Water Is Life - #FirstWorldProblems

Water Is Life is an non-profit group that works to provide clean water to people in need around the world.  Many people are unaware of the fact that millions of people around the world lack access to clean water.  Faced with the challenge of how to promote this organization and the issue in general , DDB New York developed the #FirstWorldProblems campaign.  The central campaign video highlights the gap between the haves and the have-nots.  Regular Haitians, many of whom are still affected by the 2010 earthquake, are shown reading from tweets with the hashtag #FirstWorldProblems.  For those of you not familiar with the hashtag, it usually contains tweets with trivial problems such as 'I hate it when my phone charger won’t reach my bed.'


In other videos, Haitian are shown responding directly to specific tweets.  Each video also features a call to action to donate now and visit waterislife.com to find out more about the issue.

DDB New York Executive Creative Director Matt Eastwood said he hoped that the campaign would actually eliminate the #FirstWorldProblems hashtag  '#FirstWorldProblems allows its user to self-mock the petty concerns of those in so-called “first world” countries, yet seem strikingly insensitive when compared to real issues across the world.'

The campaign has received some criticism, but I think it's a fantastic example of a) hijacking a hashtag for good and b) taking the idea of personalized responses videos and using them for good (or perhaps shame?)  For me personally, I found it packed a significant emotional punch and made me reconsider the paltry things in life that I occasionally bitch about when many people in the world are unable to meet even their most basic needs.

Additional Articles: Huffington Post

2012 Election Season - 7 Eleven, Jetblue & Blippar

The 2012 presidential election is heating up in the States.  It's been interesting to see how brands are tapping into the interest around the US election.  Most are doing it poorly (I'll ignore those), but some are doing great work.  Three in particular stick out.

JetBlue - Live Free or Fly
I've heard people threaten to leave the US if their candidate doesn't win.  Apparently JetBlue has also heard this claim from both sides of the political spectrum.  They (and their agency, Mullen) have developed JetBlue Election Protection which will give a thousand sore losers the chance to get out of the country (at least temporarily) if their candidate loses.  Users are invited to go to jetblueelectionprotection.com and choose their political party (Democrat or Republican) as well as one of more than a dozen overseas destinations that JetBlue is offering up.  If your candidate loses, JetBlue may send you there.  The site gives you a sense of the current political leanings of the audience showing the polling so far among participants.  JetBlue is also doing their part, reminding people that the best part of Election Protection is to do their civic duty and vote.


7-Eleven - 7-Election
Convenience store giant 7-Eleven is back for the fourth edition of 7-election.  Customers can choose from partisan coffee cups (Romney cups are red, Obama cups are blue).  7-Eleven is then tallying sales for each to predict the outcome of the election.  This is the fourth election that 7-Eleven has done this and in each case it's successfully predicted the winner as well as coming within 1% of the actual outcome.  Unscientific? Yes.  Amazing?  Most definitely.

Check out the slate video about the initiative below and head over to the 7-Election site to see the current results.


Blippar - Blipp A $5 Bill To Donate To Obama
OK, this isn't technically a brand execution, but it's fascinating.  Blippar technology is probably the predominant app used by brands to execute mobile augmented reality experiences.  Blippar is taking a stance and coming out in support of Obama.  They've decided to throw their support and their technology behind Obama in an innovative way.  Fire up the Blippar app, point it at a 5 dollar bill and you can donate $5 directly to Obama's campaign.  The AR experience also has additional features such as the ability to create a picture of you high-fiving Obama, find your nearest campaign office to volunteer your time, listen to Obama speeches, etc.  I wonder if pointing Blippar at a $100 bill fires up a Romney experience?  Anyhow, check it out in action below:

Intel & Toshiba - The Beauty Inside

Last year Intel & Toshiba brought us 'The Inside Experience,' a social film project that was billed as the first of it's kind.  While I wasn't personally a huge fan of The Inside Experience as it played out, respect to all involved for pushing the boundaries and blurring the lines between web series, short film and social media campaign.  It's an interesting and rapidly developing area, so I'm glad to see that Intel & Toshiba are back to present 'The Beauty Inside.'  Created and developed by  Pereira & O’Dell, B-Reel and director Drake Doremus, 'The Beauty Inside' is a film about Alex (Topher Grace), a guy who wakes up looking like a different person each day.  Interesting storyline, but what's innovative is how the film uses that premise as a way to include and facilitate audience participation.  As the folks over at B-Reel describe 'it is Hollywood’s first film that gives the audience a chance to play the lead role. Alex can be a young, beautiful redheaded women one day while an overweight man late into his 40s tomorrow. He chronicles his ever-changing appearance as webcam diaries on his Toshiba Ultrabook. While fun and intriguing at first, Alex quickly realizes his limitations as he falls for Leah (Mary Elizabeth Winstead).' 

Split into six episodes, 'The Beauty Inside' is a 30-minute social film that allows users to audition to play the role of Alex.  Users can choose from a list of script outlines that are based on the upcoming episodes and audition throughout the campaign by uploading a webcam video or photo of themselves.  It's a nice way to foster audience participation in a way that fits seamlessly into the story rather than a clunky social media bolt on.  Of course there is a social mechanic as getting friends to view, like and share your audition film increases your chances of being included in the film.  Check out the trailer below as well as the first episode.  The film (as much has been posted so far) can be seen at The Beauty Inside YouTube channel.

Hostess - Reach For The Gold

Let's be honest, there's a ridiculous amount of cliche and hyperbole that surrounds most of the Olympic advertising and sponsorship.  Is that financial services or fast food company really going to help you, the consumer, 'go for the gold'?  With that in mind it's refreshing to see Hostess embracing plain old mediocrity in their latest Olympic campaign.

The series of spots, created by Bernstein-Rein show every day athletes reaching for the gold...and failing.  Instead Hostess is implying that it's time they reached for the golden deliciousness of a Twinkie.  As Hostess says 'You don't need to be a world class athlete to win this kind of gold.'  I love it.  Fits the brand, fits the event and resonates more than many of the campaigns from official sponsors.

Coincidentally it's almost comical counterbalance (the yin to the yang) of the recent Nike - Find Your Greatness series of spots, including the Jogger video that's had the Internet abuzz.

Check out the spots below.




This last guy is kind of a badass though

AT&T - Rethink Possible (24h Turnaround Commercials)

This blog has featured many campaigns that use the idea of real-time response of the sort pioneered by Old Spice, but recently picked up and expanded by the brands such as Kraft and o2.  In a fascinating twist, AT&T and their agency, BBDO NY, have created a series of real-time-ish TV spots as part of their 'Rethink Possible' campaign.  The TV commercials integrate actual Olympic results into a series of spots turning them around in less just 24 hours.  See the first spot below, which features swimmer Ryan Lochte.

Fast Company has a fascinating article on how BBDO NY went about doing this.  I highly recommend reading the whole thing, but in short:

Three sports were selected as the campaign’s focus--swimming, gymnastics, and track and field. BBDO then created six versions of the commercial in advance, two for each sport alternately featuring a male or female athlete, with hundreds of different endings to account for a predicted range of winning times. AT&T worked with longtime broadcasting partner NBC to arrange for access to the footage within unusually quick turnaround times so that they could create a campaign that would stand out from the hailstorm of sponsored messages. Once one of the athletes pegged as likely to win is competing, a team from BBDO sits in London and waits. If the athlete performs well, it’s go time. A winning result means that footage has to be selected, sent to London-based post house Absolute for integration, the pre-canned shot with the winning time has to be selected and edited together. It’s then sent to NBC and the USOC for approvals and on air within 24 hours of the win. It’s a cycle AT&T is able to repeat up to five times for five winning athletes.

Very cool and plays perfectly into the idea of 'Rethink Possible.'  As the BBDO ECD Greg Kahn explains:

We had the idea of someone who gets inspired to keep practicing after seeing a record being broken. But in playing around with that idea, we thought it would be really cool if the way that the story is told is also a kind of how did they do that.  The blue sky idea was wouldn’t it be awesome if the record he sees being broken was the one you just saw on TV?” 

Sol Republic - The World's First Headphones For Cats

I usually like to avoid any posts that perpetrate the idea that YouTube is just about cats or dogs on skateboards, but August 8th was World Cat Day, so I may as well celebrate that momentous occasion.

First up is a nice feature from AdWeek that showcases 9 awesome cat commercials that drive the Internet wild.

The second is a hilarious spot/campaign from headphone manufacturer Sol Republic and their agency, RoosterNY.  They paired up with Deadmau5 partner, Professor Meowington, to produce the world's first pair of headphones designed for cats.  They only made 10 pairs of these catphones, with each pair retailing for $1000.  All proceeds from the headphones will go to the ASPCA (an animal protection society).  To support this initiative, RoosterNY created this hilarious infomercial style video, check it out below.

Cats, Deadmau5, hilariy...that's pretty much a trifecta in terms of capturing the attention of the meme-loving Internet audience and will hopefully be effective in raising overall awareness of the Sol Republic brand. Not to mention the fact that they're also raising money for a good cause at the same time.


via PSFK

Pepsi Max - From Youtube To A 30-second Spot

This is a bit old and I meant to post it a month or so ago, but it's still relevant as we see more and more brands working from the inside out.  That is, starting with a digital execution and then translating that to traditional media or into a 30-second spot.  This example comes from Pepsi Max.  In the video, we see Uncle Drew going to attend a pickup basketball game with his nephew.  When one of the other players goes down with an injury, Uncle Drew steps in.  After a slow start Uncle Drew starts dominating and talking trash while the  other players try to figure out how the hell this old guy has such ridiculous game. At the end of the video we see NBA rookie of the year, Kylie Irving, being transformed by Hollywood makeup artists into an old man, 'Uncle Drew.'  The stunt actually relates nicely back to the brand as Pepsi Max is 'the zero calorie cola in disguise.'

The five-minute video is fantastic.  It's compelling enough that 80% of the viewers were still watching at the 4 minute mark.  Pepsi could've considered the 10 million views the video over the course of a month success in it's own right.  This was never intended to be a 30-second spot or to have a presence on TV, but as a Pepsi spokesman says "Once we started looking at the metrics, it became clear that we couldn’t miss the opportunity to bring Uncle Drew to the sport’s biggest stage."  Pepsi decided to run a cut-down version, basically just a teaser for the full video, during the first three games of the NBA finals.  That in turn drove further viewership of the YouTube video, creating a nice virtuous cycle.





Additional Articles: MediaPost | AdAge

Three Nice Uses Of QR Codes - Emart, Guinness & Mercedes-Benz

QR codes have gotten a pretty bad rap and are generally shit on by the creative community (case in point, this genius Tumblr).  Until certain smartphone technologies mature, the fact of that matter is that it remains one of the best ways to quickly and (relatively) easily get mobile users to a site/app.  While there are definitely some absolutely abysmal executions out there, here are a couple of recent ones that work extremely well.


EMART - SUNNY SALE
The first example comes Emart, the Walmart of Korea.  The Sunny Sale (created by Cheil Worldwide)  aimed to drive sales during lunch, which is a typically slow time for the retailer.  They created clever shadow QR codes which are only be readable/active in certain light, ie. between the hours of 12-1PM.  Users who scanned the sunny sale QR codes received special offers, coupons, etc.  It proved so popular they expanded it from 13 to 36 locations in Seoul.  Over the course of a month they sold over 12,000 coupons and increased store membership 58% month or month, but perhaps most impressive they increased sales by 25% during lunch hours.  Who says QR codes can't be effective!?


Additional Articles: Adverblog | AdFreak


GUINNESS - QR CUP
The second example comes from BBDO New York for Guinness.  The QR code is printed on the glass and only works when Guinness (or another black/dark liquid) fills the glass, so don't try filling these glasses with lager, etc.  Once full scanning the QR code launches a site that easily/automatically tweets, checks in, posts a status update or sends an Instagram photo about where you are and the fact that you're enjoying a pint of guinness.  Very clever.

via Digital Examples

MERCEDES-BENZ - QR TROPHY
Prior to the official car launch, you'll often see speculation about the new model based off photos of the car 'spotted in the wild' on various aficionado sites.  Manufacturers combat this by wrapping the cars in plastic and generally camouflaging them so the new body/shape can't be deciphered before launch.  Jung Von Matt/Alster has cleverly tapped into this behavior by turning the camouflage of the prototypes into a form of media.  They've wrapped the new Mercedes Benz A-Class prototypes in QR codes.  The QR codes contain links to an app in which users hunt for trophies based off spotting the new A-class and give them a chance to win a trip to launch event.  Nice expansion of the idea of owned media and tapping into the existing behaviors of passionate car fans and paparazzi. 


Additional Articles: Digital Buzz Blog

Uniqlo Undercover

I love seeing innovative uses of the Google Maps interface (such as Levi's Roadwear covered here a few months ago).  Uniqlo has recently partnered with Japanese fashion brand Undercover and their 'UU' website launched a month or so back.  The site uses Google maps as the mechanism to browser the whole product collection.  As you can see from the walk through below, you can zoom in further and further to go from big (and random) pictures to product details on individual garments.  You can also turn on and off different maps layers that will organize the collection by area (mens, babies, etc.), show social comments about the collection or take you to a store locator layer.  Just a great use of a navigation interface that we're all familiar with as an innovative way to show off the entire collection.

Have a play around with it yourself art the Uniqlo Undercover site or see the video capture below.

Additional Articles: FastCo | TheFWA

Heineken - The Fever Keeper

Heineken and their various agencies have done an amazing job of activating their Champions league sponsorship and providing both utility & entertainment to football fans through initiatives such as Heineken Star Player.  The latest work (from Vidal Parternship) is aimed squarely at Champions league fans in the US.  Due to the time difference, most games occur when people are at work and therefore can't watch the games live.  As any sports fan who's tried to watch a Tivoed game knows, you essentially need to enforce a communications blackout from match time until you get home and can actually watch the recorded game.  There's just too many opportunities to see the results of the game accidentally while browsing the web.  Enter Heineken Fever Keeper, a Chrome browser extension that blanks out any revealing information about the match, regardless of what site you're on.

Genius...now if only there was something similar for smartphones.  Check out the video below for more detail and to see it in action.


Additional Articles: PSFK | Adverblog

Fix At Four PSA

I really do think that some of the most clever work of the past couple months have been various public service announcements.  Here's another excellent set of PSAs encouraging pet owners to get their dogs or cats fixed at four months.

Columbia - Great Moments In Trying Stuff

I posted this to the 5 Cool Things G+ page a couple weeks ago, but just have recently had time to explore the rest of the Columbia Sportswear Youtube channel.  Their latest campaign 'Great Moments In Trying Stuff' is a series of videos that demonstrates the benefits of various Columbia sportswear through a series of amusing pseudo-science experiments.  As they put it: 'What do sweaty hot dog buns, cafeteria workers, mesh tank tops and a cat have to do with proving our gear is the best in the industry? Everything. Watch as we put our most innovative products to innovative tests.'  The videos are extremely entertaining while also being peppered with features/benefits/functionality throughout.  Anyone know the Agency responsible for the work?  In the meantime, here are my two favorites, but check out the rest of the 'Great Moments In Trying Stuff' on their Youtube channel.

BONUS: 8-Bit Mad Men

The Fine Brothers are one of the more established Youtube Stars, ie. content creators that have created a huge audience/following on Youtube.  They release videos twice a week that typically tap into the Youtube zeitgeist (such as this one, Kids React to Nyan Cat) and have racked up more than a million subscribers.

They recently released a fantastic Youtube game, tapping into the excitement around the Season 5 premiere of Mad Men.  The game (done in 8-bit/Nintendo style complete with awesome Nintendo-ish sound) uses Youtube annotations to create a choose-your-own-adventure experience where you play Don Draper looking to level up on his inner peace, new ideas, and confidence.  Have a play around below:

This is just one of many interesting executions across various mediums that tapped into the excitement around Mad Men, with Sky in the UK running 60s-style spots during it's ad breaks & Newsweek revisiting it's 1966 design for the issue the featured a Mad Men cover story (again complete with 60s-style ads from contemporary advertisers throughout the magazine).

Supporting Articles: Forbes | MTV

Project Re:Brief - Re-imagining classic ads for the modern web.

Quite simply, Project Re:Brief may be my favorite project to come out of Google.  Despite the fact that we're in the midst of a revolution in display, video and mobile advertising, many people still question whether these new advertising mediums can tell an emotional story or build brands.  Project Re:Brief answers that question by taking four of America's most iconic advertising campaigns and re-imagining them for the web.  The blog post announcing the launch of Project Re:Brief explains it more eloquently than I can:

This year, digital advertising turns 18. Over nearly two decades, waves of innovation have transformed the medium—it’s come a long way since the blinking banner ads of the early Internet. But we think the most exciting changes are still to come, as marketers and agencies increasingly embrace technology to enable new types of creativity, and build online ads that don’t simply inform, but delight and engage their audience. 
For example, what if an online ad could bring together two strangers on opposite sides of the globe? Or let you follow a real-life adventure as it unfolds? We wanted to find out. So we started an experiment, both to celebrate 18 years of online innovation, and to link advertising’s digital future to its storied past: Project Re: Brief. 
We started with four iconic ad campaigns from the 1960s and ‘70s from Alka-Seltzer, Avis, Coca-Cola and Volvo, each considered groundbreaking in its day. The advertising legends who made the original ads then came out of retirement to rethink their original “brief,” this time, using the full range of technological tools at their disposal, to reach consumers in today’s digitally connected world.

I highly, highly, highly encourage you to go to the Project Re:Brief and watch the videos, but more importantly experience new ads (and the original) for yourself.  In fact, I just sent a Coke to You can check out the intro video below:


You can see how the re-imagined Coca-cola Hilltop ad works below.  Amazing!  It really brings to life what can happen at the intersection of technology and creativity.

Supporting Articles: New York Times | Fast Co. | Mashable

Gap Geo-Fencing Campaign

In what's sure to be a much more common media play, Gap (in conjunction with out of home agency, Titan) just wrapped up a campaign that combined standard bus & transit ads with geo-fenced mobile display ads.  For those of you who may not be familiar with geo-fencing, it's essentially a virtual perimeter in a real-world area.  In this case, the mobile display ads utilised the location based services standard in smartphones/tablets to establish that users were within the geo-fenced area.  Here's how it worked, people in NYC, San Francisco & Chicago saw standard posters for Gap, but smartphone/tablet users within a specific area around the posters also saw mobile display ad offering Gap coupons if they were on particular sites or playing various games from Zynga, such as Words With Friends.

Dave Etherington, Titan’s senior vice president of marketing and mobile, says that 'The lines are kind of blurring,' he says. 'You’re only a click away now from rich brand experiences and purchases.'  He went on to say that Gap & Titan were pleased with the results which has a noticeable, but unspecified, sales uplift.  Additionally, 'the campaign, which ran from Feb 20 to March 6, delivered 2.5 million impressions, with a 0.93 percent click-through rate.'

It's a really nice way to enhance the efficacy of standard outdoor ads and I love the potential that geo-fencing and other mobile technologies are starting to offer as a way to bridge the digital and offline to provide true cross-platform experiences.

As eConsultancy pointed out, we'd need to know more about the campaign before passing judgement, were the posters near actual Gap stores?  Were the results skewed due to it being an offer?  No

Supporting articles: PSFK | TechCrunch | eConsultancy

Puma Social - Live Life, Don't Watch It

Let me first say, I haven't a clue what Puma Social is...from what I can tell it's an amalgamation of their various social activity plus some ER stuff and an umbrella for their Lifestyle/Youth outreach.  But you know what, it doesn't really matter...what matters is the message they're putting out in the video below.

A Puma describes it in the video itself
'With the rapid rise of reality television, more and more people seem content to spend time watching life on television, instead of actually living one themselves. Elevating those who fight, backstab and cheat into celebrities and role models. Something has got to change. So for the latest PUMA Social release we are offering people a choice: do they want their nights to be spent staring at televised strangers, or do they want them to be more? A time when they live life, instead of just watching it. Where reality stars are replaced by teammates. The 90-second film juxtaposes a slew of reality television audio clips with visuals of life being played. It celebrates those who choose to ignore the banality of today's reality television climate, in favor of creating their own stories with friends and teammates. Furthermore, the film encourages those of us not out already, to get off the couch. Because in the end, life deserves to be played, and channel surfing is not a sport.'


AMEN.  Seriously, I couldn't agree more.  Our own friends and live are far more interesting than the vapid half-wits on reality shows.  That said, I'll vegetate for hours watching whatever HBO decides is worthy of airing, but that's not the point.  OK, that's the end of my rant.  Overall really nice work by Droga5 & a great way for Puma to send out a strong, inspiring message with a clear call to action.

via Nicola Young

Subaru - First Car Story

Anyone who drives remembers their first car.  Now Subaru and its creative agency, Carmichael Lynch, are tapping into the emotion and memories of loving (or hating) your first car in a new integrated campaign for the new 2012 Subaru Impreza.  The hub of the campaign is FirstCarStory.com features an amazing animation/video generator that allows users to recreate the story of their first car through bespoke animation, music, text and voiceover.  The site then generates a really cool custom animated short story, which of course are sharable via users social networks.

"Everyone loved their first car, no matter how bad, beat up, or borrowed. That first car became a new chapter in life or a ticket to freedom and first car stories are often the most memorable stories we have," said Alan Bethke, director, marketing communications, Subaru of America.  "The First Car Story campaign provides a creative outlet for reliving those unique, funny, unforgettable car experiences anyone who had a first car can relate to."

It's really worth playing with the site to get a full sense of what you can do.  I love the idea of turning phrases or words that the user types in the story as a way to trigger a library of animations (ie. typing in pulled over by the cops triggers an animation in the video with sirens and handcuffs.)  Another cool aspect is the ability to tag friends in the video, since many of our stories, memories, etc. from our first car include shared experiences with friends from yesteryear.  FirstCarStory.com really takes the idea of creating bespoke and personalized content for the user a step further.  All in all, just a great branded content tool to provide utility and entertainment to the user.

This really hits home for me, since I loved my first car, a beat up old, white '79 Buick Lesabre, so I took a stab at creating my own video, which you can see below.


Here's a story mashup that Subaru created to illustrate the tool.


Supporting Articles: Creativity