An Australian arm of Yellow Pages conducted an experiment to prove people still use the medium to find businesses, according to The Australian.
"Hidden Restaurant," a temporary restaurant set up for purposes of Yellow Page's experiment, promised free pizzas to anyone who could find the place from April 12 to April 25.
The offer was disseminated by flyers, a Facebook page and a website that told would-be diners to "look it up the way you would any other business." They then had to call in for reservations, where operators would log how they found the address.
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Importantly for Yellow owner Sensis, a division of Telstra, an average of 70 percent of those customers said they found their way to the unsignposted Hidden Restaurant via a paid Yellow online listing, search engine marketing services such as those Yellow provides its customers, or through the local Yellow Pages directory, which was delivered to homes shortly before the campaign began.Blogs, social media and other forms of word-of-mouth accounted for the other 30 percent of customers during the restaurant's two-week life, rising to about 40 percent in the final days as word spread, according to Sensis general manager of brand and marketing communications Geraldine Davys.
Some media outlets blasted the campaign methods, saying disabling comments and other interactions on its Facebook page disabled the social web's true nature and power, skewing results.
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