Crispin Porter + Bogusky launched a beta version of their new site. Being aware of how much buzz CPB and their works produce i found the approach really fresh and interesting, trying to capture it all into the site, in a bold way that was also explored last year by Modernista!. Must be interesting how people tweet and blog about this and how the site will show the upcoming messages of love and hate that Crispin usually generates. I like it, looks that in the end it's not about who you say you are but allowing people saying who you are, and also making it all shareable in a much easier way than it was in the previous site.
Gimme a day to get body adjusted back to Sydney and I will respond to Martina's post.
For now (via Digital Buzz) check this out.
It's great to see brands doing something a little different with their online stores and the new Lands End online store is more of an experience than website which is great. In a beautifully art directed "island" setting you can browse through the range of swimwear amongst some stunning visuals and very intuitive navigational features for browsing the products. Check out the site here.
By: marka // Permalink // Comment(s):(3) Category(s):New websites
My #interactivemonday from @realadverblog begins with an impressive use of Twitter to pay a tribute to Michael Jackson: Billie Tweets.
And then a touch of freshness and energy: my second pick is a website from South Africa: Loaded 100% Natural Smoothie. Rock'n'roll and healthy food, a good mix brought together by a nice interface (maybe not so original).
Gulp! I've been offline for a week or, better, I've been using the Web for a week only for work or to read news about Michael Jackson death (that was really a shock as I was a big fan of Jacko). That's weird, especially because it means I've been offline during the most important (?!) week of the year for those who work in advertising. Next year I have to be there. I keep repeating the same thing every year, even if people around the Web is now questioning if and how advertising awards still matter. Actually, the thing I like about Cannes is the fact that you can meet a lot of people and see a lot of creativity, the best food for thought to improve in your job if you really love it.
Talking about the CyberLions, which is the category I'm most interested into, it's great to see a lot of winners have been already featured on Adverblog in the past year or so. Once again this gives me the opportunity to thank Daniel, Geoff, Laurent Mark and Rocco (in strictly alphabetical order) for the super contributes. Thank you guys!!
Going back to the awards, like every year the final result provide us with a lot of discussion points. There are quite some awards I personally don't understand but it's not my job to criticize the jury's output, especially (but not only) because Mark was part of it and I definitely trust him. I rather would like to share my own point of view on the Cyberlions, picking my personal list of "winners" with an approach which, as usual, tries to look at the creativity from a marketing perspective.
My Grand Prix goes to Uniqlo Fashion Map (Dentsu). The Gold is for Donate-a-meal (Ogilvy). Silver to The Truth About Smart (Agency Republic) and Bronze to Into the Closet (Forsman & Bodenfors).
Of course, I'd love to know your opinion about the Cyberlions, please leave a comment (below, right after the google ads) with your own top five.
2009 Cannes CyberLions awarded (Mark will be posting a wrap-up for that in the next few days), now we are all waiting to know which entries will win Film category and the Grand Prix for Titanium and Integrated, which is rumoured that will be given to Obama's presidential campaign.
In the meantime, we already know for sure that one of the highlights of the Festival was the "Best job in the world" campaign developed by Cummins Nitro for the Tourism Queensland, winning three Grand Prix this year: PR, Direct and Cyber. That is the payoff of a great idea with a flawless execution.
However, it looked a bit weird to me that another campaign, released a few months before the "Best Job" one, and under the same concept/idea, has gone almost unknown.
Philips is convinced of the quality and power of it's own products, so it decide to take on any challenge for any of it's product in a new campaign called Philips Versus. Interesting twist is that the campaign is running almost fully on Twitter (@philips_vs).
Basic idea is that you tweet your (most crazy) idea about what a Philips product should take on, and the chosen idea wins the 21:9 Cinema TV and will be produced. To give some inspiration, a couple of ideas are already produced by responsible agency Tribal DDB, as you can see on the supporting campaign website.
Well today we spent 14 hours deciding on who gets the metal. It was a long and fantastic day with some great work getting just rewards. Tweeting was banned today so no updates there either..We continue from 9am tomorrow. I think the shortlist is announced tomorrow.
Here are some images from this afternoon. Sorry about such a lame post but I'm totally mind-fucked tonight.
In the Netherlands, IKEA is setting a great example of useful consumer generated content with the 'Design Your Own Life' campaign. A few months ago, they've launched Open Kitchen, a user generated showroom of kitchens with IKEA products. With over 2000 entries, it instantly became the biggest kitchen showroom in Holland. Right now they've launched the follow up Bedroom Secrets, in which you can have a look inside Dutch bedrooms. Literally, because besides the user uploaded bedrooms, a webcam stream makes it possible to watch the bedrooms of Lonne, Sven and Manette, live.
Let's begin the week with the right boost of inspiration. I know all your eyes are on the Cannes Lions, but don't forget to share the best piece of digital work you've last week. Tweet it and tag it #interactivemonday.
Mine, I know, it's quite obvious, but it was really a first in mixing Twitter and advertising. Get inspired, but please don't start creating each single banner with a Twitter feed (btw Nestle has already done that as well - see Revolution Magazine)
We arrived this morning and received a long shortlist of 204 pieces of work to judge on. There is some fantastic work and some that makes you wonder how they managed to get this far! Overall it's looking like a good year for big creative ideas. I think everyone is completely bannered out. The next two days will involve mass group discussion across the shorter list of contenders. *cue the Rocky theme music*. Bring it on - it will be fun in the judging room.
Below is the motley crew judging your work this year.
A couple of friends from Turkey yesterday sent me emails about a mysterious pitch launched by Turkish Airlines. Bits and pieces of the brief have been spread all around the so called social media, creating a puzzle that agencies are called to solve in order to participate into the pitch to win the global digital account.
Everything is in Turkish, so both the first content posted on Twitter and on Thumblr results for us impossible to unlock. Fortunately, two of the agencies participating in the challenge have opened dedicated blogs in English where they will share details about the unusual pitch for the next 15 days - check Voden here and 41-29 here
Turkish Airlines idea is definitely bizarre and maybe a bit complicated, but surely it's a smart way to test the agencies' skills in the social media right from the very beginning.
I never expected to find a website which looks exactly like a Dutch painting from the Golden Age. But never say never, especially if the product to promote is a cheese called the Old Dutch Master.
It's an advergame launched in France where you have to spot seven slices of cheese more or less hidden in the painting.
If you're based in the UK and you are always eager to find out new places to see and new things to do, MINI has the right tool to give you tips and inspiration. As part of the campaign to promote its convertible model the car brand has launched an iPhone application called Openness which encourages users to explore the unexplored and try new things.
The mechanism is pretty straightforward. Select your location, decide how much open-minded you are and then shake to be surprised by MINI. You might end up with a recommendation for a Body Detox Clinic or if you luckier you could receive directions to a Mexican wrestling match with fetish cabaret. Whatever the hint, rest assured the experience will be definitely off-beat.
In China, Bayer has recently launched a website to promote its Saridon medicine usually prescribed to fight headache.
Of course language is an issue but I found the project interesting both for its tone of voice and, more in general, for the same use of the web for pharmaceutical marketing which sounded (at least to me) pretty new.
Today was all about blowing into microphones and adding yourself into the scene via webcams - all good but no real ideas, just technology use. See a selection of tweets below from 5 different jury members which gives an insight into what we are thinking.
# For reasons that remain unknown to me, upside down emails are a bona fide trend this year
#Bizarre mash-up of the day: M. I. A's "Paper Planes" playing during a demo about the efficiency of a business email.
#Overkill part deux an email that needs q quicktime movie explanation
#New heights of over-explaining: Just seen a banner that's accompanied by a documentary.
# Seeing things that nobody should see. Like a fake youtube with a fake view count on it.
#blow, jury, blow!!!!!!about
#A viral entry with 30 views... leaving a leaflet on the street gets more viral than that!
# I just laughed out loud 5 times during one video. That's more than in 30 others combined. I smell metal!
Marc and his team at Osocio (one of my favorite blogs, btw) just launched a campaign to raise awareness among the creative community on the importance of creating social campaign that do make sense to people and aren't just aimed at winning awards.
Well here we are at yet another Cannes festival. It's sunny, it's 31 degrees, it's a town full of ad folk and Steve Ballmers boat is taking up the entire horizon.
We're on the Cyber Jury this year so will post updates on what's happening from the inside plus any other random stuff that may be cool to know.
The Cyber team this year is chaired by Lars Bastholm, Chief Digital Creative Officer of Ogilvy. He's alo a nice dude, just like the rest of the jury members. We have already started and have another 5 days locked in a dark room getting the best down to the Grand Prix. This year we will award three GP's. One for Websites, one for Viral and another for Online advertising.
I'll post again tomorrow. Also Daniel will be here tomorrow and no doubt he will have some stuff to post on as well. Also follow me @issybella on twitter.
Weird enough, this is the second post in a few days that talks about digital and poetry. Dani wrote the other day about the BBC cool way to promote a poetry show online. Now I post about this piece of work launched by Konica Minolta to introduce OLED lighting to the masses.
Ok, I admit I'm a kind of sensitive person... but I really like the softness and kindness of the website. Recreating the emotional impact of the light online wasn't easy, and I think they managed to make content interesting and pleasant.
Nice to discover interesting content via Twitter. Yesterday, for example @_RGA posted about this rich media banner that profiles your tweets and gets back to you with the reccomendation of the ideal Volkswagen for you.
Let's (try) to start a meme: #interactivemonday. Help the digital creative community starting the week with a boost of inspiration. Every Monday share the best piece of digital creativity you've seen the week before. Tweet #interactivemonday, the project URL and the agency name. And please, no self promotion, let the others judge your work.
This is my first tweet from the RealAdverblog account:
Keep reading to find out the current tweets #interactivemonday:
Are you ready to join the Swedish Army? And even if you are, are you good enough to pass the test? If you have enough time to wait for the site to load, make sure to check it out.
The experience is as impressive as scary. The mood is a mix of underground and KGB. The art direction and the attention to detail is simply fantastic. The test are challenging and entertaining. This website is simply more than a website, it's an interactive movie.
Fred Perry brand is online with a website to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Mr Perry's birth. Very interesting work at first sight. But after a few clicks around you realize the whole thing is pretty flat.
I realize this is very geek, but I really like it: in the UK Vodafone has launched a website which combines Google Maps and Twitter to build the picture of where British people are going to spend their summer holidays.
The initiative has been launched to spread the word about the fact that roaming charges across Europe have been eventually abolished by Vodafone.
Advergames are moving to Facebook or, better, are moving where people are. EA Games has just launched "Quick Challenge", an interactive Facebook application, to support the release of its new title: EA Sports Grand Slam Tennis.
Quick challenge is a revised version in a tennis mood of the popular game (among our granpas') "rock, paper, scissors". The gaming mechanism is therefore pretty straightforward: you pick an avatar (both Rafa Nadal and John McEnroe are available!), you select your three shots: lob, slam, drop shot and then watch it play out against your opponent who gets challenged within Facebook itself.
A while ago i posted about Vodafone in Spain doing some crazy stuff for their 3G solutions for small businesses. Time after that, they've created a follow-up of that campaign, consisting on a Vodafone employee (that spends some time blogging) and his family going through Spain in a "bus-house" and without a landline number to get connected to the Internet, just a mobile phone and a USB modem. Also residents of each city will be allowed to get into the bus, as it will be staying for two days in each place.
All of this is being blogged at La Casa Movil and although it's in spanish, it's worth a read, you can use some online translation tools to get it translated into English or the language of your choice.
Brand Republic Asia reports that in South Korea Daewoo has launched an integrated campaign to promote its Tosca model. A Tv spot and a website try to get the attention of egoist potential first time buyers of the car. The creativity has a strong focus on individualism, with a series of stories told through videos.
The website at the moment is pretty basic: landscapes across Japan are featured with tilt-shift style photos. If you click on the photo it becomes a mosaic, and you can discover an Uniqlo item that matches the color of the tile. As usual (at least for the Japanese brand) e-commerce is then just one click away.
A few days ago, I posted about the Power to Change project launched by HP to remind people to switch the computer off every night in order to save power. Looks like HP is not the only one at the moment to drive awareness around the waste of energy.
Greenpeace, for example, has recently launched the Black Pixel Project, created by Almap BBDO. It's a small application you install on your computer in order to open a small black pixel on top of all your windows. The pixel can be moved all around the screen, its size stays the same, and it provides you with info on the amount of power currently being saved thanks to the Black Pixel itself.
I'm not a big fan of global charities, like Unicef or the Red Cross, as I always have the feeling they invest too much money in advertising (money that could rather be spent on factual charity actions). I therefore have contrasting feelings also on the Our World, Your Move website which hit my mailbox today.
It's the first global online campaign by The Red Cross Red Crescent Movement which asks everyone to make the world a better place, starting with a small gesture. The integrated action kicked off about two months ago with the release of a beautiful one minute cartoon film.
If you want to destroy Tokyo then you should try this game developed by the smart guys from Poke London called RubberDuckZilla. Taking as starting point this Mother's TV ad for Oasis (a drink for people who don't like water)...
Lately there's been a lot of talking about Augmented Reality, even Martina dropped some thoughts about that a couple of weeks ago, which i agree almost completely, being the most of these AR things going on right now pure eye-candy; i also even remember Dare's Flo Heiss writing something funny about this a while ago.
In Brazil, LG has launched an online campaign that puts Twitter at the center of the action to promote a fridge model called Top Mount. Four cameras capture live a fridge and the food inside it. Users can watch the live stream on the Web and "order" the fresh food using their Twitter accoun t and messaging @LGTopMount. The first who tweets the request will receive a home delivery the day after (only if he/she lives in the Sao Paulo area).
Don't ask me to clarify the mechanism because I had to ask twice to understand it. I definitely miss something in this action. I thought there was a challenge to guess the next food in the fridge in order to win, but this is not the case. It's not a guessing game. It's just about staring at a fridge where nothing happens and be fast to tweet when the food in it gets changed. To be totally sincere, I think the concept is rather week if not even silly. But still, I thought it was worth sharing it because the LG project can inspire new (better) campaigns with an integrated functional/interactive use of Twitter.
I love the crazyness (close to nosense) of the website launched in South Korea by LG to promote its latest mobile phone model named Cyon Lollipop. Full of fluo colors and pop music the site doens't show much about the phone but rather focuses on providing a cool amusing experience.
The visuals strongly focus on papercut pieces animated in stop-motion with a retro-disco mood.
"Twitch", one of the most adorables characters i've ever seen on a website, stars this fantastic microsite done by Unit9 and Helpful Strangers for the Museum of Science and Industry of Chicago to teach children physics in a fun and engaging way. But it's hard not to enjoy even not being children anymore.
In Sweden, beer brand Carlsberg has recently launched a website and a mobile application that allows people to track parties and friends and make sure to hit the right spots for entertainment this summer.
The whole mechanism is explained in the video you are presented with as soon as you hit the website. The project is still in beta, and therefore you need an invitation (which I don't have) to test the service. The application is based on a GPS service and is able to connect to your Facebook and Twitter accounts.
Even if the idea at first sounds interesting, after careful consideration, I believe this is a good example of a brand that tries to go too far while trying to do the right thing connecting with the cool/hot social networks/applications of the moment. I'm sorry but the question is as straightforward as rude: do we really need Carlsberg to help us getting in touch with our friends to organize a night out?
I recently received the link to the video recap of an integrated campaign run a few months ago in Belgium by Amnesty International. 60 years after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was signed, human rights are still flouted. And Amnesty International has decided to take a very interactive approach to raise awareness among Belgians.
A new site has just gone live in Australia for the beer brand Skinny Blonde. The label on the bottle is a 1950's woman in a bikini. When you place a warm hand over the label the bikini top vanishes. The site is all about that... which is very courageous for a beer brand. Check it out here
The ant and the grasshopper fable by Aesop gets rivisited by Nike. An unusual yet lovely way to tell the Nikefootball message. Being worth wearing Brazil's #9 shirt is not a fairy tale.
Great work by my friend Adam and his team. The agency is F/Nazca, while the production company is BigBonsai.
More ambitious work for the British Army by Skive. Start Thinking Soldier is an interactive video piece that places you in the role of a commanding officer making decisions in the line of combat. The idea isn't new and the budget must have been sizable but the production values are excellent and the target audience will enjoy the combination of puzzle and arcade action.
In Brazil, Adidas is running a Cluedo style game to support the launch of the Palmeiras replica. A video announced a few weeks ago that the Palmeiras shirts have misteriously disappeared. And the team supporters can help finding the guilty thief.
On Minha Segunda Pele (My second skin) visitors are challenged to find out which of the weird Palmeiras supporters has stolen the shirts of the club.
As usual, I don't understand a word, but I love the illustrations on the Nissin Ufo Noodles website launched Japan.
It's also interesting to see such an unusual artistic approach to food marketing. No fancy perfect pictures of the food, but rather a colorful chaotic browsing through illustrations and animations.
We have the power to change. We have the power to save power and make the world a greener place. It doesn't take much. Even just remembering to turn off your computer at night makes the difference. HP with the help of Arc Worldwide Singapore puts at our disposal a widget than can keep track of the energy we use as well as of the carbon emission reduced.
It's an interesting yet very ambitious project. A good idea, nicely designed but probably too complex to generate big numbers.
According to the records, Leroy Smith was the kid that took the last spot for the varsity basketball team at Emsley A. Laney High School, leaving Michael Jordan out and being this the fact always said as the beginning of the Michael Jordan's basketball legend from then on. Taken this as the core idea, this website called "Leroy Smith" tries to honor the name of Leroy as Jordan's first motivator.
Videogames marketing is fascinating because brands like EA and Ubisoft always try to take the promototion game to the next level, playing smartly with new tools and ideas. The latest example is related to the release of Battlefield 1943. EA has just announced a worldwide community challenge that, when achieved, will reward players by unlocking a fourth map called Coral Sea.
The WWII Coral Sea map will be unlocked when the multiplayer community achieves 43M kills on Xbox Live and the same number on PlayStation Network. Players will be able to track the progress of their respective console communities at www.battlefield.com/1943.
Love the idea of challenging consumers to get together in order to receive a community reward.
By: martina // Permalink // Comment(s): Category(s):Online marketing
In the US Lexus has launched a digital lifestyle guide in cooperation with Urban Daddy, a website and email magazine dedicated to "what you need to know".
Althought the idea of a lifestyle guide is definitely not new, I like the fact they've tried to make it a bit more personal and interactive, allowing people to find the right spots according to their entertainment needs.
Getting people to engage with a financial company is not easy. UBank in Australia uses humour to get some financial lessons across. Called Money Box this episode looks at legitimate ways you can pay less tax, such as; Maximising your allowable deduction,getting the best out of Capital Gains Tax and negative gearing.
By: marka // Permalink // Comment(s):(1) Category(s):Advertainment
