Tagesschau

News programme „Tagesschau“: Showing a little leg

Media

Guerilla PR campaign announcing an innovation within the Tagesschau

The Tagesschau has been Germany’s most famous evening news programme for generations. However, one question remains the same: what have the news anchors actually been wearing underneath the desk for the last 63 years?

This ought to change: in the future, news presenters would be showing some leg.

We changed the well known picture of the Tagesschau and created an image that got the world to ponder: one evening, a simple pair of legs appeared next to the anchors, just standing in the background.

The challenge was clear: How do you get the world to report on the Tagesschau instead of the Tagesschau reporting on the world? Knowing about the typical behaviour of the social web, we addressed the power of speculation. People should debate the mysterious appearance of the Tagesschau legs. Thus a normal pair of legs set off around the world! Online people debated and thought up insane theories.

We achieved a vast number of people, with over 300 million contacts, through media reports. Achieving our goal: getting the news about the change communicated without spending any money – and by avoiding a shitstorm or critical debates in reaction to the change. The story generated an extraordinary response rate within media: with over 400 news articles in newspapers, TV and online we covered every major and tons of small outlets, creating a media equivalence of 30 mio. euros.