brand-e » agencies

The $70k Twitter laugh

admin — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 09:33:25 +0000

We told the other day that Saatchi LA was on the look-out for a copywriter able to make the agency laugh with a single tweet. Jonathan Pelleg did the biz with ‘You have to be concise on Twitter. Like a circumcision, everything extra gets cut off whether you like it or not.’ He now has a $70k-a-year job.

Tackling the Impossible

admin — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 09:30:55 +0000

It’s time to tackle the Impossible Brief. It’s from Saatchi & Saatchi Israel, which has turned to crowdsourcing as a means of coming up with innovative solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“For 60 years nobody has cracked it,” says the agency. “It’s been waiting for a great creative mind like yours. Up to the challenge?
“Rather than ‘out of date policies, we need ‘out of the box’ solutions. Let’s show the world that creative minds at their best can inspire even political leaders.”
That’s a tall order. So, how does the Impossible Brief work?
The inspired need to detail their original suggestions for how to bring these two nations closer together via the campaign website. To help illustrate ideas, they can upload images and add weblinks.
The most inspiring solutions will be selected by a joint panel of Israeli and Arab advertising people. The winner will receive a ticket to the 2011 Cannes Lions.
brand-e: nice idea but is all this effort simply leading to a freebie on the french riviera?!?

Tweet for that agency job

admin — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 09:50:27 +0000

And now, the 140-character job application. Marketing comms/ad agency Anomaly is on the look-out for a social media manager for a youth brand to monitor and curate conversations. Mailed letters are OK, but a tweet explaining why one is the best person for the job earns major cred. But that’s very cramped space to demonstrate in-depth knowledge of Facebook, Digg, YouTube and Twitter, plus great communications skills. Or is it?

Engaging the consumer with authenticity

admin — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 08:45:29 +0000

By Hugh Jordan. Dave Roberts is a happy man. Head of entertainment at M&C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment, he believes the hierarchy in place in London to be the most creatively conducive structure he has worked in.
“A lot of large agencies boast about being integrated, and collaborative, but here it is really happening,” he explains. “All the planners sit together. There is an osmosis of intelligence and insight between the different departments.”
But, as in any corporate structure, each department is expected to deliver results. So while some partied it up at Glastonbury, the entertainment team was working hard, the UK’s premier festival being a perfect opportunity to promote clients.
“We deal with people’s passions and how to align brands with those passions,” says Roberts. “At Glastonbury it’s about taking the brand out, activating and exploiting it.”
Easier said than done at a fest notoriously strict about branding.
Much has been written about the synergy between social media and live events. Roberts agrees that social media is an effective way of keeping the buzz built up at an event alive, but says it is far from the only method.
“For a brand like Tuborg, that generates sales on the back of pouring rights, people have no choice but to drink their beer while they are at the festival, so it is about keeping people involved afterwards,” he says. “For Orange, it is the exact opposite. There is so much content generated at Glastonbury, trying to cut through can be really difficult. However, there is massive interest in the run-up to festival and minimal content. We take advantage of that.”
Each year, the Saatchi Entertainment team demos pieces of Glasto-related technology for Orange, designed to accrue maximum media coverage… this year, it was the Orange Power Wellies, of course.
There is some debate over the distinction between PR and content creation. Roberts says the boundary is blurred, but that S&E definitely comes down on the side of content creation.
“We are not a PR agency,” he explains. “There is an element of PR in what we do but really our remit is about creating great content and the amplification of sponsorship. Everything we do starts with the consumer.”
One of the secrets to success thus far, according to Roberts, has been recruiting people with a genuine understanding of the fields the agency operates in. Ex-festival organisers, filmmakers, and those with a background in events and music PR, are all on the payroll. Any interaction by the agency on sports, film or music blogs, therefore, comes across as authentic.
So what’s next in branded entertainment?
“We are reviewing the gaming industry at the moment,” says Roberts. “The marketplace for music and film is so cluttered at the moment. Gaming is a huge blank canvas. Plus, you are engaging consumers who are already engaged with the game. That has real potential.”

Pitch perfect at Cannes

admin — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 09:45:46 +0000

Put your hands together for Todd Herman, an international performance coaching and training expert from Canada, who was been voted the ‘World’s Greatest Salesperson’ at Cannes Lions. The victor and the two runners-up presented live on stage their pitch for selling the Motorola Milestone phone, with audience voting carried out by SMS.
In addition to receiving the title, Herman gets a three-month fellowship at OgilvyOne Worldwide to help craft a sales guide to the 21st century. The principles of the guide will be presented at a thought leadership session during the Direct Marketing Association’s annual conference in October in San Francisco.
“From the very first time we saw Todd selling a humble brick in his YouTube video, we knew he had potential,” said Brian Fetherstonhaugh, CEO of OgilvyOne WW. “Todd is a true student of persuasion and motivation.”

The art of integration

admin — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 09:15:45 +0000

By Simon Fuller. With a resume which includes getting political via social media for Mexican restaurant chain Qdoba and sending drinks fans off canvassing votes for Mountain Dew, hybrid agency Motive knows all about getting the job done in campaigns which run the gamut when it comes to media platforms.
“The dynamics of any hybrid marketing program are highly dependent on the brand and the target, but at Motive we adhere to a series of considerations when planning, developing, and executing hybrid campaigns,” says Matt Statman, Motive’s founder. “Our experience has taught us that a programme must be integrated across multiple engagement channels, no matter how small. And the consumer experience – a relationship that includes a dialogue and a series of engaging activities – must be seamless across all of these channels.”
One thing Motive is big on is that the experience should be personal to each individual. Also, consumers should be able to make their own, individual contributions to the brand. So in the case of the campaign for Qdoba, Taste Bud Politics, users on the Net were able to discover their ‘Qdentity’ – in other words, a type of personality profile based on Mexican food psychology. Then things went multi-channel, with Motive turning up at the Democratic National Convention in 2008 to offer consumers a chance to share their Qdentity with the world – and get Qdoba coupons in return.
And more recently, Motive’s DEWmocracy: The Flavour campaign for Mountain Dew has featured both an experiential element – with hardcore Dew fans promoting their favourite brand flavour around the US – and gone digital too, with fans at home making suggestions as to where those on the go should head next.
“With something as interactive as DEWmocracy: The Flavour Campaign, it was critical that fans could interact with the program as much – or as little – as they desired, across a variety of media,” says Statman. “Online, they were asked to weigh in on the teams’ next moves. Once those were decided, they were encouraged to join the teams at street level to help them complete campaign activities, taking any photos or videos from these events back to the online arena. The programme created a continuous cycle of involvement and opportunities for consumer content generation that amplified its emotional value for fans.”
With all of this behind them, Motive has isolated a few pointers which it believes go into creating a top hybrid campaign.
“Key elements that helped make this a successful hybrid campaign included dynamic content, exciting and intriguing activities, creative fun personalities, a compelling story, and passionate fans who got involved,” says Statman of DEWmocracy. “We witnessed fan campaigning throughout the [DEWmocracy] tour, from putting up posters in their hometowns and helping create and attend our events to voting every day online. Some fans even took their campaigning to another level, promoting The Flavour Campaign on their local news stations.”

Life, according to Twitter

admin — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 08:45:39 +0000

Put the date 21st June in your diary and write ‘David On Demand’. For on that day, Leo Burnett creative recruiter David Perez will launch his week-long project whereby he puts his life in the hands of his Twitter followers.
Why? Well, for one thing, he wanted to go to Cannes Lions and, after a New York brainstorming session at Leo Burnett, his bosses agreed to send him as long as he agreed to do anything he was tweeted to do.
Perez will wear webcam-enabled glasses so that his followers can follow him following commands.
“Everything I see, you will see,” he says. “And everything I do will be controlled through Twitter.”
And it’s a way of proving that advertising has become more personal and techie, apparently.

W+K delivers the agency goods

admin — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 10:00:15 +0000

Last year we told you about the kinds of products being turned out by Wieden and Kennedy London. You know, stuff like goldfish bin bags, musical rulers and, erm… data-based jewellery. Not to be outdone, clearly, W+K Portland has stuffed its W+K Studio shelves with a range of T-shirts, bags. Notebooks and kids romper suits. So there.