This week I am mostly liking...
The Swagger Waggon campaign by Saatchi & Saatchi LA for Toyota.
This is a strategy I having been wanting to try for a Minivan or MPV for ages. Because the choice of a vehicle like this is often seen as a sign that you have simply accepted your life as a parent and 'given up' it has long seemed to me that there was mileage in hero worshiping parenthood and in particular the fact that the choice of an MPV proves that its all working 'down there' if you know what I mean. This ain't a sell out its a swagger waggon. By the way the promo is Number 2 this week in the Ad Age video viral chart.
And above everything else how about that for the first work out of the blocks after the recall - that's a client with balls.
All the work is on the youtube channel here but I've posted a couple of videos below.
This is the promo.
And this is the back story video.
Probably the best post in the world
This is the new Carlsberg commerical from Saatchi & Saatchi aimed at galvanising the nation behind the England football team over the summer in South Africa.
It's based on the idea that Carlsberg don't do team talks but if they did they would be the best team talks in the world. In truth the ad is simply the culmination of a whole load of integrated activity from the trade out that has been building up from the beginning of the year. As usual a Youtube channel acts as the content hub for all the participatory activity.
Big society my arse
David Cameron's big society is as close to a way over complicated planning thought as you get in politics - intellectually interesting to the political elite no doubt but incomprehensible for normal people. This is a film we have just made to hit home the downsides of DIY government.
You can personalise the film here and blame the Big Society on someone who is thinking of voting Tory on Thursday.
A Future Fair For All - The Movie
We have created an interactive film with RSA to take the spirit and message of the Labour Party's manifesto for the UK general election in May to a broader audience than normally concerns themselves with such things.
The manifesto cover was ours too.
Election coverage
This is our latest poster for the Labour Party. We are running it in Brighton to coincide with the Tory Party spring conference and the their slipping poll lead.
It's just a poster of course, but even in this day and age they can still be oh so powerful. This execution is about the incompetence of the person that would like to be the next Chancellor of the Exchequer. A man that would be out of his depth in a paddling pool.
As the election unfolds I am going to try and share as much as I can with you. Regardless of your political affiliations (though I have yet to meet a right wing planner) its going to be fascinating, and I suspect very different to the last great case study in political campaigning from the US.
Click below for a bigger version.
Childline campaign
The Childline remixing tool
We have created a new campaign for the NSPCC aimed at making Childline a part of the fabric of children's lives. The idea is to encourage children to express their emotions and to position Childline as the place they can do this freely with immediate online support for those children needing help.
This is the film we made using a track composed by Paul Hartnoll from Orbital using sound and video of children expressing their emotions. The video elements were then projected onto the walls of an urban landscape and the film shot of that performance.
This is the 'making of' film in which Paul Hartnoll talks about the project.
We also created a remixing tool on the Childline website so that children can create their own films and enter them into a competition to be judged by Paul Hartnoll.
Brand new Visa ad
This is the new Visa commerical supporting their sponsorship of the Fifa World Cup in South Africa this summer. It was written by Xander Smith and Jonathan Santana, planned by Martin Smith and Directed by Chris Palmer through Gorgeous.
Getting tasty with the Tories
Thought you might be interested in the first of our new Camera On, Camera Off campaign for the Labour Party aimed at proving that David Cameron (the leader of the UK Conservative opposition party) rarely believes what he says.
We are interested in the way that political communications are now about establishing ideas voters can play with. We saw that unintentionally with David Cameron's 'airbrushed for change' campaign where people made their own versions by editing billboards or by uploading their own ads to sites like mydavidcameron.com. Obviously we'd like to encourage this approach with the Camera On and Off meme.
This version was for a press conference this morning on NHS targets but expect to see more in the future.
This is the version exposing Cameron's habit of lying about his support for gay adoption.
It appeared first along side an Attitude magazine interview with Cameron like so.
Here he is getting confused about what to say about his Vice Chairman not paying UK tax. In fact doesn't that mean that Cameron is spending money that should have gone to UK tax payers on his his own campaigning?
Josh's Band
In the Autumn we went out and about on behalf of T-Mobile and asked people what they would do if they had free texts and internet for life - which is what you get as a T-Mobile Pay As You Go customer that regularly tops up.
And in the course of this we bumped into a guy in Brick Lane called Josh Ward who said that he would us it to start a superband. Which sounded like fun. So we helped him and the single from the band that comprises 1107 musicians in total is released on Monday 11th January.
This is the video for the single that features the musicians and the locations where the band formed to record it.
And this is how it started.
The Josh project has been very different to Dance and Singalong because it has been an extremely organic process. Rather than kicking off with an orchestrated spectacular and then farming the content for three or four months Josh has been a far greater journey into the unknown. Content has built as we have followed him around Britain culminating in the video for a single that we never knew would be the end point when we started. Along the way we have been able to cut all the requirements we have for advertising, instore and promotional material and populate the content hub on Myspace, and a YouTube channel.
Here is an example of the sort of ad we cut from the content.
And if you fancy learning the song here is the instruction video that we made so people would come to the recordings good to go.
Is it the end of the line for the digital agency?
Image courtesy of Ackers-Schoolboy Hero!!!!
Some time in the early summer the Met Office rather confidently predicted that this would be the summer of the BBQ, so hot, dry and altogether splendid was our weather going to be. Alas it turned out to be a rather different meteorological kettle of fish and once again this summer has been unremittingly dreary, anything but the summer of the BBQ. Similarly at the beginning of this recession the soothsayers of the digital community rather confidently predicted that this would be the recession of the digital agency, basking as they would be in the sunny glory of a much-trumpeted culture of accountability. More than that, it would be the death of those sad old orthodox ad agencies that in the parlance of our time simply ‘don’t get it’. Alas, if you are a digital shop it is turning out to be anything but your recession. Good news for digital, bad news for the rather quaint idea of the standalone digital agency.
Indeed the orthodox agencies will emerge form this recession stronger, better, leaner and with the lion’s share of the business that used to be the preserve of pure play agencies as the latter struggle to play in the big league or face annihilation.
In many ways this is simply because at long last client organisations are taking digital seriously and Marketing Directors in particular now see it as part of their core responsibility rather than something rather marginal that can be delegated to someone keen and junior to look after. And with contemporary marketing involving so many disciplines demanding the attention of your average marketing chief, there are real advantages in integrating as many of these into as few agencies as possible. Preferably the agencies they work closely with and trust most. In some cases theses are digital agencies by birth, in many cases they are not.
Of course we have long acknowledged the inevitable convergence of the two agency worlds since the division of labour that we currently tolerate is utterly ludicrous, not least because it sustains at least two sets of pointless overheads that clients are inevitably paying for. However, recessions cause more dramatic adjustments in the market and there is a very specific and powerful new factor at work that will significantly accelerate this process. The fee negotiations that orthodox agencies are involved in to secure their retainers for 2010.
Orthodox agencies may have been the brunt of digital jokes about pathological slowness, limited creative ambition and a culture that doesn’t get interactivity and participation but that has long ceased to be true. They have got with the programme and if not hired the programmers certainly hired any one else a bit tasty in the digital world. And armed with this capability and ambition CFOs are marching into fee negotiations poised to take out the standalone digital agency with a finely crafted remuneration proposal. A document that promises significant cost savings for the Client’s budget and moderate increases in revenue for the agency by rolling the brand’s digital scope into the responsibilities of the lead advertising agency.
The only solution for stand alone digital agencies in the face of this tsunami of excited finance directors is either to follow the lead of the media agencies and create vast buying points for commoditised production capability or to develop such strong creative or technological specialisms that they remain of greater value to their clients than the bigger scope deals that are on offer from the orthodox agencies. Otherwise it is not just the BBQs digital agencies should be worried about but their lunch too.
This post originally appeared as a column in New Media Age
The Book of Revelations
Greetings from Charlotte Street. Image courtesy of Michael in South London.
Well you all know of my fondness for the idea of revelation as the new action standard for insights - astonishing disclosures about people, brands and the world in which we live.
So the book of revelations is the name for the new planning blog from Saatchi & Saatchi in London (AKA the SAS).
It's written by top bloke Tom Gibson. We are using it to inspire the agency but everyone is welcome of course.
Reasons to be cheeerful 1 2 3
Image courtesy of Max Ferguson
Gripped as we are by the bloody teeth of recession and now with conclusive proof from ICM that Britain, of all leading nations is the most miserable and pessimistic about its economic future, it is perhaps peculiar that the most potent buzz word in advertising is optimism. We see it in our consumer’s actions if not attitudes, we see in in contemporary culture and increasingly we see it in the work from the T-mobile Dance event to Coke’s Happiness campaign.
Indeed some recent research we have undertaken at Saatchi & Saatchi suggests that the dominant themes in British culture at the moment are Love, Pride, Optimism and Generosity. How’s that for counter intuitive?
Now it is entirely possible that our new-found predilection for optimistic thoughts and deeds is a short term response to the doom and gloom around us. What was called the Blitz spirit but is best summed up these days in the mugs, T-towels and doormats so beloved of the Boden wearing classes that bear the phrase ‘keep calm and carry on’. Deep down we Brits obviously believe that it was our resolve, stiff upper lips, even stiffer tea and the ability to laugh in the very face of adversity that won the Second World War and not the Americans arriving on the scene. And clearly we believe that this sort of attitude that is just the ticket to face down our current economic difficulties. How else can you explain the wall of coloured denim that greets you as you walk down any high street?
This is all entirely possible. It is also possible that we are witnessing a longer term shift in the national psyche, that we are actually becoming a nation that is less cynical, less pessimistic and less selfish. Of course the proof of this pudding will be in our developing attitudes towards the Games of the XXXth Olympiad in 2012 which may yet be the first national project since the Festival of Britain to be greeted with a spirit of optimism and pride rather than a wall of defeatism and abject cynicism. And it is also possible, if you might indulge me for a moment, that this fundamental shift has had something to do with the internet.
For the healthier part of a decade we Brits have been doing something entirely unprecedented in our Island story, we have actually been sharing things with each other and most of the time with complete strangers. But in one specific location, online, where we have handed over our family photos, our movies, our comings and goings and our innermost thoughts to pretty much anyone who is interested. And that surely is the very definition of optimism, doing something in the belief that good rather than harm will come to you as a result of your actions.
I want to suggest that the current spirit of optimism has more than a little bit to do with a Nation that rather likes the generosity and culture of sharing that is shown to them and they in turn show to others in their online lives and now want to practice this in their offline lives. That a population now comfortable with the likes of flickr, twitter, facebook and youtube are now ready to take the next step and start to talk to people on public transport. And if that happened maybe we could finally conceed that the internet is not another channel as so many people in the advertising industry once hoped it would be, but a way of living that is now influencing the larger part of our lives.
That tricky second album
Life's for sharing. Image courtesy of maize
So here it is 48 hours after we wrapped the shoot, the second T-Mobile Campaign 'Sing-a-long'.
It took us a month, 13,500 people, 200 extras, 2,000 microphones, 8 songs, Vernon Kay and Pink to pull off. But we are rather happy with the results as so it appeared were the people in Trafalgar Square last thursday.
See what you think.
Here is the full length rendition of hey jude.
Here is the audience edit
Here is the life's for sharing youtube channel with this and much more on it.
The best way to see the rest of the event is from people's own films on you tube by searching for t-mobile Trafalgar Square.
Enjoy.
Love it before it leaves you
Keighley Station on the Keighley And Worth Valley Railway, location for our latest Head and Shoulders ad. Image courtesy of Matt Ots
I know how much you all love it when I post new Saatchi & Saatchi work. But I kinda think that an advertising blog with no advertising is a bit silly and moreover if I am going to bang on about stuff online I should put up the work we are doing to be transparent and accountable.
So here is the latest work for Head & Shoulders.
More work thats not bad
That'll be the latest outing for the 'Life Flows Better' campaign for Visa. It features the performance of Bill Shannon and was directed by Joey Garfield both of whom we came across last year while putting together the Saatchi & Saatchi New Directors showcase.
Here is the 80 second ad.
The track is Come on Train by Don Thomas which we had remixed by the Go Team and is now available on i-tunes. You can listen to the entire remixed track here.
This is the Promo for RJd2 that we featured on the new director's showcase.
For more information on the artist here is Bill Shannon's site.
And this is the Lifeflowsbetter YouTube channelhere.
Bursting with pride
The full T-mobile ad shot on Thursday morning and aired last night.Allowing myself a small off topic moment of bigging up Saatchis. I think the phrase 'we're back' may be in order. More at the T-Mobile YouTube channel.
New work from new home
Charlotte Street, spiritual home of London's ad land. Image courtesy of Chaz Folkes
Its always nice to see some ads occasionally on a blog about advertising. So I have put together some more of the recent work from Saatchis in London.
Council of Europe - Anti Smacking
Planner: Jane Cantelow
Creative team: Rick Dodds/ Steve Howell
T-Mobile
Planner: Gareth Ellis
Creative teams: Dennis Willison / Suzanne Hails / Howard Green / Pablo Videla/ Paul Silburn
Director: Taktor through Partizan
New work from new home
Charlotte Street, spiritual home of London's ad land. Image courtesy of Chas Folkes
Thought I'd put up two new bits of work from Saatchis in London. Visa is hot out of the edit suite, you may have clocked Carlsberg already.