We used the launch of Jay-Z’s autobiography “Decoded” to bring Bing to the forefront of pop-culture and gave millions of Jay-Z fans a reason to use Bing Search and Maps.

We started by putting every single page of Jay-Z’s autobiography into media spaces around the world; all 350 pages were put in locations relevant to each individual page's content. Fans around the world could actually walk Jay-Z's path, experiencing his story right where it happened. Over the course of the month-long campaign, fans assembled the book digitally at bing.com/jay-z before it hit stores.

Results:

Media Impact: The campaign generated 1.1 billion global media impressions in just one month and helped Bing enter the top 10 most visited websites in the world for the first time.

Social Sharing & Participation: Jay-Z’s Facebook following grew by over 1 million fans during the campaign.

Site Engagement: The campaign's landing page saw an exceptional average visit length of over 11 minutes.

Search Engine Performance: Bing experienced an 11.7% increase in traffic in only one month following the campaign's launch. Additionally, "intent to use" Bing increased by 15 points among the younger target demographic, despite the infamous Silverlight barrier.

In the Cannes Lions, the campaign was awarded the Integrated Grand Prix, the Outdoor Grand Prix and the Titanium Lion.

In the years following, the campaign was turned into a case study at Harvard business school.

William Morris Endeavor bought a 49% stake in Droga5 for an estimated 500 million off the back of the campaign’s success. Ari Emanuel and Patrick Whitesell explicitly noted that they sought the investment to build a better "bridge" between their talent like Jay-Z and brands like Bing.

Agency: Droga5