited all parties and saw Jay-Z’s book in the top 10 best sellers for 19 weeks straight.