Hah! Brilliant! Look at what 10 AM Communications from Singapore did for the energy drink. It’s just great. One can of Red Bull was delivered in a box, and it came along with an entirely unprinted (blank) jigsaw puzzle of 1000 pieces. Now here’s a nice way to communicate the power of the product. The unspoken messages is that with a little help of the energy stimulator, you’d still complete the puzzle, even if there’s no image to complete on the pieces. How very cool is this?
via BriefBlog
BBDO Dusseldorf came up with a creative way to promote the Theramed whitening toothpaste. They’ve cut out the mouth of the woman on the posters and hung them agains various walls, creating one very dirty ‘bricky’ smile. Some twisted thinking, but very effective. I really like the campaign. It totally grabs your focus if you see it in the streets because it’s totally not what you expect from a poster with a nice woman on it. Funky attention snatcher, I say.
via Adverbox
These ads are also from South Africa and promote I.C.U., a brand for glass and window cleaning products. Logically the ads are placed on glass doors of shopping centers, airports, and gyms. I actually miss a picture of a fake bird that squashes into a window, but you can’t have it all, apparently. The idea is pretty funny, but bumping into glass doors isn’t. I ran into one once and it hurted like hell. Damn. I really like the brand name. I.C.U., pronounced ‘I see you’. That’s clever. Especially when you advertise it in a way where you actually don’t see the door. :)
Agency: TBWA\Hunt\Lascarsis | via Coloribus
Now this is a cool idea! A remote trolley to scare some shoppers at your local supermarket. Wicked stuff! It’s been pulled off in South Africa by BBDO for the Ghost Pops Crisps, which seems to be some sort of chips. I’m really fond of this idea. So simple and so effective. How clever to put all the products in a trolley and steer it right to the customer. Even if they don’t take a bag to put it in their own trolley, you’re sure to have caused some conversation when the customer gets home. A bit spooky for the kids, but really fascinating. Damn I wish I thought of this. This shopping-guerrilla also received bronze in the Outdoor category.
Category: Ambient: Stunts & Live Advertising
Title: Ghost Trolley
Advertiser: SIMBA
Product or Service: Ghost Pops Crisps
Advertising Agency, City: Net#Work BBDO, Johannesburg
Country: South Africa
Creative Director: Julian Watt
Copywriter: Asheen Naidu
Art Director: Marion Bryan
Photographer: Brian Gibbs
Account Supervisor: Lynda Fiebiger
This one has been around on the ad blogs already, but I didn’t post it yet. I saw it again on the Cannes Lions site, so I decided to blog it after all. I like the concept with the price tag. It makes the statement really good. The only thing I wonder about is if they’d get the real fire department so far to put the tag on the car, or if they rented a similar truck especially for the promotion. In my country, I don’t think it would be possible to get the fire department to actually participate in a commercial promotion. At least I never heard of it. Could be possible if you pay enough. Nevertheless, sweet concept. Good enough for an Outdoor bronze lion.
Category: Transit
Advertiser: Toys “R” Us
Product or Service: Toy Store
Advertising Agency, City: Grey Worldwide, Dusseldorf
Country: Germany
Creative Directors: Florian Meimberg/Torsten Pollmann
Copywriters: Torsten Pollmann/Claudia Meimberg
Art Director: Florian Meimberg
Account Supervisor: Sandra Friedrich
Other Credits: Picture Editor: Peter Engel
I received an e-mail from Zaigham Zulqernain from the Bamboo agency in Canada. They’ve done a remarkable campaign for Swatch Canada where they dressed up some guys with a santa hat and an LCD (or TFT) screen that displayed advertising video footage. The promo-guys were then sent out and walked around in the streets and in a shopping mall. The action’s pretty good and certainly didn’t miss its effect, as you can see people were actually stopping to look at the screens, which gave the promo guys some time to start a small conversation and hand out some leaflets with promotional info. And in the end, that’s what it’s all about. Getting yourself noticed and making people stop to donate a little of their precious time in exchange for an opportunity to promote a brand. Nice work Bamboo!
The video report from the action has been uploaded to YouTube.
Thanks for pinging me about it, Zaigham.
Yesterday when I came back from school and was heading to the office, I noticed a lot of these guerrilla posters that had been hung at the balusters (or spokes, I don’t know the right word) of the pedestrian bridge I needed to cross. I took one home because I didn’t have my camera at that time. I also noticed the ads in Leuven, where I work, so I can imagine the guerrilla team did other cities as well. At home I simulated the construction which you’ll see below. The action is for ‘Artsen Zonder Grenzen’ which means ‘Doctors Without Borders’, an organization that deploys humanitarian aid. Mostly in Africa, but certainly also in other places where they’re needed. The copy on the ad reads: “This is the contour of the upper arm of seriously undernourished children. They need medical aid urgently.” I don’t know the agency behind it, but it was damn touching.
Agency: Duval Guillaume Brussels
Account Team: Inez De Pooter, Annemie Verschueren, Olivier Henet
Creative Directors: Katrien Bottez, Peter Ampe, Xavier Bouillon
Creation: Tiny Nys, Alexander Cha’ban
Art Buyer: Elly Laureys
Photographer: Jean-Francois De Wit
Retouching: Jonathan Steelandt, Fred Dupont
I recognized the style of the guerrilla, because I knew I had seen it before. I was quite sure it was in the archives of ihaveanidea, and indeed there they were. This action was for Jaipurfoot, a specially designed artificial limb/prosthetic for helping disabled people regain their independence, at almost no charge. Jaipurfoor was started by Bhagwan Mahaveer Viklang Sahayata Samiti (BMVSS), a non-profit organisation established in 1975. It’s a totally different topic than the ad above, but the use of the city scene and its objects was quite similar, I thought. It just reminded me of this campaign:
Copy: “Help someone stand tall again”
Title: Jaipufoot ‘School’ (the girl) and ‘Park’ (the boy)
Agency: Ogilvy & Mather Advertising Mumbai
Creative Directors: Anup Chitnis, Rensil D’silva
Art Director: Ashish Phatak
Copywriters: Ashish Phatak, Arati Desai
This ad also has ‘the cheating husband’ angle of approach. It’s trying to say: ‘If you have some explaining to do you better make sure there’s enough ink to do it’. Another approach might have been to take ‘a student’ who’s got to take a test or something, but I guess it wouldn’t have been as good or as strong as this ad. Funny though, how it seems that people still write letters, but mostly because they have to. It seems to be ages since I received a ‘real’ written letter and the last one I wrote was a declaration of love to my girlfriend. In the ad below the letter being written starts with: “My dearest wife, I know you’re still mad at me for sleeping with your sister but I can explain.” I’m 100% sure I’ll never have to use this particular line. Heheh. Good for a bronze lion in the Outdoor category.
Copy: “When you have a lot to write”
Category: Point of Purchase Posters
Title: Husband
Advertiser: G.H. Stationery Ccompany
Product or Service: Bic Pens
Advertising Agency, City: Leo Burnett, Singapore
Country: Singapore
Creative Directors: Steve Straw/Linda Locke
Copywriter: Victor Ng
Art Director: Jon Loke
Photographer: Hon (Shutterbug)
Illustrator: Procolor
Account Supervisor: Kwan Weng Hung
Advertiser’s Supervisor: Vincent Tan
Other Credits: Production Manager: Dennis Gan