Search Engine For The Real World
- Brand
- Dodge
- Year
- 2011
- Objective
- Awareness
- Industry
- Automotive
- Mechanic
- Adventure & Quest
- Platform
- Web
- Agency
- Digital Kitchen
- With
- Wieden + Kennedy
Objective
The 2012 Dodge Journey had been on sale for four years with almost no marketing behind it, and Dodge needed a sharp jump in awareness to pull buyers away from the Ford Explorer and Toyota Highlander. The campaign reframed the car itself as the hook — "a search engine for the real world" — pairing that idea with the Journey's value pitch as the most affordable seven-seater on the market.
Solution
It starts on TV: college and pro football broadcasts carry spots narrated by Michael C. Hall that hide visual clues to a real-world location, ending with a push to youtube.com/dodge. There, a 24-hour live camera feed shows a hidden 2012 Dodge Journey sitting somewhere in the country, alongside a running series of clue videos hosted by a character called "the production assistant." Viewers crowdsource each clue in the comments and on Twitter and Facebook, narrowing the search radius from roughly 300 miles down to 5. Once a viewer thinks they've cracked the location, the game moves offline — they get in a car, drive to the region, and search for the Journey on foot and by road; whoever physically reaches the car first keeps it, plus $7,000 toward taxes. The hunt ran in three waves, one per region, over three weeks.
Results
Roughly 300,000 people watched the live camera feed, averaging 25 minutes per viewer (about 105,000 total viewing hours), and the campaign drew over 1 million viewers to Dodge's YouTube channel with 1.5 million-plus video views. The brand logged around 400,000 social media posts and a 910% jump in brand mentions. On the ground, about 200 people actively searched for the vehicle during the East Coast leg alone, with the winning hunter there driving over 900 miles across several states; the first car was found roughly 16 hours after the debut TV spot aired, and all three vehicles were ultimately claimed.
- 1
The game opens as a national TV spot airing during college and NFL broadcasts: cinematic footage of kayaking, road trips, and camping frames a challenge — Dodge has hidden three 2012 Journeys across the West, Midwest, and East, and buried a location clue inside the very landscape shown on screen. Regional versions of the ad carry their own regional clues.
- 2
Eligible players are US residents 18 or older with a valid license and auto insurance predating the September 10, 2011 start; the prize is the found car itself plus $7,000 for taxes.
- 3
The hunt runs from a YouTube channel that doubles as mission control: a 24/7 live stream shows the hidden Journey sitting in its real, unedited landscape, while a running series of clue videos — hosted by an on-site "production assistant" — drops fresh visual details about the car's surroundings.
- 4
Players follow Dodge on Twitter and Facebook to get notified when to tune in, and each new clue video narrows the search radius further, taking the hunt from roughly 300 miles down to about 5.
- 5
Solving happens collectively: players cross-reference the stream and clue videos in a shared comment thread across YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, debating sun angles, shadow lengths, and recognizable terrain until a location theory emerges — traffic that reached roughly 250,000 comments by the second week.
- 6
Once a region is narrowed down, the game leaves the screen: players physically drive or travel to the suspected area, sometimes hundreds of miles, while remote teammates keep monitoring the stream and feeding them updates.
- 7
On the ground, players search the physical terrain — hiking trails, back roads, even outbuildings — for the actual parked vehicle; whoever locates and reaches it first wins it outright.
- 8
The contest replays as three sequential regional rounds — West, Midwest, then East — each starting fresh after the previous car is found, running from early September through the September 27, 2011 deadline.
