Project Re:Brief - Re-imagining classic ads for the modern web.

Quite simply, Project Re:Brief may be my favorite project to come out of Google.  Despite the fact that we're in the midst of a revolution in display, video and mobile advertising, many people still question whether these new advertising mediums can tell an emotional story or build brands.  Project Re:Brief answers that question by taking four of America's most iconic advertising campaigns and re-imagining them for the web.  The blog post announcing the launch of Project Re:Brief explains it more eloquently than I can:

This year, digital advertising turns 18. Over nearly two decades, waves of innovation have transformed the medium—it’s come a long way since the blinking banner ads of the early Internet. But we think the most exciting changes are still to come, as marketers and agencies increasingly embrace technology to enable new types of creativity, and build online ads that don’t simply inform, but delight and engage their audience. 
For example, what if an online ad could bring together two strangers on opposite sides of the globe? Or let you follow a real-life adventure as it unfolds? We wanted to find out. So we started an experiment, both to celebrate 18 years of online innovation, and to link advertising’s digital future to its storied past: Project Re: Brief. 
We started with four iconic ad campaigns from the 1960s and ‘70s from Alka-Seltzer, Avis, Coca-Cola and Volvo, each considered groundbreaking in its day. The advertising legends who made the original ads then came out of retirement to rethink their original “brief,” this time, using the full range of technological tools at their disposal, to reach consumers in today’s digitally connected world.

I highly, highly, highly encourage you to go to the Project Re:Brief and watch the videos, but more importantly experience new ads (and the original) for yourself.  In fact, I just sent a Coke to You can check out the intro video below:


You can see how the re-imagined Coca-cola Hilltop ad works below.  Amazing!  It really brings to life what can happen at the intersection of technology and creativity.

Supporting Articles: New York Times | Fast Co. | Mashable

Two Compelling PSAs - OCD & Alzheimers

Here are a couple of recent PSA's that have really impressed me.  No, I'm not talking about KONY.

The first PSA is from the Obsessive Compulsive Foundation.  Developed by McCann Digital Israel, it compels you to repeatedly watch the video to get the message.  It's a nice way to demonstrate what people afflicted with obsessive compulsive disorder must go through on a day to day basis to complete even simple tasks.


The second PSA is from The Alzheimer Society of British Columbia.  Created by Rethink Canada in support of Brain Awareness Week (who knew such a thing even existed).  In this beautiful spot, we're taken through a lifetime of memories seen through the lens of neural imaging.  The spot urges the audience to protect memories and support Alzheimer's research.  Watch it below, and then watch it again. Seriously.


Supporting Articles:  AdFreak | AgencySpy

Gap Geo-Fencing Campaign

In what's sure to be a much more common media play, Gap (in conjunction with out of home agency, Titan) just wrapped up a campaign that combined standard bus & transit ads with geo-fenced mobile display ads.  For those of you who may not be familiar with geo-fencing, it's essentially a virtual perimeter in a real-world area.  In this case, the mobile display ads utilised the location based services standard in smartphones/tablets to establish that users were within the geo-fenced area.  Here's how it worked, people in NYC, San Francisco & Chicago saw standard posters for Gap, but smartphone/tablet users within a specific area around the posters also saw mobile display ad offering Gap coupons if they were on particular sites or playing various games from Zynga, such as Words With Friends.

Dave Etherington, Titan’s senior vice president of marketing and mobile, says that 'The lines are kind of blurring,' he says. 'You’re only a click away now from rich brand experiences and purchases.'  He went on to say that Gap & Titan were pleased with the results which has a noticeable, but unspecified, sales uplift.  Additionally, 'the campaign, which ran from Feb 20 to March 6, delivered 2.5 million impressions, with a 0.93 percent click-through rate.'

It's a really nice way to enhance the efficacy of standard outdoor ads and I love the potential that geo-fencing and other mobile technologies are starting to offer as a way to bridge the digital and offline to provide true cross-platform experiences.

As eConsultancy pointed out, we'd need to know more about the campaign before passing judgement, were the posters near actual Gap stores?  Were the results skewed due to it being an offer?  No

Supporting articles: PSFK | TechCrunch | eConsultancy

Parrot AR Drone Remote Control Banner

The Parrot AR.Drone, in my humble opinion, is probably the coolest toy/gadget on the market.  They've done a fantastic job showing off the capabilities and experience of the drone through various media, primarily Youtube videos (see their channel here).  A recent rich media campaign developed by Beacon Tokyo takes things a step further in bringing the user closer to the actual experience of piloting a Parrot AR.Drone.  In a media bridging exercise, a user is prompted to scan a QR code in the interactive banner.  That then triggers their smartphone to act as a controller for a virtual AR.Drone on your screen.  You can then fly around, shoot at the site, which eventually collapses and prompts the user to watch more demo videos or go off to Facebook or Twitter.  Take a look in the video below.  Reminds me of the Doubleclick media bridging Christmas card/demo, Snowball Fight.


Again, just a really nice way of bringing users closer to the actual product experience and showing rather than just telling.

UPDATE: You can experience it for yourself here:
http://ardrone.gallery-site.net/

Supporting Articles: Contagious | Adverblog

Puma Social - Live Life, Don't Watch It

Let me first say, I haven't a clue what Puma Social is...from what I can tell it's an amalgamation of their various social activity plus some ER stuff and an umbrella for their Lifestyle/Youth outreach.  But you know what, it doesn't really matter...what matters is the message they're putting out in the video below.

A Puma describes it in the video itself
'With the rapid rise of reality television, more and more people seem content to spend time watching life on television, instead of actually living one themselves. Elevating those who fight, backstab and cheat into celebrities and role models. Something has got to change. So for the latest PUMA Social release we are offering people a choice: do they want their nights to be spent staring at televised strangers, or do they want them to be more? A time when they live life, instead of just watching it. Where reality stars are replaced by teammates. The 90-second film juxtaposes a slew of reality television audio clips with visuals of life being played. It celebrates those who choose to ignore the banality of today's reality television climate, in favor of creating their own stories with friends and teammates. Furthermore, the film encourages those of us not out already, to get off the couch. Because in the end, life deserves to be played, and channel surfing is not a sport.'


AMEN.  Seriously, I couldn't agree more.  Our own friends and live are far more interesting than the vapid half-wits on reality shows.  That said, I'll vegetate for hours watching whatever HBO decides is worthy of airing, but that's not the point.  OK, that's the end of my rant.  Overall really nice work by Droga5 & a great way for Puma to send out a strong, inspiring message with a clear call to action.

via Nicola Young

Happy (Belated) St. Patricks Day...

...but that's really just an excuse to post the hilarious Guinness - Round Up Your Mates video.

via Andrew Bent

Subaru - First Car Story

Anyone who drives remembers their first car.  Now Subaru and its creative agency, Carmichael Lynch, are tapping into the emotion and memories of loving (or hating) your first car in a new integrated campaign for the new 2012 Subaru Impreza.  The hub of the campaign is FirstCarStory.com features an amazing animation/video generator that allows users to recreate the story of their first car through bespoke animation, music, text and voiceover.  The site then generates a really cool custom animated short story, which of course are sharable via users social networks.

"Everyone loved their first car, no matter how bad, beat up, or borrowed. That first car became a new chapter in life or a ticket to freedom and first car stories are often the most memorable stories we have," said Alan Bethke, director, marketing communications, Subaru of America.  "The First Car Story campaign provides a creative outlet for reliving those unique, funny, unforgettable car experiences anyone who had a first car can relate to."

It's really worth playing with the site to get a full sense of what you can do.  I love the idea of turning phrases or words that the user types in the story as a way to trigger a library of animations (ie. typing in pulled over by the cops triggers an animation in the video with sirens and handcuffs.)  Another cool aspect is the ability to tag friends in the video, since many of our stories, memories, etc. from our first car include shared experiences with friends from yesteryear.  FirstCarStory.com really takes the idea of creating bespoke and personalized content for the user a step further.  All in all, just a great branded content tool to provide utility and entertainment to the user.

This really hits home for me, since I loved my first car, a beat up old, white '79 Buick Lesabre, so I took a stab at creating my own video, which you can see below.


Here's a story mashup that Subaru created to illustrate the tool.


Supporting Articles: Creativity

Peugeot - Let Your Body Drive

To promote the idea that the new Peugeot 208 is like an extension of your body, BETC Euro RCSG developed an interactive Youtube experience/video entitled 'Let Your Body Drive.'  According to Peugeot, the new 208 'has been designed to be perfectly in tune with the driver's body: more intuitive, more sensation, more stimulation. It allows the body to express itself fully, and the new interactive film perfectly illustrates this'.

That of course, tells you nothing about what exactly 'Let Your Body Drive' is all about.  Simply put, it's a choose-your-own-adventure story using Youtube annotations.  You're put in the shoes of a naked dude who's just been caught cheating on his girlfriend and is basically wandering the streets in his birthday suit.  Choose correctly and you get back together with her.  Choose poorly and...well you get the chance to play again.

The story is well done and amusing throughout.  Respect to them for not hitting the user over the head with Peugeot 208 branding/messaging throughout the experience.  From a more technical perspective it's nice that the experience takes place within a single video.  Many choose-your-own-adventure type executions using Youtube annotations pop the user off to a separate, unlisted video at each decision point.  That's great in terms of protecting the story flow, but from what I've seen there's significant drop off/bounce when users are taken to a separate video, rather than jumping another point within the same video.

'Let Your Body Drive' is part of a larger digital & ATL campaign that's currently running.  The interactive video is also nicely integrated into the new Peugeot 208 campaign site, which houses previous interactive experiences and promotions for the 208.

Have a play around yourself by going to their Youtube channel or see below.

via my colleague Inga Spitzer

The Coca Cola Video Puzzle

At this point one would hope that every advertiser is putting their TV commercials online in a branded environment.  Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean that people want to watch or in any way interact with those commercials, though a healthy dose of paid media to drive viewership and awareness certainly helps.

More importantly, how do you get them do more than just watch your ad?  In other words, how do you get them to go from a passive viewer to actually DOING something.  This work from e-dologic Israel provides a nice solution.  They developed a Facebook app that turns the spot itself a video puzzle that users need to piece together (with the opportunity to win prizes of course!).  I took a crack at it, which you can see in action below.


It's also worth checking out the case study below for some impressive results.  More than 350,000 views, but incredibly users who took part watched the ad 23 times on average!

Supporting Articles:  Simply Zesty | Digital Buzz Blog

BGH Air Conditioners - Dads In Briefs

I adore this spot for BGH Air Conditioners from Del Campo Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi, but it also gives me cringeworthy flashbacks to my own childhood experiences.

So how do you sell air conditioners in a humorous way in the middle of Argentinian summer?  Appeal to the visual violation that results from a non-air conditioned house with a middle aged Dad...hence the horror that many of us have surely experienced 'Dad's In Briefs.'

via No10 Buzzilla's Blog