Three - The Dancing Pony

Three is a UK-based mobile provider fighting for market share in a crowded and competitive environment.  Their most recent campaign, developed by Wieden + Kennedy London has absolutely blown up on UK television and the Interwebs.  'The Pony' is a truly delightful commercial and has been great in terms of generating awareness (though one could argue about the strength of the association with Three vs. just the Pony).

What's been interesting to me is to see how Three & W+K have extended on the TV commercial in the digital space, as well as taking the digital activity and feeding that back into TV.  If you haven't already seen it, check out 'The Pony' ad below before reading on.


In terms of driving digital activity, Three have created 'The Pony Mixer' which sends users to the Three YouTube channel where they can create their own bespoke version of the Dancing Pony, complete with various visual effects and a wealth of iconic songs to choose from.  That's a fantastic way to deepen the experience for users who are willing to go beyond just a passive view of the video.  You can check out the trailer for the Pony Mixer below.  There's also a heavy Twitter component around the hashtag #DancePonyDance, which generated 14,000 tweets within five hours of the video being uploaded and has continued to be active throughout the life of the campaign.
 

Lastly, Three have also taken the best of of the user generated videos created via The Pony Mixer along with the associated tweets and are running those as follow up TV commericals.  These include versions such as the Bollywood Pony, the Punk Pony and my personal favorite, the Hip-Hop Pony (see below)

Taken together the work from W+K London is just a fantastic example of how various channels can work together in a way that allows each component to extend and amplify the overall campaign.

Also worth noting that, the Poke have created their own hilarious version (not via the Pony Mixer) of the Dancing Pony called the Findus Pony.  For those of you outside of the UK, Findus is one of the brands/vendors caught up in the recent Horsemeat Scandal.

hat tip: Bobby Nolla & Adrian Dent


Posted by: Reuben Halper

Two Nice Uses Of UGC From Brands - AT&T and EE

EE is the name the recently launched 4G brand from the owner of Orange and T-Mobile.  They & their agency, Poke, have leveraged the huge UK viral hit Fenton (JESUS CHRIST IN RICHMOND PARK) as part of their comms around the speed of their 4G network.  They've taken the original video and 'Remastered it' in epic form.  Users can switch between the original video and the “Fenton 4GEE Remaster” on the EE YouTube channel.  The premise is that everything on YouTube looks amazing on the EE 4G network.  The video will also be featured in the EE retail stores and feature heavily across all of the 4GEE digital activity.  Whether the remastered version actually demonstrates the speed of their network is up to you to decide, but it's a clever way to leverage the success of the UK phenomenon that was Fenton.


AT&T (another telecom company in the US) is also using UGC to promote their 4G network.  In this case, AT&T (and their agency, BBDO NY) took a piece of user generated content that had been making the rounds on YouTube called 'Hello' and used it as the premise for their latest TV commercial.    In the original video was from a high school football scrimmage and showed a player doing a flip over a defender.  As the video description says:

'Hello" demonstrates an amazing moment being shared across the country on the nation's largest 4G network, AT&T. It starts as an amazing football play seen by a few people. But once posted, it becomes a moment the entire country can enjoy, and something that builds to an introduction our hero will never forget.'
Personally I find this a much more believable use of UGC in a branded context as it naturally reflects the way that people view, share and discover new content while also positioning AT&T in the middle as the facilitator/service provider through their 4G network.

OXY - Man Sized Problems

Warning, this might be is the most disgusting ad you'll ever see.  Oxy face wash and their agency, Naked Communications, wanted to reach the 13-18 year old male audience and convey just how bad pimples can get if left untreated.  To reach their audience in an authentic way, they compiled a number of Youtube clips and assembled them together to demonstrate just how a pimple can turn into a 'Man Sized Problem' and therefore why they should be using Oxy face wash.  As Adam Ferrier of Naked Communications says:

"The idea came from the simple insight that guys like watching videos of guys squeezing big pimples. It speaks to our target much more authentically than the glossy, cheesy work of Oxy’s big spending competitors. We believe this work will result in mass trial of the brand, and change consumer behaviour towards Oxy."


As someone who spends an ungodly amount of time on YouTube, I found that insight surprising (perhaps even questionable), but then again I'm not exactly the target audience.


via Buzzfeed & Randy Matheson

McDonald's - Mein Burger

It's always nice to see examples of crowd-sourcing and co-creation done right.  To be fair, it's hard to do those types of campaign in a way that doesn't feel gimmicky and benefits both the user and the advertiser.  The 'Mein Burger' campaign comes from Razorfish Germany to celebrate the 40th anniversary of McDonald's in that country.  The competition invited users to create their own burger via the 'Burger configurator' with the winning creations chosen by public vote and eventually appearing on the McDonald's menu.  It's all about the execution in this case as Razorfish created a compelling experience for users to generate their own bespoke burger creation.  Perhaps more importantly, they also provided the tools to for users promote their burger creation and encourage their friends, as well as the general public, to vote for the eventual winners.  The winners not only had their Burger creation added to the menu, but also starred in their own McDoanld's TV commercial.  Check out the case study below.


Oh yeah, the eventual winner was the Preztelnator, a burger with ham, italian cheese, american cheese and pretzel-like bun.  Sounds...errr...interesting.

Additional Articles: Laughing Squid

P&G - Thank You Mom

Wieden + Kennedy have kicked off the P&G 'Thank You, Mom' campaign with the beautifully shot and evocative film 'Best Job' which was directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu (Babel, Biutiful, 21 Grams + the Nike 'Write The Future' spot from 2010).  The film shows different Moms around the world nurturing their kids throughout the years as they move toward their moment of Olympic glory.  Check it out below.


The spot is just the first step in a much larger campaign from P&G leading into the Olympics and further extends the Thank You, Mom campaign that they ran for the 2010 Olympics.  In addition to the above spot, P&G is also encouraging the general public to say 'Thank You, Mom' and let her know you appreciate her.  You can submit your story through video, images or just a brief few words to let your Mom know you care.  So go check it out on the P&G Youtube channel and Facebook page.

Additional Articles: Adverblog | AgencySpy | W+K London blog

Hungry Jack's (aka Burger King) - The $5 Experiment

Hungry Jack's is the Australian equivalent/subsidiary of Burger King.  They want to promote their $5 Stunner value meal and the idea that you can get great value for $5.  So Hungry Jack's and their agency (BBDO Sydney) decided to run the $5 Stunner experiment to see if they could source all the elements for a 30-second TV spot through the services site Fiverr.  For those of you who may not be familiar with Fiverr, they bill themselves as 'the world's largest marketplace for small services, starting at $5.'  On Fiverr, you can hire people to do various odd jobs for you, including various creative services large and small.

Check out the description from Hungry Jack's & the video below:
'You've asked for it, so the $4.95 Stunner is back.  And to prove just what great value the Stunner is for $5; we've successfully made a Stunner TV ad, where each element costs just $5.  We used a website called Fiverr to find the elements we needed from people all over the world.  We also asked our Facebook fans for a photo of their dog, and we ended up choosing Axel, a lovely dog from Western Australia, to star in the ad. His face was animated for (you guessed it!) just $5 on the Fiverr website.
This is the end result - we hope you like it!'


It's a really interesting initiative (my soul dies a little bit every time I have to use the phrase 'crowd-sourcing' or 'co-creation) and it will be interesting to see if other brands embrace this format moving forward.  One of the constant issues with UGC-type of campaigns is tapping into the 'Why?' of user participation.  What's the motivation/incentive to participate, especially when it's not necessarily the user in front of the camera or actually featured in the TV campaign?  In this case, the user is actually getting paid, so that eliminates much of the incentive dilemma.  Of course it opens up an entirely different debate about agency compensation models, eg. the whole Victors & Spoils crowd-sourcing debate.

Supporting Articles: Fiverr Blog | Digital Examples