Honda- Difficult is worth doing

In May 2008, Honda launched the new Accord, the spearhead of their premium challenge to Audi’s A4 and BMW’s 3 series. From proprietary Honda research, they knew that desirability, rather than rationality, was the most influential factor on sales in this specific automotive sector. Unfortunately, Honda’s are known for being reliable, well built and efficient, NOT desirable.

To drive sales in this sector, they had to make the Accord appeal to the heart, not just the head. The target audience is a late 30s VW Golf/Audi A3 owner. They are ambitiously aspirational, with the emphasis on being ambitious, rather than fantasizing about their goals in life, they are not afraid of hard work and effort to get their desired results. They need to be challenged and rewarded for their hard work and effort.

The Honda philosophy is ‘Difficult is Worth Doing’ (DIWD), therefore the media strategy had to deliver the brand philosophy in two ways:

1. Challenge the Audience – seed DIWD concept several weeks before the car was available in dealerships.

2. Reward the Audience – through an emotional pay-off for their hard work in the seeding stage. 4 Creative London United Kingdom kicked off with a series of unbranded communications to launch the concept of DIWD though large format outdoor, cryptic TV spots and optimised search driving the audience to the DIWD blog with a diary of a skydive. Unbranded print and TV ads, with skydiving cues, alluded to an event taking place on TV at 8.10pm, during the week of the event. The reward came with the world’s first ever 3-minute live ad featuring an 18 strong skydive team spelling H,O,N,D and A, in sequence, demonstrating the philosophy behind the new Accord - 'Difficult is Worth Doing’. Desire for Accord – on Honda’s brand tracker, ‘desire’ leapt by a massive 38 points, more than double the client’s target. Desire to view – 200,000 extra people tuned in purely to watch the ad! Desire to talk about - over £2m of PR was generated during the campaign. Desire to find out more – Honda had over 39,000 unique visitors to the DIWD blog prior to the event, with over 4,000 prospects generated. Post event, traffic to Honda’s UK website was an enormous 400% higher than average! Desire to buy – over £1m of new Accord sales were generated in a single weekend. This entry won a Silver at Cannes Lions Lions @2009.

The missing ‘H’ campaign

The target audience were not true football fans but rather the broader group of sports loving Australians who are fickle when it comes to deciding what matches they go to; tending to only make an effort to attend “draw card” games.

The real barrier was that they simply didn't care about Ghana. Ghana was an unknown country at the other end of the earth with no meaning, no personality and no face. Lowe Sydney, Australia had to do something that made them feel connected to the opposition team. Ticket sales had reached a plateau with patriotic Aussies, so any insight that could drive ticket sales with their broader target was considered relevant by the client.

For their target audience, igniting some personality into an opposition team they had never even thought about was a highly novel way to focus their attention on what looked to them like a non-event match.

Their solution was to turn the usual sports marketing paradigm on its head. Rather than focus on garnering support for Australia we focused on making Ghana the focal point. Their idea was to create a fake Ghanaian fan club, intent on spelling the word ‘GHANA’ on their chests.

But due to the lack of Ghanaians in Australia they couldn’t find a fifth member, and were hence missing the “H”.

So they sent them onto the streets of Sydney, where they appealed to the public to attend the game and be their missing “H”. While their idea began as a piece of ambient media, the interest it generated meant that it channeled into other forms of media, such as online blogs and live television e.g. interviews on national news programmes.

In just 24 hours the Ghanaians’ appeal snowballed into a national TV news story, with interviews on various morning shows and primetime news segments around the country. They were also the topic of discussion on numerous blog sites around the globe and in under 48 hours the Ghanaians had been exposed to hundreds of thousands of people, giving the FFA $250,000 worth of media value for a budget of only $15,000. And all of this translated into a 50% increase in ticket sales in only three days. With the profile of football in Australia still growing, any results that indicated support for the game was immensely important for the FFA, who are currently driving Australia’s bid to host the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

This entry won Gold at Cannes Lions in the Media categoty.

T-Mobile- The Liverpool Dance

T-Mobile’s new brand positioning is “Life’s For Sharing”, based on the insight that the mobile phone helps us share the unexpected things that happen to us everyday with our friends and family. They needed to launch this idea to a broad target audience, with a specific requirement to drive word-of-mouth about T-Mobile.

Their strategy was centered on creating highly-talkable content, building a community around the content, and making it easily shareable using digital and social networks. Saatchi & Saatchi London created a dance event that would give commuters something unexpected to participate in and share, and which would make great content that a much wider audience would want to share with their friends.

They then used a combination of broadcast and on-line, editorial and advertising, to ensure that millions of people joined in with the sharing, creating a genuine word-of-mouth phenomenon. T-Mobile’s new brand positioning is “Life’s For Sharing”, based on the insight that the mobile phone helps us share the unexpected things that happen to us everyday with our friends and family. They needed to launch this idea to a broad target audience, with a specific requirement to drive word-of-mouth about T-Mobile.

Apart from that they also used a combination of broadcast and on-line, editorial and advertising means to ensure that millions of people joined in with the sharing, creating a genuine word-of-mouth phenomenon.

The campaign was a huge success, as Handset sales went up 22% during launch week Store footfall in January was the highest ever for T-Mobile Retargeting people who’d seen the brand ad online with a sales message improved response by a factor of three The viral nature of the dance content ensured that over 10m people viewed online Search volumes on “T-Mobile” went up by 38% during the campaign their YouTube channel had more subscribers than any other in January. This entry won a Silver Cannes Lions Media Winner-09.

Green Works- The reverse graffiti project

Cleaning products were getting a bad ecological rap, and as the inventor and manufacturer of bleach, Clorox was taking the brunt of it. In spite of that fact, Clorox planned to enter these treacherous waters with one of their most important product launches: an eco-friendly, plant-based cleaner called Green Works.

In order to succeed, they would have to reach ecologically-minded thought leaders, the very people leading the charge against toxic cleaners. At the same time, they would need to demonstrate to their current customers that a green cleaner could be just as effective as a traditional cleaner.

Both groups needed to see proof. BBDO West San Francisco, USA.’s idea was to create a larger than life product demo that proved this new product was worthy of its name sake. An event that would show the world that Green Works is green and that it works. For the same,they enticed Paul “Moose” Curtis, pioneer of an art form called “clean tagging” to help realize their vision. Green Works are 99% plant-based, so they had the idea to reverse out a mural of plants and trees. They chose a high-traffic, incredibly dirty location - the entrance to San Francisco's Broadway Tunnel.

The 140-foot wall became the canvas for a live Green Works billboard. The event was covered by local news channels and received press coverage the following day. They commissioned award-winning documentarian Doug Pray to shoot a short film profiling Moose’s artistic philosophy and the creation of the mural.

They developed a dedicated website (reversegraffitiproject.com) to house the documentary and provide people with more information about the event and give them the behind the scenes story. They gave the documentary its début on You Tube for maximum exposure and seeded it in popular social and environmental blogs.

Images of the mural were posted on over 230 blogs around the world. In less than one week the film became YouTube’s #1 Featured Video and received over 500,000 views. With $55,000 USD and one dirty wall they reached millions of people and received media value of $2.1 million resulting in 7.5 million media impressions. They turned negative conversations into influential ones driving a negative tone down to a mere 5% in blog postings.

Within 6 months, Green Works was #1 in the natural cleaning category. Over one year later, the mural is still visible and 20,000+ people view it daily. This entry won a Gold Cannes Lions Media at the 2009 Cannes Lions.

Improving Access to London with 9 new packs from airport and roadside. Media 1st as JCDecaux drives traffic from internet to ‘outernet’

In a move that will dramatically increase access to the London audience in the approach to 2012, JCDecaux London will introduce 9 new advertising networks in London, targeting audiences across the capital and at the airport. Driving word-of-mouth advertising in central London, JCDecaux has created a network dominating Tottenham Court Road that in a media first includes a bus shelter with a live internet link.

With 9 networks targeting consumers wherever they are in London, the campaigns include the prestigious ‘Wealth Pack’ that unites the 4 JCDecaux Towers, the ‘London Spread’, an outstanding campaign of 80 premium billboards, the ‘Square Mile’, the only poster network in the City of London and ‘The Global City Spread’ that includes prime locations at London’s 4 airports and across the capital.

The ‘Tottenham Court Road Domination’ network will bring the internet to the ‘outernet’ with a fixed broadband link on one bus shelter, enabling advertisers to drive consumers to their own website from the highstreet. Reaching 65,000 daily visitors** this 53 site network will drive word-of-mouth advertising in the heart of London’s media, telecoms and design district.

Ranking among the world’s most prestigious advertising networks, the ‘Wealth Corridors’ brings the 4 Tower structures into one powerful campaign, allowing a brand to feature on the iconic locations of the A40 Tower, the M4 Torch, the A3 Tower and the M3 Tower. Seen as the ultimate in outdoor advertising, this ‘Wealth Corridor’ pack will deliver 6.5 million impacts.* The ‘International Capital’ network adds Première 450 airport sites at Heathrow to create a network that reaches an affluent London and international audience.

With the eyes of the world upon London, JCDecaux will introduce ‘The London Spread’, a high-impact, premium, flexible network across the capital with 10 Première 500 billboards (all with halo-lighting), 20 PrimeTime digital screens and 50 day-part 48 sheet scrolling billboards. For clients requiring international audience in the approach to the 2012, ‘The Global City Spread’ reaches passengers at Luton, Heathrow, Stansted and Gatwick and across the capital with flexible digital billboards, daypart scrollers and prestigious Première 500 billboards.

David Lambert, Director of London at JCDecaux said, “These outstanding networks will improve our clients’ access to London in the approach to 2012 – reaching audiences from the airport to the city centre. JCDecaux is continuing to innovate, transforming communications in the capital with investment in 2 new Towers and the introduction of the internet to the ‘outernet’ in Tottenham Court Road. While other media experience their worst audiences in the capital, outdoor consumption is 68% higher than in the rest of the country. With 66% of Londoners seeing a JCDecaux site every day, these networks offer the ideal solution for clients wanting to reach the light-TV viewing London audience.”

The ‘Square Mile’ network uses Première and digital panels on the main routes into the city and StreetTalk phoneboxes in the heart of the city, the only poster sites in the City of London.

The ‘Quick Hit’ network is positioned as “affordable noise”, a, one-week hit using the largest outdoor formats in London, with 30 96-sheets, 10 Première 400s and 3 giant Première 1000s.

Using JCDecaux’s FastForward hub, JCDecaux can offer this blockbusting pack designed especially for film launches, weekend sales and time-sensitive promotions.

The ‘En Vogue’ network will target high-spending, trend-savvy individuals with sites in proximity to London’s top 5 shopping destinations, from the West End to Westfield and Terminal 5 while ‘Heathrow to Harrods’ will allow brands to dominate the M/A4 corridor with key sites on roadside and at Heathrow airport.

StreetTalk with new appointment, new sites, new networks, new telecoms brands, new rapid posting service

June 2009, In a move that will strengthen StreetTalk’s position as the key outdoor choice for youth brands, JCDecaux has appointed Lucinda Sharp as Group Head, StreetTalk. Lucinda’s appointment comes as JCDecaux increases the StreetTalk portfolio, opens up the medium to telecoms brands and in a move set to transform StreetTalk, brings the FastFoward rapid posting service to phonebox advertisers.

Lucinda joins JCDecaux UK from Australia where she was Senior Account Manager. Before joining JCDecaux Lucinda spent 3 years at ZenithOptimedia in Australia and at Starcom Motive in the UK.

As the latest Postar figures show, JCDecaux added 5000 phoneboxes to the StreetTalk portfolio in May, bringing the total to 25,000. The demand for StreetTalk is set to be further increased with BT’s decision that mobile phones and all service providers can be carried on the medium for the first time.

In groundbreaking move, the increasing demand for StreetTalk has led JCDecaux to extend the FastForward hub service to StreetTalk for the first time. Using this service, a national phonebox campaign can be booked, printed and posted within 48 hours, enabling time-sensitive campaigns that would traditionally have gone to the press to be carried.

Spencer Berwin, Managing Director - Sales said, “Lucinda’s appointment reflects the growing importance of StreetTalk as a brand that targets the younger demographics in urban areas. StreetTalk’s brand count has doubled, our sites have increased by 5000 and we can offer flexible and rapid posting within 48 hours. These changes demonstrate that StreetTalk has come of age – this is a tremendous achievement for a brand that is only two years old.”

As a result of the investment in FastForward, StreetTalk is now able to offer highly bespoke campaigns that can be weather and temperature reactive and can carry time-sensitive creatives linked to special events such as summer festivals and dates such as Father’s Day. This rapid posting service will be particularly powerful for clients using the StreetTalk CTN network, in which newsagents in proximity to StreetTalk sites receive targeted mailings through StreetTalk’s unique partnership with Newsdropnetwork.

Since StreetTalk’s launch in 2007, its client list has more than doubled, with 131 clients in its inaugural year, 260 clients in 2008 and over 70 so far in 2009.

Crime scene: Gum bleeding can kill your teeth

The brief was to educate people that gum bleeding is a serious problem and can lead to losing teeth. Introduce Paradontax as preventive toothpaste for this problem. Grey Budapest, Hungary created a miniature crime-scene where in the outline of a murdered tooth is framed by the well-known Crime Scene band.

Braun PocketGo

BBDO Dusseldorf, Germany was asked to show how MediMax carries Braun PocketGo shavers in an interesting and memorable way. Stickers were positioned on the floors of buses and trams within the joints separating the cars of each section. When the bus or tram made any changes in direction, the shaver moved up and down which made the shaver look as if it were shaving the face. This fun and engaging idea increased sales by 17% and created a citywide buzz.

Nokia Ovi- Your files. Where-ever

JWT Sydney/New Zealand developed a very unique and simple ambient concept to target young students in and around Sydney university campuses to increase awareness of Ovi as Nokia’s service platform which allows you to access your files anytime, anywhere. Each poster created the trompe l’oeil effect of a filing cabinet drawer opening out a wall. The idea dramatized the campaign idea- ‘Your files. Where-ever”.


Credits:
Client: Nokia Ovi
Agency- JWT Sydney
Creatives- Andrew Fraser, Executive Creative Director,
Mark Young, Creative Group Head,
Jordan Young, Art Director
Country: Australia

Get a world view- The Economist

As part of a national brand campaign from BBDO New York being rolled throughout the year, The Economist is targeting cities throughout the U.S. with events and out of home installations that seek to remind and/or introduce the brand as a compelling read for the intellectually curious.

Credits-
Client: The Economist
Agency- BBDO New York
Creatives- Bill Bruce & David Lubars- Chief Creative Officers, BBDO
James Clunie, Art Director, BBDO
Country- USA

Subway in Tunnel Advertising gives Indian Outdoor a new direction

Now you see it, now you don’t! when you ride in a subway metro car, gazing out the window, suddenly, like a hallucination, an animated advertising scene flashes outside your window as soon as the metro-train crosses a tunnel. It’s not your imagination. Outdoor advertising in India has found a new print direction -- subway in-tunnel advertising. Encyclomedia gives India’s first ever fully exploited tunnel advertising.


Intro:

It is common experience for most of us traveling in a lift or bus or a train to stare out of the window, at nothing. In a confined space, where people are forced to concede personal spaces, their discomfort makes them avoid looking at each other. Capitalizing on this fact Encyclomedia once again comes out with a media first- a cracker of an innovation for Sprite Xpress, the new 350ML packaging initiative of Coca Cola India this time around with the collaboration with Delhi based Sub Media India.

The Story:

After a successful outdoor campaign for the launch of Sprite Xpress, Encyclomedia & Submedia India have executed this innovation for the brand in the Delhi Metro. The dark tunnel where the train passes through is where this innovation took place. The technology consists of two sets of processes – one a specially designed display box, which houses the images, frame-by-frame placed next to one another; and -the other process consists of changing images in such a manner that when installed in the displays and watched by a moving audience, they appear moving without any blur or distortions.

As. A. Rabindranath, CEO, Sub Media India, explains the technology and its origin, he says, “Our displays boards in the tunnel requires a 1 meter by 1 half meter of print, which gets magnified up-to 8 times when viewed from a distant in a compartment of a moving metro-train. The concept of in-tunnel advertising was inspired by a Zoetrope- a 19th –Century optical toy that spun a picture inside a circular frame.”

“It’s a natural environment for our kind of advertising, because you have a captive

audience of thousands of passengers who are looking for something to do. Our light boxes captivate their attention. And the really good part is that there are more city-transit riders each year. Now Instead of sitting in a theater or at home watching images projected on a screen, subway passengers can move past display boxes and see a brief commercial “ adds, Rabindranath.

Under-standing the process

The design of the boxes incorporates variables like speed of the train, distance of the viewers etc. The ‘software’ consists of modifying the images in manner consistent with the above variables. Both of these together, along with the moving audience creates the ‘motion picture’ effect. This technology usually plays Television commercial films but Encyclomedia took this innovation to another level when they designed and rendered a 15 second animation for Sprite Xpress which had the new and improved 350ML bottle doing all sorts of outdoor sports such as skate boarding , surfing etc.


This animation was then broken frame by frame thereby making 280 frames which was then used for the described innovation. This being achieved, when the train passed through the tunnel, the people inside the train could see a short animation film on the walls of the tunnel which had the new and improved 350ML bottle skate boarding, surfing and breaking through glass panels.

Coca-cola official, says, "The Coca-Cola Company has used the in-tunnel advertising medium in different parts of the world to great effect. This is a powerful graphic medium targeting scores of captive passengers in an innovative manner. The Delhi Metro activity between the Kashmiri Gate and Chandni Chowk station has successfully helped us reinforce the on-the-go functionality of the Sprite Xpress Pack in an impactful and interesting manner."


Mukesh Manik, M-I-C, Encyclomedia Networks, says, “The media is very powerful and running a TVC on it would dilute the potential impact that this medium can create. We created a customized content for this media and the results are beyond expectations. The captive audience is entertained and the recall levels are very high.”

With tunnel advertising medium coming into being, and transit authorities in the capital becoming comfortable, the process has given a new meaning to the “light at the end of the tunnel.” Sign display media has found a new home.

Allan Gray- Patience is our virtue

Allan Gray is one of South Africa's leading long term investment firms King James Cape Town brief was to illustrate their philosophy which is one of patience and perseverance.

Credits:
Client: Allan Gray
Agency: King James Cape Town
Creatives-Alistair King, Executive Creative Director & Karin Barry-McCormack, Art Director
Country- South Africa