Case study: How the world’s first pirate radio station returned to its roots and rocked Iran
The Challenge: Broadcasting from a boat off the coast of New Zealand in 1966, Radio Hauraki was the world’s first off-shore pirate rock station.
Over the years Radio Hauraki had grown old. It had lost its revolutionary edge; it had become boring and irrelevant to our target audience of 30-40 year old rock fans.
The Brief: Re-capture the revolutionary spirit of New Zealand’s original pirate rock station.
The Solution: Create a rock revolution.
The insight: Question: If rock is the western symbol of rebellion, where is rock still banned by the authorities?
Answer: The Islamic Republic of Iran. In 2005, the President of Iran banned all Western music from state run airwaves. Rock music is officially deemed contrary to the Islamic republics strict moral code â the authorities consider them Satanists.
The Work: Just after Christmas 2010 the agency released footage of a covert US Psy Ops expedition conducted in Iran. They made it look like US forces had parachute dropped equipment – Marshall amps, electric guitars, and drums – to the Iranian rock underground. A Christmas present from Uncle Sam. There was absolutely no clue as to where the footage came from. The clip was hosted in Estonia. Any dialogue was in Kurdish or Farsi. The agency created an online identity called Vidileaks and began to share the film. Within days it was on the radar of 30,000+ people around the world via twitter and was picked up by video sharing sites in Pakistan, India, China, Japan, Czech Republic, Croatia and the USA. People believed the film was authentic.
Next the film was propagated on Facebook, including Iranian facebook pages.
The Success: They knew they’d succeeded when music station ‘The Rock’, their biggest opposition in rock music posted their Psy Ops video to their website. Then the agency released a second film. A 30 second viral clip that revealed it was Radio Hauraki who masterminded the plot, reminding the public of Radio Hauraki’s rebellious Pirate radio origins.
2 Comments
Interesting article thank you but I must correct the statement “Radio Hauraki was the world’s first off-shore pirate rock station.” It was not the case the far by quite a few!
There were pirates off the Scandinavia in the early 60s and and up to 9 stations off the UK starting with Radio Caroline from 1964. That station still broadcasts on the internet from land and sometimes sea (legally) at http://www.radiocaroline.co.uk
Great idea. NZ do some great Promo stuff for sure.
Rock on.