Sara Telechea
Account Executive at Bungalow25
Madrid, Spain
TitleThe Smurf Village
Agency
Campaign The Smurf Village
Advertiser Sony Pictures
Brand Sony International Pictures
PostedNovember 2011
Product The Smurfs
Business Sector Cinema Production
Philosophy In Spain there are more than 2000 white villages scattered throughout the country, most of them are situated in the south. Many of them are hidden in remote places and very few people visited it per year.
After visiting and talking with more than 300 villages we found the perfect location: Júzcar. A small village with less than 400 inhabitants in the mountain range of Ronda that - like the Smurfs - had a long tradition in the mushroom world.
Our objective: we wanted to create a relevant story around the village and its relation with The Smurfs in order to gain the highest media coverage and awareness and to get promoted the film in a spectacular way.To that end, we painted every houses of the village in Smurfs blue, even the church and the graveyard, using more than 10.000 liters of paint, 50 painters, including all the unemployed people of the village, to convert Júzcar into the first village to change entirely color to promote and lunch “The Smurfs 3D Movie”.
 
Result What comes later and the repercussion is history.To get an idea, this village was visited in summer by more or less 300 people, but only during the months of July and August of this year was visited by over 50.000 tourists from around the world."The GDP of the region grew up to 7% despite the crisis scenario", autonomic minister said, "thanks to Júzcar and the initiative of the Smurf Village."Los Angeles Times proposed it as one of the most curious tourist destinations in the summer.The international airline Jet2.com increases their promotion of its flights to Malaga with the incentive of visiting the Smurfs village.The media impact was so strong that even one of the questions in the famous Spanish TV quizz show "Catch a Million" in prime time, was “what’s the name of a Spanish village that is totally painted in blue?”We’ve got a free media coverage worth for more than 3 million euros only in Spain and 15 million euros all around the world (and it´s still growing)
More than 200 TV appearances national and international.More than 1.500 press articles all over the world.Hundreds of appearances in local and national radio.More than 10.000 blogs picked up the news and made thousands of comments.More than 500.000 people on Twitter share information related to the village.
And what is more important: “The Smurfs 3D Movie” has been the best Sony Pictures release of the year in Spain and the unemployed people of the village have been hired by the painting company indefinitely.What was supposed to be one-week event has become a social, cultural and tourist worldwide phenomenon that crosses the advertising barrier.
Nowadays Júzcar is still painted in blue, who knows if it’s going to be forever… Spain and much of the people around the world knows it as the Smurfs Village. 
Media Type Promotion & Event
Creative / Art Direction
Creative / Art Direction
Account Supervisor
Account Executive

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