Outside Shoreditch – Who says that old fashion romance is dead?

 Written by Sara Baptista de Sousa

In Lisbon we love, and we show our love in the old
fashion way. Hugo, wanted to ask his girlfriend, Tânia, in marriage and with the help of the company TBWA Lisboa, he got his wish and a very positive answer through a urban improvised twitter.

“The boy from the southern side goes down stairs and stops in front of our building every day. He looked to our quotes on our windows and he was amused. He wanted to use this medium to ask his girlfriend in marriage”, says the CEO of TBWA, Leandro Alvarez. Hugo investigated those quotes and he found out that these quotes of 19 characters were from an initiative of TBWA, and he contacted them through a Facebook. He wanted to know if they could use their windows to make a marriage proposal to Tânia. “We loved the idea and we ask that he was the one to put the letters for us to document everything”, continues the CEO.

Three week ago, the company began advertising with a game, as stated by the company CEO. “We saw that the windows were like a keyboard and we thought we’d take them to convey positive messages to anyone passing on the street”, says Leandro. And so the challenge was launched with the phrase, “Smile doesn’t pay IRS”, at a time where everyone was talking about the world crisis. According to the president of the company, this initiative “drew much attention, people began to take pictures and share them on social networks”.

On that day, Hugo came to the encounter of Tânia, and he did the classic request, with one kned bend. At the same time, the blinds rose and appeared a sentece. “My grilfriend was very surprised but accepted”. But, for anyone who was in the premises of TBWA, behind the characters, the expectation was even greater. “We were all up here watching, but we couldn’t tell if she had accepted because the distance was large”, says Leandro Alvarez. It was only when the couple enter the office thanking the workers that hey knew that the answer was yes.

This marriage proposal via urban twitter has thus become part of the initiative Inspirar em 19 caracters – inspire in 19 letters – that the company is using since late October, when they moved premises to introduce themselves to the new neighbours. Now, Tânias answer is written on the building windows. If you pass through Amoreiras you can easily read “A Tânia disse que sim!” (Tânia said yes!).