Genuine creativity that’s built from passion is nothing short of inspiring. It jolts ... it gets noticed... and it gets remembered. I hadn’t seen much of this genuine form of creativity recently, until 3 seemingly unrelated things popped up. A simple blog by a 17 year old with a passion for food, a jaw-dropping TEDPRIZE winning art project that started in France, and a stunning ad for Newfoundland and Labrador. What do these things all have in common? They share that genuine creative passion that makes things happen.
Living Lou blog – Grassroots quirkiness and a simple passion for food and life has jolted this blog into the top 150 blog-tracker rankings in only 10 months. Bloggers could learn a lot from this 17 year old teenager who casually comments on her life between stirring soups and making meatless Monday dishes! You’ll laugh out loud at the musings of a teenage girl that can really write and cook. It’s so authentic that you’ll be back to check on the latest! Her random Tweets – glimpses into the teen world – will have you smiling. Check it out at http://livinglou.blogspot.com/.
TEDPRIZE winner JR - This world art project stunned me when I casually found it yesterday. For those unfamiliar with TED, it’s a must bookmark site with the most interesting presentations you’ll ever see. TED stands for TECHNOLOGY, ENTERTAINMENT, DESIGN and is a small non-profit devoted to ideas worth spreading. It prides itself on providing “Riveting talks from remarkable people, free to the world,” and you can find its videos featured at http://www.ted.com/. This TEDPRIZE wish winner is JR, a street artist from France who brashly pastes his oversized photographic images on the world’s streets, steps, and building as a voice for the human spirit. His project, http://insideoutproject.net/ has become as voice for those that cannot be heard. Watch this summary video of his work and listen to his captivating presentation - simply inspiring.
Newfoundland and Labrador – I’ve never been to this beautiful place, and never really wanted to, until I recently saw these stunning TV spots. Like a piece of art, these rare types of ads actually make you want to see them again. Colours, scenery, landscapes, and a sense of serenity and simplicity create a sense of curiosity with one ad building up to a remarkable tag-line, “When you’re always a half-hour ahead, you never feel the need to catch up.” Created by local agency TARGET, these creative masterpieces should win awards and will certainly build tourism. (By the way, whenever I see a new spot for Newfoundland and Labrador I wait until the end to see the name of the person to call for more information!) See three of their recently aired spots below:
Well finally something that breaks through the mundane online clutter - welcome to Toyota USA's Prius Goes Plural campaign. It's fun, catchy and simple enough to engage. The visuals and music, rather Sesame street-like in approach, get attention and the ditty might just stay in your head most of the day! No doubt this campaign will have people submitting their suggestions on the plural for a Prius. What do you think? Chime in below with your comments and plural suggestions and don't forget to add you suggestions to the the Toyota website at http://www.toyota.com/upcoming-vehicles/prius-family/
For a second year in a row Cadbury Canada is supporting kids in Ghana with a purpose in mind - sending 5,000 bicycles to Ghana so children can to go to school, do their chores, and hang on to their life’s dreams - a well suited cause for a company that sells chocolates and candies to children in the industrialized world, using cocoa as an ingredient farmed in Ghana – well done!
Cadbury is keeping their 2010 Bicycle Factory campaign open until November 14, 2010 so UPC codes from candy and chocolate wrappers can still be added - each UPC code represents a single part of a bicycle - each bike in the campaign needing 100 parts or UPC entries. In 2010, this campaign has already built 3799 bikes and is striving to reach its goal of 5,000 bikes by mid November. Real-time monitoring captures the campaign’s progress on its microsite of a virtual factory at www.thebicyclefactory.ca
Last November 2009, in its first year, the Bicycle Factory successfully delivered 5,000 bicycles to more than 200 communities in Ghana. Cadbury saw the Bicycle Factory program as an opportunity to help under privileged children, particularly those in Ghana, a region close to Cadbury’s heart due to its involvement in the country for over 100 years.
The Bicycle Factory is marketed in Canada with TV spots, Facebook pages (http://www.facebook.com/BicycleFactory), and a Twitter feed (http://twitter.com/bicyclefactory), all pointing consumers to an online microsite at www.thebicyclefactory.ca to enter UPC codes from Cadbury products such as Caramilk, Dairy Milk, Trident gum, Dentyne gum, Maynards Wine Gums, and Sour Patch Kids to help build bicycles. Each UPC adds an additional part to a bicycle destined for Ghana.
An impactful TV spot with its memorable music track from the Vapor Music Group kicked off the campaign in 2009 showing the multiple uses of a bicycle in Ghana - from a delivery truck, to an ambulance, to a school bus, bicycles in Ghana are shown to be more than a mode of transportation. Bicycles are an important part of life and can make a significant difference. Bicycles in Ghana give children access to education and sustenance, as well as economic and social opportunities. According to the United Nations, children often have to walk over two hours per day to attend school in Africa with 40 million children not attending due to the access issue.
In 2010 Cadbury brought additional attention to its Bicycle Factory’s efforts. Cadbury’s agency for the project, the Hive partnered with Frantic Films and JUJU films to create a 45 minute documentary Wheels of Change which aired on CTV in early October with 20,000 copies of the DVD distributed to the Free the Children's We Day event which challenges schools in Canada to make a difference at home and abroad. The documentary follows the lives of three children in Ghana who received the bicycles, using a lens to document how the program is making a difference.
As for success, in its first year the Bicycle Factory’s microsite received over 400,000 on-line entries which helped deliver 5,000 bicycles to Ghana. To date its Facebook page has over 1986 likes, CTV may be airing the documentary again in 2011, and Cadbury is on track for meeting its target of delivering 5,000 bikes in 2010. Cadbury Canada plans to continue its Bicycle Factory program in 2011 and is encouraging its sister companies in the UK and Australia to become involved. We wish you well!
Below you can click on links to the impactful Bicycle Factory TV spot, and a teaser showing the 2009 delivery of the bicycles in Ghana , and a trailer to the TV documentary Wheels of Change. Be sure to follow this program’s success by subscribing to its YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/TheBicycleFactory
On the subject of creativity - here is a little something sent to me by a creative individual currently residing in Australia. Yes the Internet allows the word, images, and video to spread rapidly throughout the world. Since August 25 when this TIPP-EX video, A Hunter Shoots a Bear was uploaded to YouTube it has garnered over 11 million views in over 2 months (updated October 21, 2010), boosted by its creativity which engages audiences and provides a forum for interaction.
It is rather unusual to have the protagonist in a YouTube video reach outside the video in a manner that totally relates to the product being marketed. In another creative twist the viewer is then encouraged to interact with the TIPP-EX video itself, repeatedly resulting in comical exchanges. Although many find this A Hunter Shoots a Bear YouTube video intrusive, creative, and memorable, others have commented that this approach could be improved. This is noted by Jonathan Ginburg in his blog post that questions whether the TIPP-EX branding falls short in this video. His blog post, How Engagement Can Fall Short, http://bit.ly/ceTdA provides some suggestions for improvement. Read his blog post and take a look at the video itself by clicking on the links below to see what you think - be sure to interact with the TIPP-EX video to benefit from the full extent of its creativity.
As we all watch the World Cup and enjoy the skillful teams and players from around the world, transit riders in San Paolo Brazil are also enjoying the creativity of Coca-Cola with its interactive electronic transit ad which was placed in mid May in two subway stations with over 270,000 riders per day. Passersby of all ages marvelled at the elongated eye-level billboard with images of fans within the billboard doing the wave to show excitement for the beautiful game. People took photos, video footage, and made gestures at the billboard to see its reaction. The result - considerable buzz in Brazil and around the world for Coca-Cola ,a major sponsor of the World Cup! Click below to see the billboard of the beautiful game in action!
Just when we were tiring of those cute animals in the Telus campaigns, their ad agency, Taxi, rose to the occasion and creatively took it up a level using humour and hippos to create the unexpected to get attention. Their new Hippo campaign, launched in early March, features two hippos, Ghost and Polita - a follow-up to their recent Hippo ad from the Telus holiday season campaign. Hazina the hippopotamus first appeared in a DDB created spot for Telus in a 2005 holiday ad campaign in Western Canada that used the 1953 "I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas," song.
A little background – Telus first began their animal-focused ad campaign in 1999 with an eye-catching red-eyed-bright-green tree frog jumping out of a jar. This campaign still continues today using a consistently simple approach of a white background as the backdrop to a cute animals and the slogan, “The future is friendly.” TV spots use popular songs as memorable center-pieces of the ads, giving them stopping-power that gets attention.
The March 2010 Telus Hippo campaign features two humorous spots that will have you chuckling to their bold combination of music and unusual images. A large and awkward hippo portrays the Telus network as fast, nimble and extensive. The first humorous spot spoofs the hare and the tortoise fable, replacing the tortoise with a hippopotamus to showcase the network’s large size, also using a cute bunny rather than a hare! It uses the music “Speedy Gonzales,” by Pat Boone to ad a humorous touch and get attention. The second spot focuses on two hippos swimming in a water hole to the light-hearted tune "Splish Splash" by Mina Mazzini and uses clever editing to reveal the hippos are actually swimming in the face of a cell phone. The Telus spots use repurposed footage from the original 2005 Christmas spot and new scenes that include the new hippos-stars who are the brother and mother of the original Hazina who lives in a zoo is British Columbia. For all the animal lovers, Telus donates money to the Zoo for the use of the animals in their commercials and donated $10 thousand dollars for each of the first two spots.
Below you can see the two latest Hippo ads from Telus as well as their repurposed 2005 spot for 2009 – enjoy the hippos and humour!
For those who had seen the Critic-Cal Short Attention Span viral video, it was no surprise that this campaign walked off with an award for Best Branded Entertainment at the 2009 Canadian New Media Awards earlier this month.
Doug agency created a fictitious character, Critic-Cal, as a rapper -film-critic with a short attention span to humorously engage young audiences and encourage them to attend the short film festival which runs mid June in Toronto. As part of this campaign Critic-Cal created a music video about the pitfalls of full length Hollywood movies This viral video ran together with a social media build which saw profiles on Facebook and Twitter. Traditional media also ran to complete this campaign for the Canadian Film Center's Worldwide Short Film Festival.
Words cannot do this campaign justice, so watch below and marvel at the creativity that was used to pull this campaign together and read about the details of the campaign that made it a success.
It isn’t often that a sodium reduced product gets attention, but this initiative from Unilever’s Knorr Sidekicks manages to take a humdrum food item and give it a cute emotional twist that makes even the most cynical viewer smile. Introduced in late August with an integrated marketing communications program that uses magazine ads, TV spots, and a microsite, consumers are introduced to SALTY in a TV spot that drives the campaign. In an effort to meet consumers’ demand for healthier food choices, Knorr Sidekicks have introduced low sodium versions of over 20 items in their Sidekicks’ line, essentially replacing them with a lower salt version of the original. Now items such as rice with Cheddar and Broccoli, Scalloped Potatoes, and Butter & Herb Pasta come with 25% less sodium.
The TV ad, SALTY, uses animation and live action, centered over a sound track of Michael Bolton’s “How Am I Supposed to Live Without You,” to engage the viewer in the spot. Alone, many may tout these elements as ordinary, soppy, or even annoying, but they manage to cleverly work together in this spot, making one hope that the animated character SALTY, may surface in another spot for the product ... maybe even become an emblem for other Knorr salt-reduced products.
Initially, Unilever were undecided as to whether SALTY would become a mascot, inevitably waiting to see how this little soul fares in the world of commercial clutter and consumer feedback! I’m rooting for SALTY, a visual hybrid of sorts between a Fisher-Price/Play Mobile/Charlie Brown type figure, (definite Mom appeal here), complete with cliché story-book emotions that see him dejectedly crying in the rain, taking shelter near abandoned beer bottles in lonely back alleys – yes, definitely reading too much into the ad, but rather hoping that SALTY comes back – who knows where the story might lead? And to think that we are talking about a salt shaker! Clearly, the character is able, in a few short seconds, to create emotional links between the brand and the viewer.
The microsite at http://www.sidekicks.ca/default.aspx, is fully integrated into the campaign, showing SALTY in the opening screen and humourously using a short slide-show of snap shots to take one down SALTY’S memory lane. In addition, the microsite provides recipes, dinner planners, time savers, tips on healthier eating, and product information. It also allows consumers to sign up for monthly newsletters which provide recipes and tips, thus providing the Knorr Sidekicks’ brand with a database of consumers to which they can market directly.
Below you can see the SALTY commercial for Knorr Sidekicks and the making of the SALTY ad which cleverly demonstrates the intricacies that go into a spot that intertwines animation with live action footage. SALTY'S character development, design, and digital modeling was crafted by Bigshot Toyworks, the animation created by Sons & Daughters, and the spot directed by David Hicks for ad agency DDB Canada.
The fun Cadbury Eyebrows campaign from the UK is now officially in Canada with an added twist that makes it uniquely Canadian! “Have you found the Eyebrow Language decoder on DairyMilk.ca yet?” This starts the latest Canadian Tweet for @DairyMilkCanada on Twitter. Already enjoying over 735 followers, (October 15, 2009) Cadbury Dairy Milk is Tweeting about their fun new EYEBROWS campaign which originated earlier this year in the UK, and is currently unfolding in Canada with a set of unique creative elements that is getting a buzz. Some people love the campaign while others wonder about its relevancy to chocolate! For the sceptics, the connection is made clear by Cadbury, irreverently poking fun at itself on its YouTube channel, stating that the ad is, “Yet another feat of ridiculousness and joy,” a feat that gets attention, starts conversations, and creates memorable engagement with a product that too is fun. This Cadbury Eyebrows ad is linked below, (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVblWq3tDwY).
The Canadian Cadbury Eyebrows campaign engages chocolate lovers with TV spots, billboard ads, transit ads, and commuter newspaper ads. It also interacts with Canadian consumers through the social media they use. Twitter, (@DairyMilkCanada), directs followers to YouTube mash-ups and a microsite. Its Canadian Facebook Dairy Milk Eyebrows page, (http://www.dairymilk.ca/facebook), entices people to become fans and win chocolate for a year. Its YouTube channel, (http://www.youtube.com/user/glassandahalffull), provides a forum for video responses, comments, video ratings, and viewings. The Eyebrows ad currently boasts 4,855,072 views on YouTube, 12,892 comments, and 123 video responses from around the world – all creating a buzz for their chocolate, (October 15, 2009).
Also unique to Canada is the billboard, transit, and commuter daily newspaper campaign, EYEBROW LANGUAGE, which you can see in Toronto and Vancouver. This part of the Eyebrows campaign teases consumers with ... “Wheel of Fortune / hangman-type” ads that ask people to decipher the message by going to the Cadbury Dairy Milk microsite at http://www.dairymilk.ca/. Here a language decoder is provided together with other fun elements such as a downloadable ringtone from the commercial's song, "Don’t Stop the Rock," by Freestyle.
The daily commuter newspaper ads are designed with the characteristics of the media in mind. Ads run in the daily commuter newspapers Metro and 24 Hours in Toronto and Vancouver over a 4 week period. The headlines are written in “Eyebrow Language” and ask the readers to decipher the message. Cleverly, the first ad of the week brings attention to the campaign, the second ad of the week engages the reader with an opportunity to win a prize, and the third ad of the week provides information on the contest-event which occurred the previous day! Ads that took place early in the campaign in Toronto had decoders go to a local mall at a specific time, twirl, clap three times, and yell chocolate to win a prize. Video clips and photos of these mini-events are being uploaded to the microsite for this campaign.
Despite negative publicity over the years, music videos have often led the charge in using creativity to reach out and market their wares to interested buyers – after all, aren’t music videos a form of advertising for the music industry? Coldplay’s STRAWBERRY SWING music video is as an example of a new music video that gets attention through the creativity it uses to weave a story and entertain.
Coldplay is a band that has used interesting approaches in their music videos over the last few months to encourage people to listen to their music, purchase it in one form or another, and attend their concerts. Their last two music videos, single releases from their album Viva La Vida, have used creativity to get attention; their February 2009 music video release for LIFE IN TECHNICOLOR ii, unexpectedly rendered the band members as puppets, and their latest single release and music video for STRAWBERRY SWING, uses the stop-motion animation technique being seen more and more frequently in videos/ads/short film renderings. This stop-motion animation technique was successfully used by Olympus cameras in their July 2009 PEN Story advertising campaign where a viral three minute ad video was created by shooting 60,000 photos, developing 9,600 prints, and then re-shooting over 1,800 images to get just the right shots. This visual story was told over a catchy tune, “Down Below” by Johannes Stankowski, produced and arranged by Michael Kadelbach, (http://mktgcliks.blogspot.com/2009/07/olympus-pen-story-campaign.html).
Coldplay’s STRAWBERRY SWING music video also uses stop-motion animation. This music video, released at the end of July 2009, coincides with the planned digital release of the STRAWBERRY SWING single on September 14, 2009. The STRAWBERRY SWING music video uses a stop-motion animation chalk rendering technique to portray their front man, band member Chris Martin, as a super hero fighting with a giant squirrel to save a female hostage. As you watch this music video you will marvel at its creativity and wonder how it was actually put together in a manner that gets attention and encourages you to listen to the story. This STRAWBERRY SWING music video is worth watching for is creativity and usage of different media to engage the viewer into listening to the story, relayed through the music’s haunting melody – quite beautiful!
The STRAWBERRY SWING song was written by Berryman, Buckland, Champion, and Martin. The video was directed by the art collective Shynola.
From a marketing perspective the STRAWBERRY SWING music video has been uploaded to YouTube, is available on the Coldplay website (http://www.coldplay.com/), and has been discussed on music sites where free downloads of the STRAWBERRY SWING ringtone are available. The STRAWBERRY SWING music video has been given extra traction in the UK through media buys in July/August 2009 at Odeon cinemas where the STRAWBERRY SWING music video airs prior to the movies BRUNO, and THE PROPOSAL. Let’s not forget that the Viva La Vida album is front and centre of Coldplay’s current concert tour.
Below you can see the STRAWBERRY SWING music video and the PEN Story three minute stop-motion animation ad video.
FIFA’s World Player of the Year, Kaká, the Brazilian soccer star who plays for Real Madrid, is the focus of Sony BRAVIA’S new Motionflow advertising campaign for 2009, competing directly with Phillip's "Carousel" online campaign, (http://mktgcliks.blogspot.com/2009/07/philips-carousel-brings-creativity-to.html). The UK advertising agency responsible for this unusual and creative campaign is Fallon Worldwide, the agency which in 2005 introduced the Sony BRAVIA advertising premise, COLOUR LIKE NO OTHER. This memorable platform is heralded by a trilogy of "larger-than-life" spots that have surprised and entertained viewers over the last 4 years with captivating sound-tracks and imaginative portrayals of colour. This trilogy of ads; “Paint,” “Balls,” and “Play-doh” got attention with an over abundance of paint, bouncing balls, and colourful bunnies which communicated the vivid colour spectrum visible through Sony BRAVIA’S high definition LCD TV sets.
Fallon’s latest campaign for Sony BRAVIA moves away from this COLOUR LIKE NO OTHER platform, focusing instead on the smoothness of motion that Sony BRAVIA’S new Motionflow 240Hz TV technology provides. (Motionflow technology provides the viewer with 200 frames per second, delivering an extremely smooth viewing experience.) The “larger-than-life” premise from the previous BRAVIA campaigns still remains, almost as a Sony BRAVIA signature trademark, but this time it is diverted into the creation of a technological marvel as the centerpiece of their spot - a modern-day zoetrope. A zoetrope is a contraption that harkens back to 19th century film technology. It works by rapidly moving successive static images to give the perception of movement.
Fallon’s mission for the Motionflow campaign was to build a “larger-than-life,” fully functioning zoetrope and use it to demonstrate Sony BRAVIA’s Motionflow technology. They did just this, creating in northern Italy a BRAVIA-drome (zoetrope), a large donut-type (room-size)carousel of sorts, as the centre piece of their set for the 2009 advertising campaign. The campaign featured celebrity Brazilian soccer star and FIFA’s World Player of the Year, Kaká. Once the BRAVIA-drome was built, the commercial shoot took place, complete with the zoetrope and sixty-four static images of Kaká controlling the soccer ball in amazing ways. The shoot comprised of crowds of people, including Kaká, watching as the BRAVIA-drome containing his static images started to spin. As the BRAVIA-drome spun and gathered momentum, the static images of Kaká intermittently appeared to be moving until a speed of 44 km/hr was reached. At this speed the static images of Kaká seamless and smoothly flowed, moving sequentially as if on film to display the soccer player’s incredible ball control. This action all comes together in the final edits of the spot which uses the song UNDERDOG by Kasabian to give it that added edge.
The music for the campaign can be accessed through the Sony BRAVIA microsite for this campaign, http://www.motionflow.eu/ which also includes the Motionflow Kaká ad, information on the TV, interactive visuals of Kaká, behind the scenes footage, and information on the idea behind the campaign. The campaign also includes a BRAVIA in Motion YouTube channel where additional footage can be seen, http://www.youtube.com/user/braviainmotion.
The Motionflow campaign first aired in Australia and is now moving into the European markets, and will be rolled out into other countries as appropriate. The campaign also includes print, internet, viral, and in-store materials.
A few interesting facts from these “larger than life” Sony BRAVIA campaigns:
• The BRAVIA-drome weighs 10 tonnes and is 15 meters in diameter. It is also collapsible and can be easily dismantled and assembled at other locations. • The BALLS spot was filmed using 250,000 balls being thrown down the streets of San Francisco. It uses the song “Heartbeats,” from Jose Gonzales’ Veneer album. • The PAINT commercial used 70,000 litres of environmentally friendly paint. The music is from the “Overture to The Thieving Magpie,” by Gioachino Rossini. • The PLAY-DOH spot was filmed in New York City. It uses the soundtrack “She's a Rainbow,” by the Rolling Stones.
You can see the Sony Motionflow spot below as well as the “making of” the spot, and the trilogy of the COLOUR LIKE NO OTHER spots from the previous 3 years; “Paint,” “Balls,” and “Play-doh.”
After numerous requests, this blog post looks at the current Canadian advertising campaign for Cadbury’s Caramilk chocolate bars which revives their Caramilk SECRET campaign from many years ago. “How do they get the caramel inside the Caramilk bar?” This is the light hearted theme of the 2009 Caramilk summer advertising campaign, STILL WONDERING, which picks up on a communications platform that has run intermittently for over 35 years.
The Caramilk SECRET campaign was made popular over the years, originating back to 1968, when the first Caramilk SECRET ad launched showing a person drilling a hole in the Caramilk chocolate bar prompting the question, “How do they get the Caramilk inside the Caramilk bar?” Probably one of the most famous TV spots was the Cannes and Clio award winning MONA LISA commercial from 1973 where the Mona Lisa smile was attributed to her secretly eating a piece of Caramilk chocolate while Leonardo da Vinci was trying to figure out the Caramilk secret.
After numerous ads over the years that followed the Caramilk SECRET platform, and a diversion over the last 5 years to focus on the eating experience, Caramilk had gone back to its roots and launched another SECRET campaign, STILL WONDERING, which begs the question, “How do they get the caramel inside the Caramilk bar?” This campaign is rather unusual in its whimsical approach and has been met with mixed reviews. Many people enjoy its eccentric qualities, while others have questioned, “What were they thinking?” Nonetheless, when one looks at the campaign in context of the light hearted approach of previous Caramilk SECRET campaigns and the type of humour used, it falls into place quite nicely. Of course, the issue that currently exists is that awareness levels of previous Caramilk SECRET campaigns remains relatively low after a lengthy hiatus. This issue will be remedied over time through consistent messaging and strong media weights which will give the campaign additional traction.
The STILL WONDERING campaign, created by Saatchi and Saatchi New York, includes TV spots, on-line components, print ads, a microsite, and audio boards on the Toronto subway system. At the end of June, 2009, 50 innovative interactive audio boards were put on the Toronto subway system allowing listeners to plug their earphones into various spots on a Caramilk STILL WONDERING ad to listen to an assortment of quirky voices, unusual accents, strange sounds, and foreign languages, all intentionally incoherent in their explanation on how the caramel gets inside the Caramilk bar. There are six selections on the ad (see above); a five year old boy, a Cockney man, a Xhosa tribesman, a whale, a fax machine, and a speed reader! These Caramilk STILL WONDERING audio options can also be seen and heard on videos posted on the campaign’s microsite at http://www.stillwondering.ca/. People that have listened to the audio transit ad seem rather amused, perhaps a little confused, but have nonetheless enjoyed it enough to spread the word to others, encouraging them to also listen to the ad.
The TV component of this campaign MODERN DANCE is currently playing at heavy weights, using an interpretive dance, a Cirque du Soleil type spoof, to explain the secret of how the caramel gets inside the Caramilk bar. Some have called the spot bizarre while others have enjoyed its quirkiness. MODERN DANCE is certainly unusual and uses a catchy sound track reminiscent of melodic, Peruvian folk music to engage viewers. The music track, called Cachapaya from the Swingle Singers, is originally from the British-South American band Incantation.
Below you can appreciate the Caramilk SECRET platform by listening to a short interview with Cadbury’s on their Caramilk brand and see segments of their original 1968 ad. You can also see the famous Mona Lisa ad from 1973, followed by two further spots in the SECRET platform. Their current STILL WONDERING campaign for Caramilk follows, including their interpretive MODERN DANCE spot and website executions for COCKNEY, XHOSA, and 5 YEAR OLD. The STILL WONDERING microsite is at http://www.stillwondering.ca/. By the way, Cadbury tell us the Caramilk secret is still safely under lock and key in their vault!
Olympus is celebrating 50 years of their PEN cameras with a new product launch, the digital PEN EP-1 camera. It is being launched with a global marketing and ad campaign that makes one marvel at their creativity. The PEN Story 3 minute ad video is going viral on the Internet, their sequence of four short ads is getting more and more views on YouTube, and their microsite is becoming increasingly interactive as users upload content to share with others. The PEN Story microsite is truly amazing in its use of technology to bring the PEN EP-1 camera alive for viewers.
The PEN Story marketing campaign has a global website at http://www.olympus-global.com/en/global/ and a number of country microsites. The European microsite is a super example of how the Internet is used to bring the whole campaign together with interactive tools, user generated content, downloads, and viral videos. A simple splash page arouses curiosity with its scrap book design that places the viral ad video front and centre and gives viewers access to free music downloads and a ringtone of the PEN Story video. A camera link takes us further afield into the world of Olympus PEN cameras, http://olympus.eu/penstory/.
Within the site, the section titled LIVE EXPERIENCE enables people to apply for a one week trial of the camera and then share experiences with others on the website. In addition, a viewer can immediately experience the PEN camera by using the mouse to digitally point the image of the camera at a scene on the website. By selecting different camera settings, the viewer can then alter the photos and see the result of six built-in filters such as such pop art, soft focus, pale & light colour, light tone, and grainy photo, http://www.olympus-europa.com/consumer/pen.htm#liveexperience.
The website creatively showcases the PEN camera’s simplicity, technological features, photographic capabilities, as well as audio, and video functions – all in an interactive and creative fashion that gives viewers an immediate, creative, and enjoyable experience with the product. This microsite also leads to an area designed specifically for user generated content. Here users are invited to upload links, photos, and specs to share with others. To date, (July 18, 2009), 101 links, 1825 photos, 30 specs, and 74 friends have been added to the site which also has a link to a Facebook page where people can join discussions, ask questions, and join the community.
The viral element of the PEN Story campaign includes 4 short ads placed on the Olympus PEN Story YouTube channel, http://www.youtube.com/user/TheOlympusPenChannel, and a 3 minute ad video uploaded to the Pen Story YouTube site, and posted on the PEN Story microsite. The short ads use a simple animated graphic-illustration format to reveal the history of the PEN camera, showing its evolution from 1959 to 1963. The viral ad video uses a different format, Stop Motion animated photography and a flowing melody titled, "Down Below," (music by Johannes Stankowski, produced and arranged by Michael Kadelbach), to draw us into the PEN Story. The PEN Story ad video is a visual narration of a young boy, first seen in a snap shot outside his elementary school house. The ad video shows the lad walking off the snap shot as a young boy and into his life as narrated by a continuous spilling of photographs. Fifty years later, as a middle aged man, we see him retrace his original footsteps, down the school house road, to pose for a class reunion photo outside the original school house we saw at the start of the ad video.
Olympus tell us that the PEN Story viral ad video was created by shooting 60,000 pictures, developing 9,600 prints, and reshooting over 1,800 photos to get just the right images. Since the YouTube ad video-upload on July 2, 2009, the PEN Story ad video has enjoyed 708,099 views. Olympus credits another YouTube viral video as the inspiration for their PEN Story video and you can read this credit on their YouTube description of their ad video as linked below. Taijin Takeuchi’s viral video, “A Wolf Loves Pork,” (Stop Motion with Wolf and Pig), uses the same Stop Motion format as seen in the Olympus PEN Story spot. Three months after its upload, “A Wolf Loves Pork,” (Stop Motion with Wolf and Pig), has enjoyed 2,071,368 views on YouTube.
Below you can link to the PEN Story website, view the sequence of short ads, watch the viral PEN Story ad video, and see the Takeuchi inspiration.
Ritz crackers just released the anticipated full length version of the jingle which accompanied their LET IT RAIN commercial. The full length song can be found on YouTube, as linked below, or found on iTunes under the name, "Make Believe - Ian LeFeuvre," http://bit.ly/m7y6v. This song was created in response to interest from viewers of the LET IT RAIN commercial who wanted to know where the song came from. Ritz' response was to launch a social media challenge through YouTube, promising to create a full length version of the song if the uploaded commercial reached 10,000 hits on YouTube. In 3 weeks the challenge was met and Ian LeFeuvre, the creator of the jingle, set about creating the song which was just released 6 weeks later.
Ritz' other social media challenge, for people to upload videos of themselves enjoying a Ritz cracker, and to create artwork for the iTunes download did not transpire due to low involvement. These videos were to be spliced into a music compilation, but due to the lack of response, it did not materialize. Perhaps this YouTube generation of technically capable, creative souls were hoping for raw footage and an MP3 from which they could make their own mashups? Most likely, they were just eagerly awaiting to hear the song they had been promised, thrilled at the direct response from Ritz!
This successful campaign from Ritz demonstrates how in the world of social media the communication process is no longer static. Companies that are creative, open minded, flexible, and responsive will be able to interact with their consumers and create campaigns that evolve and develop over time. The result is a more engaged consumer, more memorable campaigns, and communication programs that become conversations.
You can see elements of this Ritz crackers campaign below starting with the initial commercial, followed by the social media challenges from Ritz, and finally the release of their song, Make Believe by Ian LeFeuvre.
Phillips’ “Carousel” the winner of the Film Grand Prix (and the Cyber Silver Lion) from the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival in 2009 is now collaborating with the musician 50 Cent and is prominently featured in their new music video 50 Cent- OK You're Right from their album BEFORE I SELF DESTRUCT which will be in stores September 2009. The music video, which can be found on YouTube and linked below, prominently features footage from the Phillips "Carousel" film, and in fact starts by zooming in on the Phillips TV, taking us directly into the film footage. These scenes are then carried over into other parts of the music video through synergistic images of clowns and other scenes from the film.
Phillips' on-line film CAROUSEL was created by Tribal DDB Amsterdam and is truly an unusual promotional piece that deserves a closer look. It uses imagination to communicate the benefits of a new technology and ambushes the consumer on the Internet with its creativity. “Carousel,” is the second on-line film to win this coveted award in the last 3 years, rising out of the shadows of the Dove "evolution" spot which won the award in 2007.
“Carousel” is an important piece of communication that needs to be examined in terms of how the Internet is used to effectively communicate with consumers. It appears that discerning consumers respond to nothing short of creativity on the Internet and this is needed to deliver results - particularly, if traditional media is not part of the media mix. Phillips uses this creativity to market their new Cinema 21:9 LCD TV on-line, allowing viewers at home to experience the same smooth viewing found in a movie theatre. “Carousel” is the 2 minute and 19 second on-line video that Phillips posted on their microsite, http://www.philips.co.uk/cinema, and uploaded to YouTube for all to experience.
In this on-line video Phillips uses the power of the Internet to communicate the product benefits in an interactive fashion not seen before. When viewing the film on Phillips’ microsite, viewers can intuitively use the mouse to move the video forwards or backwards frame by frame and click on interactive hot spots to see more. These hot spots take viewers into the depths of the film, showing how the video was created from the perspective of the director, special effects experts, and lighting specialists – fascinating. To ensure Phillips learns the most from this approach, they are currently running a short market research survey on the site to assess the effectiveness of this approach.
The film is shot in one continuous sequence, offering a glimpse into the world of film production. It uses a haunting sound-track and no words to tell the story of an armored-car heist gone painfully wrong with all the expected accoutrements of money, gunfire, breaking glass, police, and casualties. The story seems to unfold from an almost CSI-type perspective, where the viewer is taken back to the crime scene, seeing it frozen in time. As we view the footage, we realize when we come to the end, that we are remarkably right back at the beginning of the sequence.
Philips’ intention was to create a film that would excite movie-lovers, a segment of their target audience, and demonstrate the TV’s main benefits of Ambilight, Cinema 21:9, and superior picture quality. Technically, the film was shot keeping the actors motionless in a particular pose, while the camera continuously shot the sequence, navigating its way through the scene of still actors and props. Importantly, the music was formatted so that it could be properly distorted as the viewers interacted with the film either through the hot spots or as they moved the frames backwards and forwards.
I cannot imagine how much it cost to create this film, but what we are seeing is the transfer of traditional media funds into creating expensive pieces of creative that can be aired for very little on the Internet – probably still saving the company money!
Below you can see the “Carousel” short film, the making of “Carousel,” and for context, the making of that other on-line sensation that paved the way from Canada in 2007, Dove “Evolution.” It is preferable to watch the "Carousel" video off the Phillips' website, rather than YouTube, in order to see all the interactive features http://www.philips.co.uk/cinema. As an aside, see if you can find the numbers "21:9" (the name of the TV), cleverly embedded in certain places within the film. This campaign directly competes with the new Sony BRAVIA Motionflow spot featuring the Brazilian soccer star Kaká, (http://mktgcliks.blogspot.com/2009/07/soccer-star-kaka-featured-in-sony.html).
The creativity coming out of France this year is worth mentioning with the latest imaginative campaign coming from Paris-based BETC Euro RSCG for Evian water. Just two weeks ago, Evian’s Live Young campaign was sprung in France, the UK, Belgium, Canada, the US, and Japan with an imaginative campaign that makes you chuckle - who would expect a gang of rollerskating toddlers with “attitude” to be showing us that Evian water invigorates the body? These babies toe-tap to rap music, break-dance to the beat, and perform rollerskating tricks - all to make the point that natural, pure water supports youth! I am not a fan of talking babies (in either movies or ads), but this ad over-comes the cliché of talking babies by having them do something other than talk which, after all, is not that exciting, or even creative. In fact, these babies do not talk at all. Instead, we are immediately engaged at the start of the commercial by the unexpected view of a “tough guy,” (very cute), rollerskating clad toddler, rhythmically tapping his toes and moving to the beat of a rap song. The unexpected scene and music raises our interest as we curiously enter into the playful world of Evian babies that captivates us with their playful grins as they boogie to a RAPPER’S DELIGHT remix, (hiphop artist Dan the Automator).
This campaign includes viral videos posted on YouTube, (6,245,870 views for the international version, 5,668,037 for the US version, and 1,161,468 for the French version by July 16, 2009), homepage YouTube placements, TV ads in select markets, print ads, a Facebook page (5,541 fans to date), http://www.facebook.com/evianliveyoung, a microsite at http://evianliveyoung.com/ with viral videos, teasers, interviews, the making of the 60 second spot, and music and photo downloads. They are using a social media campaign to virally spread their campaign through press releases, bloggers, Tweeters, Internet links passed on from person to person, and updated videos posted on YouTube and Facebook. Their latest video- release, posted July 15, 2009, is a new (not the original) montage of the making of the Roller Babies. It cleverly splices in props, computer animation, and the footage of the babies to give us a taste of how they brought the campaign to life. You can see the video below. This campaign will receive additional international exposure in August/September 2009 as Evian is a sponsor of the Masters Women's Golf tournament and the US Open Grand-Slam tennis tournament.
For those of you familiar with the advertising for Evian water, this campaign goes back to their use of babies in 1998 where we saw the babies swimming under water in a synchronized swimming routine. The use of babies is to represent something precious and pure - a symbol of Evian water itself. The 1998 spot starts with the same trademark sound of dripping water that we hear in the latest 2009 spot. I would be remiss if I did not mention the very creative Evian WaterBoy spot from 2003 which took us all by surprise with a TV spot created to the Queen song “WE WILL ROCK YOU.” You can see these spots below;
A few days ago I highlighted the creativity of the Cadbury Creme Egg Twisted campaign from the UK - a launch campaign for Cadbury’s new Creme Egg Twisted product that successfully uses traditional and social media to engage consumers, build awareness, and encourage people to try this new product. This Creme Egg Twisted campaign is built on the base of another successful marketing campaign for Cadbury’s, this time for their traditional Creme Egg product. They ran a campaign for Cadbury Creme Eggs earlier this year, HERE TODAY GOO TOMMORROW, around the Easter period using a creative approach that, yet again, gets attention and makes heads turn. It is worth looking at this HERE TODAY GOO TOMORROW campaign due to its creativity and innovative use of media.
Cadbury Creme Eggs is a seasonal, fun, quirky brand which gets attention through its marketing campaigns which are creative and unusual. Below you can see three forms of media used to innovatively market Creme Eggs in the UK. The first refers to viral ads, the second to an interactive bus shelter ad, and the third to placement in online video games.
First, they created their own YouTube channel, CremeEggGooTube, and uploaded a variety of fun, skit-like, 10 second spots that raise smiles through their fun/silly humourous treatment of a brand personality that makes the viewer chuckle. http://www.youtube.com/user/CremeEggGooTube. This aspect of the campaign is designed to get people talking and share the fun.
Second, they used interactive bus shelter ads that use technology to transform bus shelter ads into interactive arcade-type games that people can play by pressing elements of the ad while waiting for the bus or stopping for a minute when walking by. The bus shelter ad displays floating Cadbury Creme Eggs that get the attention of passers-by who are encouraged to squash the eggs and splatter the goo within the bus shelter ad.
Finally, Cadbury Creme Eggs embedded images of their billboard ads, HERE TODAY GOO TOMMORROW, in online video games such as; Spiderman Web of Shadows, The Incredible Hulk, Skate, and Shaun White Snowboarding. In-game advertising ran on the online Massive Network which partners with over 40 video game publishers and allows advertisers to reach gaming audiences in real time across multiple platforms. Massive Inc. is owned by Microsoft and worth checking out. http://www.massiveincorporated.com/index.html
In line with Cadbury Creme Eggs' brand image, this fun marketing campaign uses media in an innovative way that emphasizes the brand's irreverent, quirky side. It manages to step outside the ordinary to appeal to a younger target market that expects creativity and fun from this brand. See for yourself by clicking below:
