What we hid!

How it started

For those who don’t know, the Condé Raptors are an easter egg on the Condé Nast Britain websites. Head to vogue.co.uk gq.co.uk wired.co.uk or houseandgarden.co.uk and press the Konami code with your keyboard ↑ ↑ ↓ ↓ ← → ← → B A Then keep pressing A for unlimited Raptor joy.

The Condé Nast Raptors started as just a bit of fun for our product development team. Around March 2012 we were putting the finishing touches to the GQ Articles project. I wanted to put a human mark on the teams work, something that stood separate from the corporate and money making drive behind the work. I found Zurbs Raptorize, a plugin to make a Raptor fly across your screen when pressing the Konami code. As a big fan of dinosaurs, at university I had a dinosaur playmate and dinosaur figures in my room, this was perfect. All it needed was a GQ suit fitting.

Our first Raptor was born. From then on, each project we completed had a Raptor hidden inside it. Everyone joined in when it came to designing new raptors, it was an hilarious way to finish off a project. When many projects can feel stressful and draining by the end, this was the perfect remedy. Lead Developer Steve Carta, modified Zurbs Raptorize js so we could have multiple raptors on each site which would appear every time you press A after the Konami code… HERO.

The only people who knew about the Raptors were the product team and a small group of friends outside of Condé. None of the management or magazine teams knew anything about them. It was our fun little secret.

Until the internet found out

On the afternoon of July 8th 2013 I received this message on a WhatsApp group..

A friend of mine, Jamie Sheehan, is a big fan of the Raptors and had told work friends of his. The tweet he’s referring to came from Jonathan Pile, without going into much detail they both work in the same industry. Someone told someone, who told someone... This is how the Raptors finally got out.

Go to the Vogue website. Type in the Konami code (up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A). Enjoy pic.twitter.com/JwnbQSKCUC — Jonathan Pile (@jonnypile) July 8, 2013

The tweet was getting a fair amount of attention and as the afternoon went on the traffic on Vogue increased. Anxiety crept in as we realised the time had come for us to confront the rest of the company with what we had hidden in the sites.

The rest of the company took it well. There was a few confused responses, not really understanding why anyone would hide Raptors on a site or what it meant to their brands. Fortunately the public response was extraordinarily positive and our asses were saved.

By 8pm that night we had an increase in traffic of 450% on a usual 8pm. We thought that was THE spike and it would all be over the next day… nope, we underestimated the internet a little bit. The next day was fairly standard, though by the evening we started getting another traffic spike. This one kept growing, and growing, and growing.. dwarfing the previous nights. The raptors had found their way home to Reddit! This brought a 3000% increase in traffic on a usual evening.

Someone hacked Vogue's website to make it show dinosaurs in hats. GLORIOUS. pic.twitter.com/6koEBZUe4n — Felicity Morse (@FelicityMorse) July 10, 2013

Rumours were now circling that Vogue had been hacked or that it was an elaborate marketing plan to increase traffic. We were told that Condé were not going to make an official comment, they wanted to let it ride itself out.

Some Numbers

The amount of people who came to see the Raptors and the amount of individual unleashed Raptors is staggering.

68,041,551 Raptors seen to date

2,636,610 people unleashed the Raptors

they spent 1min 30 secs on average with the Raptors

coming from 170 countries

which is 86% of the countries in the world!

Raptors were most popular in US 42% UK 13.5% Brazil 9.3% Canada 5.7% Australia 3.6% Germany, Taiwan, Spain and Finland were big hitters too

the biggest spike in one day (July 10th 2013) saw 8,288,660 Raptors unleashed

each person sees 26 raptors on average

and months later, there's still 32,000 Raptors unleashed across Vogue every day

Peoples Reactions

Being a big fan of Arya Stark in the Game of Thrones TV series, this Vine from her finding the Raptors made my day!

It was heartwarming to receive such a positive response from people and to read how the Raptors were making people laugh, happy and cry with joy. The antithesis of Raptors in hats being on Vogue was not lost on the people of the internet. Thank you everyone who came, and those who still come to enjoy the Raptors!

Lovers of fashion websites and dinosaurs (i.e. all of you). Your day is about to get 100% better... http://t.co/QU0bfvqCTh — Lady Geek (@ladygeek) July 10, 2013

Go to http://t.co/z9YTDdChwI and type in the Konami Code [no need for START] Hit A repeatedly for some raptor fun! This has won the internet — Gary Erskine (@garyerskine) July 10, 2013

Best Easter Egg EVER... 1) Go to http://t.co/AgX4U8AyOj 2) Press: ↑ ↑ ↓ ↓ ← → ← → b a [enter] 3) Velociraptor in a hat. — Ben Nunney (@BenNunney) July 9, 2013

So putting in the ancient Konami Code into the UK Vogue's website does a thing. http://t.co/KTZpwNqanb — crabstickz (@Chris_Kendall_) July 11, 2013

Vogue has an awesome little Easter egg that can summon a hat-wearing velociraptor. Seriously - http://t.co/6aalsjsu6f #gamification — GamificationCo (@gamificationco) July 10, 2013

http://t.co/nw1fRG10a0 is Konami-patible! (up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A gets you the easter egg) /thx @petele — Michael Mahemoff (@mahemoff) July 10, 2013

This will make your day 1000x better! I guarantee you. You MUST try it http://t.co/eODMgVMpn4 #Konamicode — Noby Leong (@NobyLeong) July 10, 2013

THE DINOSAURS ALL HAVE DIFFERENT HATS THIS IS THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE. http://t.co/MySLijMfGv — Selma Wolfe (@WolfeSelma) July 10, 2013

DINOSAURS IN HIGH FASHION HATS! Go to Vogue's UK site and enter the Konami code plz. Then sit there hammering A for a dino-party — Pip Or Treat (@philippawarr) July 9, 2013

STOP EVERYTHING. @codejill SHARED YOU CAN KONAMI CODE BRITISH VOGUE WEBSITE AND IT'S AMAZING. ↑ ↑ ↓ ↓ ← → ← → B A http://t.co/WGJNrnBj4r — Jaime Woo (@jaimewoo) July 10, 2013

Hahahaha! Try the Konami code on Vogue UK's web site http://t.co/0ErMGyZGdy /cc @amalucky — Christian Heilmann (@codepo8) July 10, 2013

Tim, you have maybe never made me happier RT @TimColumbus: The Konami Code and fashion together at last! http://t.co/wrQDlV1W5Y — Liam McIntyre (@Liam_J_McIntyre) July 11, 2013

Look, it wasn't me who hacked the @voguemagazine website okay? http://t.co/RE2Vmi2EJB — James McMahon (@jamesjammcmahon) July 10, 2013

(via @LevACRosen) This is the best day ever for fashion AND dinosaurs! http://t.co/N9dY4IEbkf — Ekaterina Sedia (@esedia) July 10, 2013

Dinosaurs in hats make the day so much better. http://t.co/rQQwPSTRr8 — Charlotte Boyle (@cboyleMedia) July 10, 2013

Whoever designed Vogue's site added in some Konami code to humorous effect http://t.co/FPynh6wGps — RHYS HØWELL (@rhys_isterix) July 10, 2013

Some genius has created this little Easter Egg for the Vogue website, put a smile on our faces...... http://t.co/k3eCq2kFmG — Spike Productions (@SpikeProds) July 10, 2013

Media Mentions

Other media outlets wrote articles about the Raptors, including..

BuzzFeed

The Independent

The Gloss

Fashionista

CNN