Norton - Top Result

Norton, the provider of internet security tools has launched a great new initiative, Top Result.  Developed by Naked Communications in Stockholm the campaign allows users control the first impression they make when people search for them online.  The idea builds off the insight that first impressions no longer happen in person and that often people do some digital sleuthing before meeting someone in person.  Top Result allows people to protect their reputation by securing their own search results and hopefully ensure that their result shows up first when a search is done for their name.  Unlike reputation management sites which attempt to influence the actual organic search results when searching for your name, Norton results simply buys AdWords for each user & foots the bill for those paid search ads.  You simply go to the Norton Top Search website and enter their name and then basically create a standard Google AdWords Ad.  You can then choose a link such as your Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn page and then see a preview of how the search result will appear.  In order to make sure that nobody is hijacking another person's identity, you're required to verify your identity via Facebook.

It really is a brilliant idea and one that solves a legitimate concern from users about the lack of control of their online identity.  As Contagious points out: 'Norton's Top Results campaign is a perfect example of a trend Contagious coined - Marketing as Service Design - with the brand aligning its core values of security, trust and protection with a simple but effective digital tool. The brand has matched an unmet need with its core brand values, and is executing that in a way that uses the existing technology in a smart way. Using Google's ad spaces is a cheap, elegant solution that taps existing media and infrastructure and puts them to great use rather than trying to build its own website.'

Additional Articles: Contagious | Mashable

La Casa Eco & Sodimac - Skip This Behavior

As skippable pre-roll advertising becomes more and more prevalent, it's fascinating to see the emergence of clever ways to leverage the format.  In particular I've seen more and more advertisers creating skippable pre-roll advertising that somehow incorporates the 'Skip This Ad' button that appears on YouTube TrueView ads.  The latest and perhaps most clever execution comes from La Casa Eco & Sodimac in Chile.  Developed by Mayo Digital, the pre-roll aims to raise awareness about bad ecological habits and do it in just a few seconds.  For example, as the pre-roll starts an infographic type image is shown with the message:

'With that lightbulb that stayed on all day, you could've washed three full loads of laundry.

If you want to change this habit, the first change begins at home.'

A visual call out in the form of a pointer encourages users to click the 'Skip This Behavior' button.  Once a viewer clicked on the button they were redirected to a site packed with various ecological tips.  The result was that over 80,000 Chileans chose to 'skip a behavior' over the course of one week.  Very nicely done.  Check out the case study below.

via Adi Ziv-AV

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.

Grolsch - Big, Bold Journt

I recently came across this campaign on the fantastic Digital Buzz Blog.  It's a campaign by Grolsch (developed by BMB agency) that promised to be a true multi-screen experience.  There seem to be more and more campaigns that are truly multi-screen experiences where the TV spot just becomes the teaser for the rest of the campaign.  The real substance and essence of the experience lies in digital.  This campaign promises just that, viewers of the TV commercial are introduced to the character Journt, a policeman that demonstrates that character speaks louder than words.  Users who go to the Grolsch UK site are invited to share a beer with Journt.  Text him your name and if Journt recognizes the name he'll reward you by buying you a beer.  Literally you'll get a text back with a  a coupon for a 4-pack of Grolsch and a store finder that shows the nearest shop to claim your Grolsch.  It's a great idea and great way to tie together the awareness from TV with SMS, online video and mobile activity to ultimately drive foot fall in store.

Unfortunately the TV commercial doesn't include an obvious call to action or information about what viewers can expect (eg. free beer!) at the Grolsch UK website.  Unless you're one of those people who go to the URL at the end of every commercial, it's unlikely that a great number of people were pushed to spend further time with the brand by viewing the TV commercial.  Too bad really as it's a very nice idea.  Check out the case study below.

Gotye - Somebodies: A YouTube Orchestra

Gotye's song 'Somebody That I Used To Know' seemingly took over the world and the Internet awhile back.  Besides being played everywhere that had a set of speakers, it also resulted in an innumerable amount of interpretations and cover videos (just search on YouTube for 'Somebody that I used to know.').  In a very meta moment, Gotye has created their own mashup of all the fan-made cover versions to produce 'Sombodies: A YouTube Orchestra.'  As Gotye says: 'Reluctant as I am to add to the mountain of interpretations of Somebody That I Used To Know seemingly taking over their own area of the internet, I couldn't resist the massive remixability that such a large, varied yet connected bundle of source material offered.

'

It's almost like a snake eating it's own tail...an internet meme that's turned inward to devour itself.  Bizarre.  This was directly inspired by the one of the founding fathers of the video mashup, Kutiman and his iconic 'Thru-You' project.  Somebodies is a beautifully done piece of video and a nice way to highlights the breadth of creativity from both Gotye and the various fans who took the time to create their own versions of the song.  Check it out below (and apologies for resurfacing a song that's likely been stuck in your head and heard thousands of times already in the past year).

Public Enemy - Paralympics Harder Than You Think

Right, I swear this will be the last Olympic post.  You may remember a few weeks back I posted an amazing (as in one of the best commercials I've ever seen) Paralympic commercial fromn UK broadcaster, Channel 4. You can see that post here.  The spot, Meet The Superhumans, used Public Enemy's 'Harder Than You Think' as the musical backdrop to the rousing and emotional spot.  The song has also been used as the theme throughout Channel 4's coverage of the games.  The commercial has received amazing press and has launched the Public Enemy song onto the UK charts despite being released five years ago.  Impressed by the games and the coverage, Public Enemy decided to cut a Paralympic version of the video and full song.  As Chuck D said 'These athletes are about self-empowerment and determination. Doing what they do is harder than you think.'  Check it out below.

via David Anderson

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

Volkswagen - Street Quest

I don't know if it's just an American thing, but I have vivid (and often painful) memories of long car trips playing punch buggy with my brother.  Note: for those of you who have never heard of Punch Buggy; it's a children's game where whoever spots a VW beetle first shouts 'punch buggy, no punch backs' and gets to punch the arm of the person next to them.  See wiki entry here.  Now Volkswagen South Africa & Ogilvy Cape Town have created a contest that brings Punch Buggy into the digital world (minus the pain)

The campaign features a nice integration of Google Street View & Facebook.  Over the course of a month, users are challenged to find and pin as many VWs as they can find on South African  roads in Google Street View.  Each week, the user who pins the most will be flown to Cape Town for a final showdown with the other winners.  They'll then go forth into the real world to spot the most VWs to win the grand prize.  See below for more details or have a play for yourself here.