The commercial we’re showing today is not that interesting in itself. It is about Red Bull sugar free being distributed all over the place. To stress this message, Red Bull hid 4-packs of Red Bull throughout the Netherlands. And with some hints on a dedicated website you can search and find them – yawn… What is interesting about this project is that the animation was created by “junior” director Aras Darmawan from Indonesia. We don’t know why he is called junior, cause the animation looks pretty senior to us, but the fact is that he is part of the PanicProgram, a new brand recently launched by (post) production agency PostPanic to give new visual talent (both local and international) a chance to show their skills. The other side of the cutting knife, is that PostPanic can also take in projects with meager budgets. A great idea that will hopefully give many ‘junior’ directors wings.
Archive for the ‘Activation’ Category
PanicProgram gives ‘junior’ directors wings
Wednesday, September 1st, 2010Samsung introduces ‘Swyping’ instead of typing
Monday, August 9th, 2010
“If you don’t want to miss a thing this summer, send a SuperSwyper“, is what this poster communicates. Since Apple has introduced the iPhone, every mobile phone manufacturer tries to copy its intuitive navigation. Samsung is no exception. There’s one thing though that Samsung tries to do better, and that’s ‘Swyping’ instead of typing. With one continuous movement of your finger, you can swipe a word. And since typing on an iPhone can be very frustrating, the potential of this technology might prove an important innovation. The mobile phone manufacturer that is steadily growing to become one of the big players in the land of consumer electronics, claims that swiping is 1,5 times faster than typing. We cannot judge whether this is true, but it sounds promising. Muse was asked to create a campaign that explains the ease of use of swiping – for the Galaxy S. The Amsterdam agency came up with Samsung SuperSwypers, a team of journalists that you can send to an event to register it. It’s one of those ingenious campaigns that displays tech savvyness, but doesn’t seem to tap into a genuine consumer need – why need journalists, if you have friends to keep you posted on interesting events? That’s why we think it will fail to reach a broad audience. Having said that, we are curious whether swiping will become the new category standard.
Update: Today (August, 12) Samsung bought a blogpost on GeenStijl. This means the SuperSwypers will get some serious attention now!
5 silver Lions in Cannes for Promo and PR
Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010
Amsterdam won 5 silver Lions in Cannes yesterday. Big winner was Kong with 3 silver Lions for Stanislav – 2 for Promo & Activation and 1 for PR. Not really a surprise, since the online viral, that used people’s photo’s from social network site Hyves in an online film, already won several national and international prizes – though Cannes, of course, is the Wimbledon of the Grand Prix shows. Salient detail, according to Adformatie, Zwier Veldhoen, ECD at THEY and part of the P&O jury, said the case probably would have won gold, if submitted better. DDB also won silver in Promo & Activation for Centraal Beheer (CB), the insurer, known for its pay-off ‘Just call us’, created 3D outdoor spectaculars with typical accidents. The consumer could photograph itself in the accident and upload it on a dedicated website. The best ones – judged by the online audience – were used in a (2D) outdoor campaign. The fifth silver Lion went to MINI’s Christmas Box (see picture), by UbachsWisbrun/JWT. The message; only €99 per month. That is what we call, a big idea.
Heineken’s Pletterpet inspired by the Makaraba
Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010An exquisite example of (true!) storytelling. The ‘Pletterpet’ is the best WC premium we’ve come across so far – the Netherlands probably has the highest football-premium-density in the world. This instruction film shows the package you buy in the supermarket in its full glory – €11, including 8 cans of beer. We do feel slightly embarrassed for all the Dutch morons wearing one at the WC football in South Africa and hijacking two South African traditions – the Makaraba and the Vuvuzela (horn). But letting our political (over) correctness aside for a second, the commercial is well made and when you realize that Heineken, or rather its agency TBWA Amsterdam, needs to come up with a new premium every football tournament, we have to say it’s quite original. Nice detail: the guy at the end really is the inventor of the Makaraba. In this film you can see all the previous premiums TBWA created for Heineken – though the film is a bit lame, it shows how much fun both advertiser and agency must have had creating all those premiums. And it’s that fun exactly that is translated in the smiling e’s in the Heineken logo at the end of the Pletterpet commercial.
Supertrash’ DutchDress makes Bavaria look sexy
Tuesday, May 25th, 2010Thanks to Bavaria’s sexy ‘Dutch Dress’ the steward in this film will finally enjoy watching the audience when the Dutch lions score an important goal during the World Cup of Football in South Africa next month. A relatively stylish premium, created by Selmore and made solely for women, in close collaboration with Supertrash – “a girl label for independent women with great sense for fashion and style”. When you realize that most sales boosting premiums – free with a multi-pack of beer – make you look like a moron, this one will fashionably stand out in the orange-premium craze that accompanies the World Cup. It thus fits well in Bavaria’s strategy to become a more premium – no pun intended – lager. And, amazingly, it will make both men and women run to the supermarket to buy Bavaria beer.
Philips tells one single story in 5 parallel lines
Thursday, April 15th, 2010This teaser features snippets of the five short films that are part of the new Philips ad campaign, Parallel Lines, selling Philips’ 21:9 home cinema television – or rather its credibility as an innovative television manufacturer. The campaign is built around the idea that ‘There are millions of ways to tell a story. There’s only one way to watch one’. Five different films were made, all using the same copy, but telling a completely different story. Philips’ ad agency Tribal DDB asked production company Ridley Scott Associates to come up with the different scripts – between 2 and 3 minutes each. The briefing was very open; the most important restriction was the copy that was already there; “It’s a unicorn. I’ve never seen one up close before. Beautiful. Get away. I’m Sorry”. Out of a huge pile of different scripts featuring a unicorn in one way or another, Philips and Tribal DDB chose five scripts that were each able to optimally show the qualities of a Philips television in a different way. Director’s Jack Scott (son of Ridley), Johnny Hardstaff, Carl Erik Rinsch, Greg Fay and Hi-Sim were elected. Though it was not easy to outshine Philips’ previous cinematic ad, Carousel (showered with international awards), we think the result is stunning. Not only because it produced more or less five times as much content, but more so because there’s an actual concept behind it. Carousel – however beautifully made – ‘simply’ showed the qualities of a Philips home cinema TV with ambilight. Parallel Lines, instead, is based on a tagline with a meaning and mileage, and even allows Philips to crowdsource the sixth script. On a dedicated YouTube channel Philips asks ambitious film makers to upload their own interpretation of the story about a unicorn. By doing so the campaign will activate a set of highly motivated and credible Philips ambassadors that will probably give the campaign more momentum than its predecessor. The only question left for us is, will Philips be able to win a second Cannes Grand Prix in a row.
Easter egg hunt in supermarket App(ie)
Wednesday, April 7th, 2010
These are the Easter eggs that were hidden by Holland’s biggest supermarket chain, Albert Heijn (AH), in the latest version (1.5) of its iPhone App. The App, called Appie – a good choice of name, since many Dutch use it as the grocer’s nick-name – helps its customers to make a grocery list, search for recipes and of course find the latest ‘Bonus’ offers. Though probably only a tiny part of AH’s customer base will frequently use the App, it shows that AH wants to create added value for its customers in an innovative way. And that, we believe, makes the grocer very likeable. And since we’re only at the beginning of the App revolution, you can expect many more services on the App(ie) in the future. Anyway, to show that AH has a sense of humour, some Easter eggs were hidden in the App this Easter. On Twitter (#Appie) hints were given about where one could find the eggs. AH also hid a IRL Easter Egg in one of its stores. The person that found it, won an iPad (not on sale yet in the Netherlands). The Apps were built by digital agency Muse. If the 1.0 version of the App won’t win an award (for digital advertising) at the SpinAwards tomorrow, the 1.5 version definitely should next year.
Never leave the water with Protest
Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010
This commercial semi poetically explains that 4000 million years ago our ancestors lived in the water permanently. So it’s only natural that some of us never want to leave it, once they’ve found the perfect surf spot. It is part of the new activation campaign ‘Never Leave The Water’ for surf and snowboard brand Protest – created by KesselsKramer. Last year Protest persuaded the fanatic surf crowd to ‘Drop it all’, when the surf was up. This summer Protest goes one step further and invites the surf dudes and dudettes to stay on ‘Island Protest’, a custom-built, floating sanctuary where you can stay in the water for as long as you want. The island is equipped with ‘comfortable couches, WIFI, a toilet [the Ocean?], a kitchen and even ping-pong’. It will travel to some of the world’s top surf events this summer. A smart combination of facilitating your customers in their needs and creating big ass guerrilla presence in the perfect umfeld.
Who wants to be a prepaid millionaire?
Thursday, December 3rd, 2009
What a catchy name for an activation campaign. And what a simple and strong idea from online agency Achtung! to engage prepaid callers – regardless their provider! It doesn’t need much more explanation than the name suggests. If you register yourself as a prepaid caller on the website, you can participate in the contest and receive one text message per day with a difficult question. The person that answers the quickest and closest to the answer, wins – voila! – 1 million text signs or mobile minutes. Questions are asked like, ‘How long can a cockroach survive without his head’ and ‘How many kilo’s of lipstick does a woman eat in her whole life’. And guess what, at the end of the day Vodafone has its database filled with fresh and eager consumers that very homogeneously fit within their prepaid target group!
Volvo C30 DRIVe around the world
Monday, November 23rd, 2009
EuroRSCG4D created this Facebook page – together with LBi Göteborg – for the Volvo C30 DRIVe. The new Volvo can drive 1333 kilometer on a full tank, thanks to the start/stop system and regenerative charging. Surprisingly enough these technologies are not mentioned on the website, which is a different approach from Volkswagen that recently introduced a special ingredient brand: Blue Motion Technologies. Instead, Volvo chose the playful route. On the dedicated Facebook page you can invite your Facebook friends to virtually drive around the world in as few stops as possible. So for example, if you live in Amsterdam you virtually drive to Berlin, where a Facebook friend drives the next lap to Moscow, from there another friend drives further east, until the car has completely circled the earth. To win the game, every single lap has to be as close as 1333 kilometers as possible. If you win, Volvo donates € 15,000 in your name to a project that fights global warming. Since we couldn’t play the game (the site told us “Oops, something went wrong. We are working on fixing this problem”), it’s difficult to judge it properly, but we wonder whether this prize gives the consumer enough incentive. We know, global warming is ‘hot’ and all, but consumers are still very opportunistic. So if you want them to play a game online, it either has to be very engaging or give away great prizes – a C30 DRIVe for example.
