Hasta La Creative!

You thought Coca-Cola was getting personal when it rolled out 250 bottle labels featuring people’s first names. Well, Diet Coke just went and individualized 2 million bottle designs.

Coca-Coca Israel created the campaign, with help from Gefen Team, Q Digital and HP Indigo. (In fact, it was Indigo, which was founded in Israel, that helped Coke solve the enormous production challenges around the “Shake a Coke” campaign when it first rolled out in Australia in 2011.) For the Diet Coke project, a special algorithm led to a unique design technique that allowed millions of designs to be completely auto-generated.

The resulting product conveys to “to Diet Coke lovers that they are extraordinary by creating unique one-of-a-kind extraordinary bottles,” said Alon Zamir, vp of marketing for Coca-Cola Israel. (Dr Pepper, whose whole campaign is built around being one of a kind, is going to be pissed about this.)

The concept nicely extended to the ad campaign, which featured hundreds of uniquely designed billboards, as well as point-of-sale stunts that sold T-shirts and other merchandise featuring your specific bottle design.

The genius of “Share a Coke,” of course, was how personalized it felt, rather than how personalized it actually was. (Your first name isn’t exactly unique, after all—and if it is, it wasn’t on a Coke bottle.) Still, the Diet Coke idea is a conceptual and executional triumph—the designs look fantastic, on top of it all—and a brilliant stunt, even if it won’t generate the same level of buzz.

Check out more images below, along with a case study video showing the process.

Via PSFK.

Parents grow increasingly frustrated as Siri-type phone assistants misunderstand their requests in a pair of 60-second Advertising Council PSAs from Publicis Kaplan Thaler.

The goal is to build empathy for kids with learning and attention disorders—watch the ads to see how—and to introduce Understood.org, a cooperative effort among several nonprofits providing access to support and resources. A print ad reinforces the theme, showing a notebook page with a child’s writing that’s been erased many times, while the words “I want to be understood” remain.

“Put yourself in children’s shoes, and you can truly understand their frustration,” says agency creative director Laura Kirschner, whose young son struggles with such issues. It’s a sharp approach, skipping familiar images of kids struggling to read or comprehend their schoolwork in favor of a deeper narrative about the importance of communication and connection.

“The crux of the campaign is that understanding is everything,” Kirschner says.

That message comes through loud and clear.

The industry is rapidly changing, but one thing remains the same: Literally the only thing that gets agency people to fill out their timesheets consistently is free beer.

The latest example comes from Minneapolis, where Colle+McVoy has built a wondrous machine called the TapServer—a “multi-keg beer deployment system” that uses RFID and custom-written software to verify whether you’ve stopped being a lazy git, finished your timesheets and earned your free pint. (According to the agency, the technology used includes “several Arduinos, a Node-based server, solenoids and a Raspberry Pi.” For all we know, so could the beer.)

Check out more pics below. And yes, similar things have been done before, including the beer fridge at JWT agency Casa in Brazil that unlocks only when timesheets are done.

In our latest installment of places where you wish you worked, a California creative agency named thinkParallax recently gave each one of its employees $1,500 and an extra paid day off to travel somewhere they’ve never been and get inspired. The catch? They have to blog about their journey.

“Some people might call this crazy. We’re calling it Parallaxploration,” says the agency. Which is great because parallax is the difference in perspective you get by looking at the same object from two different positions. In other words, the agency’s very name suggests that traveling to new places gives you a new perspective on the same old thing.

“The goal of Parallaxploration is not only to ensure happy employees, but also to provide them with energizing experiences that will allow them to continue creating exceptional work for our clients,” the agency adds.

The little design inspirations that naturally come from exploring new cultures are exactly what you see in the four blog stories already posted—Germany, Holland, Peru and New Zealand. From ancient to modern, pastoral to urban, those four locations have already created a breadth of influence for creative exploration.

The agency also says it hopes its experiment makes other companies think differently about employee engagement, and I wonder if this sort of thing could catch on. The agency where I work gave each of us a $1,000 Delta credit last year for the same reason, but we didn’t blog about our journeys. (Missed opportunity? Or a welcome lack of corporate oversight?)

The important part is, there’s nothing preventing this good idea from becoming a movement. Or an individual creative from remembering how important it is to always be open to travel and new experiences.

A world without glass would be pretty soulless.

That’s the main takeaway from these new TV ads that Doremus and sister shop DDB produced for O-I, the world’s largest manufacturer of glass packaging (mostly bottles, but other packaging too). They’re part of O-I’s ongoing “Glass is Life” campaign, which began three years ago with a business-to-business focus but now targets consumers.

Doremus, a b-to-b specialist, is something of a glassvertising expert, too—having made the awesomely peculiar “Brokeface” campaign for Corning’s Gorilla Glass NBT. But the agency doesn’t have a presence in Latin America, so it turned to Omnicom Group sibling DDB Colombia for help, and together they’ve created five fun, memorable ads.

The basic premise is that plastic and aluminum are no substitute for glass, whether you’re toasting at a bar, serving up water to a bikini-clad babe or desperately trying to push an S.O.S. message out to sea.

The ads first appeared online and will extend to TV this week in Colombia and Peru.

There are ads where you can’t quite believe the premise, and this is one of them.

How did the Fiat 500X SUV come to be? Well, it seems a little Fiat accidentally swallowed a little blue pill—and quickly grew bigger. Seriously, that’s the plot of this commercial from The Richards Group. It’s even odder because it’s so nicely shot. (It was reportedly filmed in Pitigliano, Tuscany.)

Says the YouTube description: “The Fiat 500X is bigger, more powerful and ready for action. In this official Fiat 500X commercial everyone who comes into contact with the 500x gets a little excited and you will too.”

Or you could be left wondering what you just saw.

Today, everything’s an ad. Or a game. Sometimes both.

Agency TrojanOne in Toronto created this mall installation in Canada for Mattel’s Pictionary. A display that initially appears to be a poster is actually a video screen. It springs to life with an interactive Pictionary challenge illustrating the tagline, “See what happens when you take the time to play.”

It’s a fun variation on an ambient theme that’s been executed in different ways elsewhere for various products, services and causes. Some of these campaigns have been out of this world, others can seem sinister or invasive, while one heartfelt effort is blowing folks away.

Here, a bright, inclusive mood really resonates, and it’s hard not to be drawn in by the video’s infectious high spirits. In a world where everything, it seems, is an ad or a game, it’s comforting to know that you can win a ginormous teddy bear sometimes.

Via Ads of the World.

CREDITS
Client: Mattel Canada (Pictionary)
Agency: TrojanOne, Toronto
Chief Creative Officer: Graham Lee
Executive Creative Director: Gary Watson
Art Director: Graham Lee
Copywriter: Gaby Makarewicz
Consumer Engagement Team: Imran Choudry, Danielle Minard, Kristyn Turner
Digital/Agency Production Team: Mark Stewart, Garrett Reynolds, Kevin Burke
BA Recruitment: Justin Orfus, Moira MacDonald
Agency Producer: Laurie Maxwell
Production Company: studio m
Executive Producer: Mike Mills
Line Producer: Jonny Pottins
Director: TJ Derry
Cameras: Dave Derry, Jon Staav, Bruce William Harper
Editor: Jesse Manchester, studio m
Colour Grade: RedLab
Music & Sound Design: Imprint Music

Does Brian Wilson know who Lorde is? Or why there’s a tiger on his piano?

This lavish video boasts an array of stars performing Wilson’s 1966 Beach Boys classic “God Only Knows” to help launch BBC Music, described by the company as “an ambitious wave of new programs, innovative partnerships and ground-breaking music initiatives.”

Karmarama created the clip, which features luminaries representing various generations and styles. The Impossible Orchestra, as it’s called, features Wilson, Lorde, Elton John, Pharrell Williams, One Direction, Stevie Wonder, Dave Grohl, Jake Bugg, Emeli Sandé, Chris Martin and many more. Kylie Minogue floats in a soap bubble. Baaba Maal rides by in a balloon. Alison Balsom sits perched in a gilded cage.

The extravaganza debuted yesterday during a pan-channel BBC broadcast, and the video’s nearing 800,000 YouTube views already. The song also benefits BBC’s Children in Need charity, is available for download and streaming and was released as a physical CD single in the U.K.

“One of the things that interested me most about this project was the ideas of bringing together so many different styles of music,” says Ethan Johns, who produced the tune. “To make so much diversity work within one piece of music was quite a challenge.”

Naturally, the initiative’s been compared, favorably and otherwise, to other musical megastar team-ups, such as the 1997 Children in Need reboot of Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day,” which was a global smash. (Elton John is only star from that outing to appear in “God Only Knows,” by the way.)

One story in the Guardian brands the new effort as “not quite a perfect day,” noting “There’s something self-aggrandizing about this—but with the amount of music the BBC covers, perhaps it is deserved?” Coverage elsewhere on the site disdainfully notes that “God Only Knows” arrives just as “the corporation’s battle to retain the television license fee [is] getting almost tougher by the week.”

Tough crowd.

BBC Music director Bob Sherman explains the project, and the song choice, thusly: “Everybody gets the significance of ‘God Only Knows.’ And that’s what we’re trying to do with BBC Music. We’re trying to make it feel like it’s an all-encompassing brand for everybody.” That quote comes from the “making-of” clip, in which Queen guitarist Brian May—whose trademark fret runs on “God Only Knows” are a highlight—seems to offer a slightly different take, calling the song “quite enigmatic, really.”

Some view the CGI effects and costumed theatrics as overkill, but I’d say the grand scale fits the message, which is quietly captured in the closing bars of the performance. Wilson sits alone at the piano, sans tiger or bombast, just looking into the camera and singing his brilliant song.

Droga5 has won raves for its Newcastle Brown Ale work, which skewers beer-marketing clichés. Now, the agency is bringing a similar sensibility to another Heineken-owned brand: Strongbow Hard Apple Cider.

The new “Cider at Its Bestest” campaign shows how the drink is best poured over ice. It launches with the 60-second spot below, featuring an image that will be familiar to booze-ad watchers everywhere: a horse running in slow motion on a beach. (In fact, a Clydesdale did just that in the very first ad for Bud Light—then called Budweiser Light—in 1982.)

But this Strongbow horse—well, let’s just say he’s not your typical excessively slow-moving quadruped. And he won’t elicit the typical (glazed-over) reaction from viewers, either.

“With cider brands trying to out-refresh each other, we went better than best, to bestest,” John McKelvey, creative director of Droga5 said in a statement.

“The overall campaign explores the absurd notions of making the best even more desirable. In this case it meant enjoying a Strongbow with your horse that only runs in slow motion. That’s the bestest,” added creative director Hannes Ciatti.

An additional 15-second spot, “Three Sunsets,” will debut later this fall. The campaign will include a mix of traditional and paid media, digital, PR and experiential marketing.

Credits below.

CREDITS
Client: Heineken USA / Strongbow
Brand Director: Alejandra De Obeso
Global Marketing Manager: Olivier Darses
Senior Director, Portfolio Brands: Charles Van Es
Chief Marketing Officer: Nuno Teles
Agency: Droga5, New York
Creative Chairman: David Droga
Chief Creative Officer: Ted Royer
Creative Director: John McKelvey
Creative Director: Hannes Ciatti
Copywriter: Molly Jamison
Art Director: Eric Dennis
Chief Creation Officer: Sally-Ann Dale
Head of Broadcast Production: Ben Davies
Broadcast Producer: Verity Bullard
Chief Strategy Officer: Jonny Bauer
Digital Strategy Director: Dan Neumann
Group Account Director: Dan Gonda
Account Director: Nadia Malik
Production Company: Rattlingstick
Director: Hamish Rothwell
DOP: Ben Seresin
Executive Producer: Joe Biggins
Producer: Sam Long
Editorial: Workpost Editorial
Editor: Rich Orrick
Assistant Editor: Adam Witton
Executive Producer: Erica Thompson
Post Production: The Mill
Head of Production: Sean Costelloe
Producer: Alex Fitzgerald
Colorist: Fergus McCall
Flame Artist: Nathan Kane
Music: Human
Founding Partner: Marc Altshuler
Producer: Jonathan Sandford
Sound: Sonic Union
Studio Director: Justine Cortale
Producer: Pat Sullivan
Mix Engineer: Stephen Rosen

Twenty years from now, I’ll be a silver-haired fox and speak with a British accent, judging from this “Future Self” campaign created by Publicis Conseil and Jam3 for European telecommunications giant Orange.

Upload a photo of yourself, and the software creates an interactive 3-D model of how you might look two decades hence. You can ask questions of your future self using your computer’s microphone or keyboard.

Of course, these are canned responses, but most of the exchanges I sampled were amusing, and a few even felt kind of profound. When I inquired about my (his? our?) finances in 2034, Future Dave explained that money as I know it no longer exists, that it’s been replaced by a system of commerce in which nobody feels short-changed.

The initiative marks Orange’s 20th birthday, and it’s designed to position the marketer as hip and innovative with the millennial crowd. (Yeah, I’m sure the whole emphasis on aging will have exactly that effect.)

It’s livelier than Merrill Edge’s somewhat similar “Face Retirement” campaign, and more fun than this site, which emphasizes an aspect of the future I’d just as soon ignore.

Credits below.

CREDITS
—Orange
Deputy Director of Communications: Béatrice Mandine
Brand Director: Thierry Marigny
Head of Corporate Communications: Anne Imbert
Corporate Communications Manager: Joanna Gaumet
Corporate Communications Assistant: Charlie Lévêque

—Publicis Conseil
International Creative Director: Steve O’Leary
Copywriter: Méric Settembre
Art Director: Thomas Bernard
Worldwide Account Director: Cécile Lejeune
International Account Director: Guillaume Foskolos
International Account Executive: Laëtitia Mulinazzi
Digital Strategic Planner: Benoit Candelle
Creative Technologist: Julien Chaillou
Digital Consultant: Paula Petrucci
Special thanks: Benjamin Sanial, Isabelle Appé

—Digital production – Jam3
Creative Director: Adrian Belina
Executive Producer: Graham Budd
Producer: Sumit Awjani

—Video Production
Producers: Pierre Marcus, Thierry Delesalle (Prodigious)
Director of photography: Joël Labat
Post-production: Reepost
Sound design vidéos: Pink Factory

—Dialogues
Benjamin Euvrard, Ingrid Morley-Pegge, Benjamin Dumont, Charly de Witte, Romain Grandsire

—Sound design experience: Apollo Studios
Executive Producer: Bénédicte Leclere

—Website: futureself.orange.com

—Media plan: banners (Le Monde, YouTube, Le Bonbon, Orange.fr, Dailymotion, Deezer, Vice…)