For three days Israelis and political junkies were wondering who and what is behind the mysterious campaign for premiership by some Russian oligarch, who promised the world, strong leadership and as the only one who is able to get the house back in order.
Turns out, there's no campaign in sight or some comedy central promo, nor should Netanyahu fear facing a serious challenger. Behind the brilliant campaign stands no other than a online marketing group -a metrics commission browsing data collected by sites in Israel, in order to demonstrate the power and effectiveness of online marketing and networking.
At a special press conference Wednesday morning, Gal Turgeman, COE of the metrics commission said Arcadi Gaydamak was their inspiration and motive behind this unusual campaign trick. "We were looking for someone to effectively play the character without getting people to immediately recognize who is behind it. Therefore, we were not able to use a professional actor, but a real person who can play the game in reality.=," he said. "We launched this campaign on all of Israeli news sites without directing readers to Facebook or YouTube. The ultimate goal was to demonstrate the power of the Israeli sites," he further explained.
The cost barely exceeded the 700K NIS mark, said Tamir Yuvelitz, the owner of D-Cell interactive that conducted the campaign. "We have proven that the Internet is an effective, measurable and a lucrative tool for potential advertisers," he said. "The entire investment amounted of banners on leading news sites, reaching 41,000 searches for 'Oleg Petrushka', without even advertising it on Google," he said.
