Lake Creature: Love At First Sight

A mysterious creature suddenly surfaces at a landmark Minneapolis lake — and soon becomes a beloved community fixture. With great strategy, stellar design and good content, Fast Horse puts together an integrated campaign to help a non-profit build a following and raise awareness of its mission.

Floating a great idea
It could have been ho-hum. The Minneapolis Parks Foundation planned to float a Loch Ness-like sculpture on a local lake and announce the project via a simple press release. Fast Horse slayed that notion, opting instead for a buzz-building campaign that leveraged social media, earned media and timely content. We designed a memorable logo, created a cool micro-site and shot fun videos along the way.

Mystery, suspense — and then the reveal
Under the cover of night, crews secretly installed the creature at Lake Harriet. Her appearance ignited a frenzy on site and online. An unbranded Twitter account in the creature’s name fueled the mystery. Monster talk was everywhere — on social media and in traditional media. A week later, the Minneapolis Parks Foundation came forward to “adopt” the creature at a heavily attended press conference, providing the foundation a platform to officially present the creature to the residents of Minneapolis and explain its mission.
minne-color
Keeping the momentum going
To generate more excitement, Fast Horse organized a contest to give the creature a proper nickname. After a month-long contest, the creature was dubbed “Minne,” which set off another firestorm of positive traditional media coverage and social media chatter. All the while, we met the demand for Minne-related content. We refreshed the micro-site, lakecreature.com, to include information about the foundation, as well as a video vignette with the artist, Cameron Gainer, and an opportunity for people to donate to support future projects. We also launched a Facebook fan page that featured details about the adoption, links to the foundation site, photos and opportunities for playful interaction with the creature.

Pretend creature, real results
In the first week alone, nearly 10,000 residents visited lakecreature.com to speculate about the creature’s arrival and join the fun. During that same time, media ran 40 stories about the creature’s arrival and her adoption by the foundation. The naming contest generated another two dozen stories. In total, the program garnered more than 5 million impressions in the Minneapolis-St.Paul area. Residents’ affection for the creature also was evident in fundraising efforts, with more than $55,000 donated to help the foundation “care” for her. The efforts gave the foundation multiple opportunities to engage consumers, deliver key messages and raise funds for future projects.

Fact: The creature became so popular in the Twin Cities that fans began asking about hats and T-shirts. The foundation obliged, and ramped up merchandising efforts. Minneapolis-St.Paul Magazine later named the Lake Creature “Best New Resident” of the year.

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