OTR: An Open Letter to the 20 Suspended Students

What happens when your brand gets wrapped up in a little bit of a local news scandal? Sit back? Wait for the waters to calm? Na – that’s boring.

When 20 students were suspended for sneaking out of their school camp to stock up on snacks from a nearby OTR convenience store, there was a lot of coverage in South Australia’s newspaper, The Advertiser. So, with a day turnaround, we reached out to directly address the students, with a full page in the State’s biggest newspaper. Our message – have a free hotdog… but maybe don’t do it again.

Our cheeky ad was picked up by radio and broadcast news and created a storm of positive commentary. We successfully hijacked the story, made it our own, and generated a huge swell of positive sentiment for OTR.