Digital Connections

K1664: Lemmy beats Lucas with Aces High

Great Kronenbourg 1664 Ad, from the chaps at BBH London, featuring Motorhead's Lemmy.

There's also an opportunity for fans to download The Ace of Spades (Slow Version) track too ... Rarely does a legend lend themselves to a TV Ad and come out the other end with their integrity and credibility fully intact or enhanced.

In contrast George Lucas' pimping of Star Wars is an example of how naff a legendary property can become. Adidas' Cantina bar Ad was good, if not overshadowed by Nikes "Write The Future" campaign, but let down by a bloated and generally weak product range.

George not happy with the cash from Adidas then followed up by cashing in further and licensing the Star Wars francise to PC World / Curry's - and the less said about that teh better - horrific!

Mines a Kronenbourg, cheers Lemmy!!

Lionel Messi: He didn't have the hand of god, just his feet.

Fantastic example of simple and strong ad copy by DDP Paris,

..brought to attention by the chaps at Ads Of The World.

Advertising Agency: DDB Paris, France
Copywriter: Olivier Lefebvre

Creative Director: Alexandre Hervé
Art Director: Benjamin Marchal
Illustrator: Monsieur Barbe
Published: December 2009

The Last Advertising Agency On Earth

Despite it being very bleak and somewhat over the top, it does raise many good points.

And a very good online ad for a conference!

Rugby Fan Engagement by Guinness Ireland and IIBBDO

This weekend sees the start of the RBS 6 Nations, and Rugby fans are gearing up for what should be a great tournament.

There are however a handful of interesting digital campaigns surrounding the tournament.

The official RBS 6 Nations Facebook page is well put together. In just over one week this site has generated over 12,500 friends – which is pretty impressive.

The English RFU are also running a Facebook campaign - uploading a rather limp (sorry guys) video to YouTube with the objective of driving as many fans to the RFU Facebook site as possible. The hook is to get more Facebook fans than the Welsh. As much as it pains me to say it - it’s a bit 2008, even as an Englishman I find it hard to engage with what is a non-story. 

The real innovation is taking place elsewhere.

02 are showing several games in 3D at various Odeon cinemas. I blogged about 3-D and this AIS campaign last week -  I’ll be interested to hear the feedback on the fan experience. 

Another innovative campaign was brought to my attention in the Contagious Magazine Newsletter. Contagious reported that Gilbert and Guinness have placed RFID (Radio Frequency ID) chips inside each Rugby ball (I assume this only at Ireland games), and using sensors placed around the pitch they can monitor players and ball movement to identify the number and distance of passes ... all fascinating stuff.

Guinness have supported this initiative with a rather futuristic Nike or Adi-esque TV ad, driving viewers to an Area (22) on the Guinness website.

Area22 contains all the geeky and engaging RFID information such as number / percentage of tackles and passes. From what I understand, to access you must identify Ireland as your country of origin at the log in page. 

There is also an Area22 Facebook page with aggregated content from the major Irish news sources and competitions etc.

A well pulled together campaign that brings each Ireland game to life online, creating fan engagement and generating PR-able media stories for on and offline usage.

3DTV, Changing The Game For Sports Consumption In 2010

January 2010 has been something breakthrough in world of 3D Television, no longer are we talking about cardboard glasses with red and white cellophane lenses, things have moved on and instead we’re talking about:

• James Cameron’s Avatar racing towards becoming the highest grossing film of all time.

• All of the major TV manufacturers launching 3DTV models at CES 2010 in Las Vegas. 

• O2’s announcement that they’ll be screening the Six Nations Rugby in 3D at Odeon and Cineworld cinemas.

So how big is 3D TV going to be in 2010, and which areas will see the biggest impact?

Many people are asking “Haven’t we been here before with HDTV? “. After all we’ve all stood in Dixons or John Lewis and stared at a bank of TV screens, desperately squinting to try and see the difference between conventional TV and HDTV – dismissing the extra cost as too great.

But that isn’t the case with 3D - the difference is obvious, consumers don’t need to be convinced, its genuine innovation and that’s why I’m convinced that 3D will succeed.

Unfortunately there is a shortage of 3D movie content for 2010, a few classics will be made available and the film studios will begin to make more 3D movies – but there is still going to be a shortage of 3D available for the home.

Not everything is suited to 3D, I’m pretty sure that we won’t be watching Eastenders or Newsnight in 3D –actually the thought of 3D Eastenders chills me to the bone.

Gaming is tailor-made for 3D, it’ll be cheaper and easier to create 3D content and gamers stare directly at the monitor in immersive gameplay for hours so they’ll really get the 3D benefit.

But the area that I’m really interested in is sport and 3D. Sports content is the without doubt the best broadcast content suited for 3D, and the area that consumers will really engage with 3D.

ESPN have announced that they will be showing 25 football matches during the 2010 FIFA World Cup, including the opening game, South Africa v Mexico, on 11th June.

Through ad agency AIS, O2 have also announced that they are screening some of the RBS 6 Nations in 3D. It’ll be interesting to see how many rugby fans actually wish to spend a Saturday afternoon in an Odeon Cinema rather than drinking with their mates down the pub. Perhaps the 3D cinemas will attract a younger audience.  And for O2 it’s a room full of brand receptive fans - putting O2 at the forefront of innovation.

Some sports will be more suited to 3D than others, and for 3D to be a success then rugby and football have to be successful. It’ll be interesting to see the TV manufacturers marketing campaigns behind 3D, sports sponsorship must look very attractive – I suspect we’ll see an increase in sport / team sponsorship with an increase in ground advertising during the World Cup and during the  2010/11 seasons.

So how big is 3D TV going to be in 2010? Well I’m not saying that 2010 is going to be the year of 3D, but it’s definitely going to be the birth of 3D.

Diesel Jeans' Be Stupid Philosophy

Instant thoughts are that this is a cracking campaign from Diesel!

I love the presentation of the philosophy, it's the sort of argument that convinces you that Black is White ... and you're nodding all the way through!

More info here on Creative Review

Forsman & Bodenfors Innovative Facebook Campaign for IKEA Store Launch

Some really smart creative thinking from Forsman & Bodenfors, IKEA's Swedish agency.

They created a profile page for Gordon Gustavsson, the store manager of their brand new Malmo store, and then uploaded pictures of the store's new showrooms. Any friends who tagged a particular product with their name actually won the item.

And the campaign is rather nicely summarised in the video below.

All in all a rather clever innovative low budget campaign that drives conversation and sharability through Facebook's tagging feature - nice!

Thanks to creativity-online for covering this one.

Credits

Agency: Forsman & Bodenfors, Gothenburg
Art Director: Adam Ulvegarde
Client: IKEA
Copywriter: Robert Lund

IPA Social: 10 Principles (#IPASocial)

If you're a member of the IPA (Institute of Practitioners in Advertising) then this will probably need no introduction, but if you're from the sports marketing industry or a non-IPA member agency then it might need a touch of background explanation.

In January 2009, the IPA hosted a 44 Club event at the London College of Fashion, entitled "Social Media Futures - The future of advertising and agencies in a networked society."

The event had the potential to be great, and should have been great - unfortunately it wasn't. I blogged about the event and wrote a post which in hindsight I now view as overly harsh, and one that I certainly wouldn't write today.

However, I wasn't the only person who expressed disappointment, with Amelia, John, Robin and Anjali all expressing their views.

To give the IPA massive credit, within 7 days of the event Nigel Gwilliam (Head of Digital at the IPA) was analysing exactly where the IPA went wrong and how the IPA could ultimately deliver what their members wanted.

(I should point out that I wasn't and still am not a member of an IPA member agency, which goes someway to why I feel uncomfortable about my original post.)

Nine months later, Nigel has chaired and facilitated a very passionate & talented group of digital communications experts. This "IPA social" group have collaborated to write 10 principles that clients and agencies should bear in mind when developing Social Media campaigns. However, the group are also keen to point out that these principles are starting points for further discussion and are not cast in stone.

Each of the 10 principles are hosted on individual blogs (listed below), with the IPA acting as hub for the IPA Social Project, and everybody is encouraged to read and discuss the principles... after all social media is basically lots of people having conversations online.

Tuesday 6th October sees the IPA host a follow up event - which will see Mark Earls, Neil Perkin and Amelia Torode presenting their views, with Amelia, Katy Lindemann, Asi Sharabi and John Willshire joining in with a panel discussion.

If you're going along then drop me a tweet and say hello - if you cant make it then have a read of the 10 principles and join in the conversation online.

I was full of expectation nine months ago, and once again I'm full of expectation - but I know that these guys will absolutely nail it and add traction to a great debate.

The 10 Principles

1. People not consumers – Mark Earls
2. Social agenda not business agenda – Le’Nise Brothers
3. Continuous conversation not campaigning – John V Willshire
4. Long term impacts not quick fixes – Faris Yakob
5. Marketing with people not to people – Katy Lindemann
6. Being authentic not persuasive – Neil Perkin
7. Perpetual beta – Jamie Coomber
8. Technology changes, people don’t – Amelia Torode
9. Change will never be this slow again – Graeme Wood
10. Measurement – Asi Sharabi

The Economist: Did You Know (Shift Happens) 4.0

Did You Know 4.0

The Economist and XPLANE have released an update to the Did You Know? Shift Happens series, for The Media Convergence Forum (New York) in October.

They’ve done a fantastic job, it’s as entertaining and insightful as previous versions & its great to see “Did You Know (Shift Happens)” evolve over time.

While I'm posting about The Economist, I just quickly want to hat tip the Economist team at AMV BBDO. They presented their IAB award winning work for Thinking Space at last weeks IAB creative showcase & I was pretty impressed.

Seems that The Economist is on a roll!

Smell Like A Man: Old Spice - "Scents for Gents"

This glorious peice of advertising made me chuckle...

"Scents for Gents", new US Old Spice ad by W&K Portland,

They should run this in the UK - with absolutely no changes.