THE POST-IT NOTE PROPOSAL

The Short Take

A man in love enlisted the help of work mates to spell out the proposal to his girlfriend — using Post-It notes.

One Image, Thousands of Post-It Notes

How He Did It

A quick disclaimer: Yes, we realize this proposal is actually a South Korean ad for 3M created by digital agency Innored. We’re featuring it anyway because we still think it’s a good idea, even if you can’t pull it off with quite the same amount of polish.

The Setup: Dining Gangnam Style

The protagonist—whose name we never learn—brings his girlfriend Soojung to a restaurant in the Gangnam neighborhood of Seoul, South Korea (yes, that Gangnam), then excuses himself, presumably to use the bathroom.

A Call Comes In: to Look Out the Window

We see the young woman casually browsing on her phone when it suddenly rings—and who should it be but her boyfriend, who tells her to look out the window to the building next door. There, a three-floor tall message is taking shape.

The Proposal Takes Shape

Spread over 28 windows, and consisting of thousands of Post-It notes, the message is a proposal of marriage. The guy returns to the cafe with a bouquet of flowers and gets a tearful yes from his now-fiancé.

The Moment It Clicks

Props

• Several thousand Post-it notes of various colors
• A multi-floor office in whose windows you could create your message
• Flowers and (we presume) an engagement ring

Location: your local downtown office block and a cafe/restaurant that has a view of the building’s windows.

Cost: $110, plus labor

We couldn’t find out exactly how many Post-Its were used in this particular proposal, but in another example, the guy in question used 8,000. At the time of writing, you can buy 9,000 Post-It Notes on Amazon for about $110. Labor will cost extra. 

Behind The Scenes

Caveats

Obviously, the agency that created this ad had a big budget to work with, and a lot of time to set things up. You will probably not have access to a location scout, a lighting director, or a 300+ production team to set your Post-It sign up for you. So you’ll need some work-arounds.

In the video, Soojung watches as the message takes shape in front of her. This is only possible through the magic of editing. Even with a big team of people, it would take a while to get all those Post-Its up in the right location, and even the most eager-to-be-married young woman won’t be able to sit still that long.

Your advantage is that you don’t need to show the proposal being constructed (you’re not selling Post-It notes, after all). You can put it together beforehand, then at the right moment, have your co-conspirators flick on the office lights, revealing your message to your girlfriends’s happy astonishment.

Closing The Deal…

Prep

This will take a lot of planning. Not only do you need to work out the timing of getting her to the restaurant for the big reveal, you also will have to design the message itself, and figure out how to create it with 9000 3×3 inch pieces of sticky paper. This is not something you can just wing.