The Good Call Centre – Fosters

A nice campaign that interacts with you and your friends to keep the party going by calling them out.

http://fosters.co.uk/goodcallcentre

One of the best honesty experiments. NAB – The Honesty Experiment

Something for all the runners out there

All you runners would have loved this.
Winner of a silver for Promo & Activation lions.

Bronze in Titanium & Integrated.

In line with Nike’s curent global campaign #makeitcount, Nike created an online auction site where instead of bidding money, you bid your Nike+ kms for exclusive products.

Not a bad way to demonstrate that their efforts have not been in vain.

 

AirTime: Chat Roulette for Facebook – 2/5 rating

The latest venture from the Napster founders aims to bring a lil bit of excitement back into the world of social media. At a time when most people are facing some form of FOMO due to the lack of excitement currently happening online (quite sad really that we have to rely on others to create our own excitement) this couldn’t come at a better time.

Or so it seems.

While most people in Asia would have a hard time getting to grips with it, our western counterparts will surely enjoy and ravel in it just like Chat Roulette. However how long before it becomes another Chat Roulette?

The problem with ventures like these is that it is easy to replace as it is based on the idea of offering a sense of serendipity, but while talking to strangers to some is a nice thing, to most they prefer to keep their identities locked away and only opened for those that they know.

Just like how Chat Roulette became a place for indecent behaviour, where there is no enforcement and restrictions it will soon follow.

I give this a start-up rating of 2/5. Simply because I don’t see it scaling to the East and can be easily replaced by other ventures that offer an element of a social surprise.

The KPOP evolution in Singapore

Came across this great video that looks into how KPOP came about in Singapore and how its grown. Some very interesting finds such as seasonal trends in terms of when female and male artists are more dominant and how the group must have diversity in order to capture a larger audience.

Although slightly old it does still give anyone who doesn’t know much about KPOP some good background information.

All credit has to go to the makers of this that obviously spent hours and hours finding out about KPOP.

P P P P Power! – Old Spice

Watched this today morning and couldn’t help but laugh at the direction that Old Spice is going. Would it make me buy Old Spice? Probably not but I’m definitely going to spend an extra second looking at it when buying my deodorant because I like it.

 

LG: Fashion Industry Vacuum Cleaner Viral

Thought I would start the morning by sharing with everyone the new viral from LG. Simple and a nice continuation from their print campaign.

The making of a mascot

Each one of us can probably recollect our earliest memories of mascots that we would chase after. Poor sods. Always got a beating from the kids. My personal favourite was Tony the tiger who appeared on the Kellogg’s Frosties pack.

But mascots just like a logo play an integral part in building a brand. Today morning I caught the daily morning talk show round-ups and one guest was from the 2012 Olympics and he was talking about their mascots. Odd looking creatures but none-the-less their objective is similar to everyone elses. Improve recall, spread the the message of the brand and build a stronger relationship with people.

Now I’m sure most of you know the following mascots:

1. Ronald McDonald
2. Joe Camel
3. The Marlbourough Man
4. Mickey Mouse
5. Energizer Bunny
6. M&Ms
7. Kool Aid man
8. Colonel Sanders
9. Quicky the bunny
10. Michelin Man

But do you know the 2012 Olympic mascots? Cue Wenlock & Mandeville.

Odd looking creatures. While public sentiment on the creatures are at an all time low, when we break them apart we actually see that there is more to Wenlock & Mandeville.

First, the names, which might ring a few geographical bells: Wenlock is named after the Shropshire town of Much Wenlock where, in the mid-19th century, the Wenlock Games became the inspiration for the modern Olympic movement.

Mandeville’s name is derived from Stoke Mandeville, in Buckinghamshire, home to Stoke Mandeville Hospital. In the 1940s, Dr Ludwig Guttmann came to the hospital to set up a spinal unit. Looking for ways to inspire the soldiers in his care he established the Stoke Mandeville Games, widely recognised as a forerunner to the modern Paralympics.

The characters are said to have been fashioned from the last drops of steel left over from the final support girder of the Olympic stadium in Stratford, East London.The one-eyed figures were created by London-based creative agency Iris, whose clients include Wonderbra and Argos.

The duo have been given their own story, written by author Michael Morpurgo which has been turned into an animated film.

They also get their own website, and even individual Twitter and Facebook pages.

But while all of this has been done to create a mascot, one might feel that they overcomplicated it. It’s a mascot that people will find difficult to resonate with due to the abnormalities in its creation.

But while it won’t be an instant hit, it will garner rememberence as it is definitely unique. But whether or not it garners good will shall be interesting to watch.

Funneling through to magic

I first saw this approach with the Tom Hanks narrated Ipad 2 commercial. A peice of advertising brilliance because when you actually remove everything that is functional, you truly are left with something that our brains can’t comprehend…or atleast most of us can’t.

Now FedEx have done the same by making their mission look simpler.

To me it does make it simpler. Too many times have I seen the million messages in 1 campaign. It’s time we take out the fluff no one wants to hear and make the point clearer.

Comprende?

It’s nice when you come across something good

Don’t you hate it?

The moments when you look at work and you think to yourself, is it good or am I the only one who thinks it might be crap. If it doesn’t happen to you then it sure does happen to me.

I don’t think it’s wrong. We just get bombarded everyday with so an enormous amount of stimulus in the form of creative work from around the world that it can become hard to seperate what might be great somewhere else with what might be great where you are.

So from time to time it’s great to come across something that just feels so right. Nothing to overly complicated or flashy but something that you know that people will resonate with.

Enter Ikea’s Family Card, a loyalty programme for people in the UK and Ireland.

People would have recently received this nice looking DM.

But more than that is the benefits that members get. As it is people love the furniture from Ikea. Not only is designed to a decent standard but it’s affordable!

Now as a loyalty member you also receive the opportunity to purchase exclusive furniture that is only for members as well as:

• Product offers
• Ikea Family Live – A quaterly magazine that gives you exclusive home furnishing knowledge, tips and peeks into other member’s homes.
• Restaurant offers – Who doesn’t love a good free cup of coffee.
• Special local store offers
• Invitation to events
• Offers with other partnered Ikea stores.

The amount of immediate effects that you get is amazing. Loyalty programmes that just work on accumaltive effects are thinking too small.

In other words, if you’re into ice cream. Ditch the buy 8 get 1 free. Be a member and get a 2 free toppings I say.