Yellow – Tree House Restaurant by AIM Proximity

In New Zealand, Yellow Pages wanted to increase its relevance in an age where Google is top-of-mind for most people searching online for a local service. AIM Proximity sought to show that Yellow is capable of providing local listings in a way other search engines and directories cannot.

“We wanted to…show how comprehensive Yellow is – it knows who your local plumber is in a way that Google can’t,” explains Darryn Melrose, CEO of AIM Proximity. “We also wanted to demonstrate how good Yellow is, rather than telling people how good it is,” he says.

To demonstrate, AIM set out to build a tree-house restaurant in a Redwood forest from scratch in 66 days, using only resources found in Yellow’s directory listings. The campaign was advertised to consumers throughout the building process on television and a Web site that included a daily blog and a live webcam.

The campaign resulted not only in a completed restaurant that was booked solid its first month, but also 220,000 visits to the Yellow Web site and a marked increases in Yellow’s site and print directory usage.

“This became a huge success for Yellow – we managed to build it and it got picked up by news channels around the world,” Melrose says. “It has become the most effective and successful campaign that Yellow has ever created,” he notes”