There are a lot of IT companies in Latvia. Demand for programmers exceeds supply provided by universities. Companies implement different communication and marketing activities to attract potential employees attention, it's hard to compete for attention. Scandiweb services are targeted to big ‘players’ of the foreign markets, especially the USA. The budget for PR and marketing activities, necessary to enter USA market is too huge for a small company to cover. So Scandiweb decided to have a World Record attempt. The agency had to come up with a solution to create: - a local campaign to address potential employees (target - 50 publications); - a viral video of the attempt to create a buzz in foreign media (target - 150 publications

Scandiweb decided to have an attempt in category Largest Rube Goldberg machine. It was planned as event for participants and media only. After our detailed evaluation, it was clear that: 1.Attempts organised by private companies have less coverage in media than those, involving public sector institutions, municipalities etc.; 2.Big public events, involving volunteers and general public are more covered by media; 3.Attempts with serious focus are less interesting than whose involving elements of fun, entertainment or surprise. We decided to come up with a different approach, offering significantly bigger attention to the event and increase publicity – cooperation with Riga City Council in lightning up city’s central Christmas tree.

Integrated PR campaign in offline and digital media had two phases - before the event, targeted at potential employees, and after the event, targeted at potential clients 1st phase messages: • A special Christmas gift is being prepared for inhabitants of Riga, • This will be one of the most spectacular shows Riga has hosted. We also reached agreement LMT Straume and Associated Press to ensure national and worldwide broadcast of the event. During 2nd phase we pitched more than 1500 foreign media, offering the event video with following messages: -Developers create a huge Rube Goldberg and break the world record (tech media) -World’s largest Rube Goldberg lights up Christmas tree for Latvian city (entertainment media).

- 156 publication in Latvian media - 12 Primetime TV plots on the main Latvian televisions - 600+ publications in foreign media (75% mentioning client), e.g. CNN, The Weather Channel, China Central Television, News Australia, Reddit, Motherboard etc. - Thousands gathered to watch the event - 75K watched live broadcast - 333 volunteers applied - More than 350K viral video views on Facebook, 10K Likes, 5K shares and 1,1K comments - 400K video views on Guinness Wolrd Records Youtube channel - record mentioned in 5 different Guinness Record marketing and PR materials without any additional charges, incl. the annual video The Best of 2016 - Scandiweb Facebook page results: 1,536,181 impressions, 382,971 Organic reach, 12,320 engaged.