Mood: Music Of Our Desire, an app for finding music events (now also films and cinemas), had some new features. One of them let you find traditional local festivals, and the app was now available on the islands too.

The brainstorming was a lot of fun on this one. We wanted a funny spot with a strong hook that also communicated the app’s USP. We started by writing down the first words and phrases that came to mind when we thought about how Mood helps us. The list looked something like this:

• parties
• events
• going out
• summer
• local festivals
• islands
• a night out
• finding music parties
• music
• going for a drink
• any parties happening?
• finding parties
• getting out
• what’s on
• helps me go out
• helps when I don’t know how to get out

We thought we could present Mood as the app that helps when you don’t know where or how to go out. In Greek, the same phrase can also mean not knowing how to physically get out. We decided to play with bait-and-switch, but we didn’t have an actual idea yet.

Around that time, I was getting ready to go out one evening. I went to pull out of my parking spot and saw this.

Two cars had boxed me in, one in front and one behind. I couldn’t get out.

I WAS LATE FOR MY DATE BECAUSE I COULDN’T GET OUT.

That was it. We would make an ad with someone who couldn’t get their car out, shouting:

HEEELP! HEEELP! I DON’T KNOW HOW TO GET OUT.

That was the first idea. Then we wondered how else we could use it: Santa stuck in a chimney, and so on. Eventually, for summer, we landed on the scene in the sand.

All very nice. But did it actually get results? It did: one of the best-performing campaigns in Greece, especially for summer, with thousands of new users.