Who hasn’t got one: A BILLY Closet from Ikea. To celebrate its 30th birthday, Ikea and Ogilvy Frankfurt created the Billygram app for Facebook. The app allowed users to post animated messages, written with books in a BILLY closet on each other’s walls.
Cool idea, especially if you realise the brief for this job must have been something like: “Can you make a campaign for our most boring product?”
I know. It’s been out there for a while, but I just had to share it with you. Old Spice has been busy reinventing itself for a while now, but with their latest effort they have positioned themselves among the greater online campaigns ever if you ask me. After their ‘I’m on a boat’ commercials became a huge hit, their latest effort allowed you to ask the campaigns macho man Isaiah Mustafa any question via Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. The crew would select the best questions and make a movie straight away. This resulted in hundreds of video’s, answering the questions of random Twitter users, but also many celebs, like twitter founder Biz Stone, Ellen DeGeneres, Perez Hilton and Ashton Kutcher.
There is just to much out there, so I’m not even making a selection. Just go to the site and check them out! A brilliant piece of advertising.
Here’s another smart campaign using Google AdWords. This time Converse takes advantage of the smart ad system in their Domaination campaign. Check out the movie below.
Converse Domaination from Ross Martin on Vimeo.
Advertising is following you everywhere, and as long as it is smart like this Sand Printer, I really don’t mind. The idea is as simple as it is brilliant. Zana Design has developed this big wheel with text on the outsides. If you start walking insinde the wheel, like a hamster, the letters will be pressed in the sand leaving a text behind on the beach.
Simple, smart and after one wave everything is back as it was. Great idea!
First of all, sorry for not posting as regularly. This is due to two things: A new job and the world cup. Especially that last one has taken away a lot of time. This reminded me of a campaign Nike ran about a year ago, pictured above. Did they already know Paul The Octopus back then? Anyway, after we secure this first star on the shirt things will be back to normal.
Two twelve year old New York kids and huge basketball fans, Jason and Corey Grant have turned social media to convince the NY Knicks to get LeBron James to join them. Poke NY has helped them create a very smart online and offline campaign. The idea is pretty simple. You just hit the NYheartLeBron button, whether this is on the website, by tweeting #NY<3LEBRON or hitting one of the #NY<3LEBRON buttons (find them here) in real life.
At the moment I am writing this, the button has been hit 1.284.411 times. I guess we can call this a success! Awesome idea and dito execution. Now lets see whether Lebron will sign up, to become the first social media scouted player in the NBA.
Nike and Wieden & Kennedy always have a next surprise up their sleeves. After the awesome commercial, I bumped into this great press kit of Nike’s Write The Future campaign. Besides the regular info, the amazingly shaped press kit contains Crayons shaped into the shape of Nike’s headline players at the 2010 World Cup. To write the future with, I assume. The crayons where created by artist Diem Chau, who has a thing for carving crayons. Awesome idea and brilliantly executed! Check out the gallery below for more images.
As you know, I think digital and strongly believe the future of advertising will be (largely) digital too. This doesn’t mean that traditional media, like billboards, will be gone in the future. There will always be room for great creativity. Especially if they are as good as the ones below.
Through Idealize
Ok people, the World Cup in South Africa is coming up which means that the battle of the giants is starting again. Adidas and Nike have been battling to become ‘the greatest’ for the last years resulting in mega campaign budgets and dito campaigns. Let’s see what this tournament brings us:
First up, Nike’s Write The Future Campaign. As we are used of Nike, amazing drama in this commercial. I must say, this ad directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Babel, 21 Grams) looks amazing and strikes the right tone.
After a period of teasing us with snippets, this 3 minute ad was launched ‘exclusively’ through Facebook (to Nike Football’s 600,000 fans), which, as far as I know, is a first for Nike and the football business as a whole.
Adidas goes for speed with their F50: It Doesn’t Matter How Fast You Are campaign. In this Sin City inspired ad it is made clear to us that speed is the one thing every player needs, and that their F50 boot will provide just that.
If this is everything Adidas has to offer, I think we have a clear winner. Although both ads look amazing, the Nike ad has so much more emotion in it. Adidas just tries to sell a boot, while Nike is pushing Football Fever. Also, Nike makes far better use of it’s ’stars’ in this campaign. I love how they get Rodger Federer in and make a link to their basketball palyers, and also use Gael Garcia Bernal. They just make it bigger than just football. Adding to this the launch strategy Nike used with teasers to build up excitement around the campaign through Facebook is just so much smarter. Actually, I am sort of disappointed by Adidas who did such a great job on the ‘House Party‘ and ‘The Street‘ campaigns. Is this the difference between their agencies becoming awefully clear, or am I missing something?
We’ve all seen them, QR codes. The ugly looking squares with little dots inside. For the ones that don’t know: If you scan these with some special software these codes will redirect you to a website linked to that code, offering the possibility to interact with the receiver. This is where the lecture ends, and the fun begins. As these codes usually don’t look too good, my guess is many art directors don’t use this technology. This is where SET Japan comes in play. These guys have become quite an authority in creating branded QR codes, or QRchitecture as they call it themselves. Having worked for companies like Coca Cola and Louis Vuitton (pictured above) their track record is becoming all the more impressive.
Their latest campaign is for breathmint producer Frisk. In this campaign they have created the entire code, which actually works, out of the little round mints. Check out the movie below for the results:
I think it is such a great example of how technology and art direction can merge into a cool campaign. It takes the ad to a whole new level making it something the consumer can experience and interact with. This is exactly the way it should be if you ask me.
