Remember Partners + Napier? The Rochester-based agency has appeared on this humble blog for an animated Kodak campaign, the wooing of a “big agency” Ogilvy executive, and the usual staffing reductions.
This week, members of the shop’s Manhattan office did a bit of OOH trolling and managed to score local press mentions thanks to a PR push that amounted to Tweeting the image below at everyone from Gawker and BuzzFeed to Taylor Swift and Kim Kardashian (in addition to dropping some mentions in our anonymous tip box).
@AgencySpy This is how @pnycagency welcomed @KanyeWest to Flatiron Plaza for his performance tonight. #AllStarWeekend pic.twitter.com/uUS4uVdMNQ
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— PNYC (@pnycagency) February 13, 2015
Congratulations, PNYC: you did it (note the double URL there).
Pitchfork mentioned the stunt yesterday, and local blog Gothamist talked to the single-name duo Matt and Jason (who would be aforementioned executive Matt Dowshen and ECD Jason Marks, veteran of Ogilvy, CP+B and R/GA).
Here’s their pitch:
“We are an agency actively researching the effects of Out of Home (OOH) advertising. We found out Kanye was playing outside of our building and we wanted to make a point about being in the right place at the right time with the right message and how that can be amplified through digital channels. And… don’t fuck with Beck.”
Neither pop music’s self-appointed savior nor his super-cheeky bride have responded to this blatant act of provocation, but the agency’s social media manager had a fun 24 hours:
.@KimKardashian when she eventually sees all of our crazy tweets. pic.twitter.com/Xl3uU5pLgY — PNYC (@pnycagency) February 13, 2015
Michael McDonald put us up to it. — PNYC (@pnycagency) February 13, 2015
Just kidding. It was McDonald, Tswift, Beck, and a random assortment of crowd-hating, noise-averse residents in the Flatiron District.
— PNYC (@pnycagency) February 13, 2015
Score one for persistence, then.