Dublin ad agency Chemistry has claimed that its ‘Sarkozy Letters’ ‘ viral campaign has attracted over 750,000 hits worldwide. The viral is about supposedly heated correspondence between French and Irish diplomats and was created in the run-up to last week’s Ireland-France game to show the agency’s online capabilities.
The idea centred around the alleged confusion that arose when a French diplomat wrote to an Irish counterpart, requesting a VIP box for President Sarkozy at the first leg in the World Cup qualifying play-off in Croke Park.
The Irish diplomat, perhaps aware of the President’s diminutive stature, writes back to offer a range of boxes up to 60cm high from which Sarkozy can watch the game. The French, infuriated, write back to say that they will lodge a complaint at the “highest levels”, to which the Irish diplomat replies “fair enough.”
As well as being linked in thousands of posts on websites and blogs in the UK, Portugal, Germany, the US, Brazil, Sweden, and even France, the ‘letters’ have been mentioned in media as diverse as the BBC’s homepage, The Mirror, The Star, The Daily Telegraph, Today FM, and CNN’s Sports Illustrated website. Comments ranged from “this can’t be real” and “I hope this is true”, to “ha ha so funny, and I am French”.
The letters can be found on the agency’s website www.chemistry.ie
