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Moving to Argentina

As you have been able to notice already, I haven't been posting anything in this blog for a while. You might already know the reason if you are following me on twitter: Yes, I am moving to Argentina.

I have always liked ads from Argentina and Spanish is my mother tongue so I thought these were two good reasons for me to eventually make that move. So I have decided to team up with an Argentinian Art Director that I met a while ago when traveling around Europe, and we have just finished our portfolio. We are obviously proud of the result, like every creative team is.

Now we have sent out the copies and some agencies are starting to contact us. The most incredible thing is that they even seem interested.

I am not going to write about Roman, the Art Director I have teamed up with. This would only make him even more arrogant than he already is. I am just going to show you the coolest ad he did when we weren't a team yet:

My flight is on November the 10th and if you are in Geneva on the 5th, you are welcome to join me for a farewell drink at the Bar du Nord in Carouge (Rue Ancienne) after 9:30 pm.

Google Bombing

There is a new buzz growing in French speaking countries: When you type "le trou du cul du web" on Google (literally: the asshole of the Web), the French President's official page comes up.

This is what we call Google bombing: an attempt to raise the ranking of a given page in results from a Google search. I have tried the above operation in several different Google sites. It seems to work everywhere.

Try it out!

Brazil is a funny country

I was half surprised to see two Brazilian agencies among the top three top agencies at Cannes 2009. Brazil has always been an historical advertising country and just talk to any Brazilian and you will see that they are all passionate about advertising in general. This is definitely not the case in some European countries where working in Advertising is seen as evil. (i.e. France, without mentioning it ...)

So as said, this year number 1 agency was DDB Brasil and ALMAPBBDO Brasil (where the legendary Marcello Serpa works) was second.

While I was writing this post, the most Brazilian of the non-Brazilians that I know (who happens to be a French guy with Israeli origins. I know, it makes sense) just sent me these videos that are apparently quite massively viral in that Latin American country. I have to admit that Brazilians tend to be quite funny.

Iran is a nation of Bloggers

Unless you were on a deserted island in the middle of the Pacific last week, you have all heard that Iran is going through very agitated times since its presidential election. It is true that I have never posted anything in relation with politics on this blog until now, but I have just found this very interesting video of with an overview of Blogs in Iran, and when you see the key roles Social Networking Platforms are playing in the current confrontation, (i.e. #iranelection on twitter) I thought it deserved a post on Consumer Is Boss.




At the moment I am mainly getting all the information through twitter, but I know the iIanian opposition has been very active on other platforms such as Facebook. Do you have any other examples of this 2.0 mobilization?

hahahaha.fr

Funny website created by atypical French agency Buzzman:

Click here


This site is creating a small buzz mainly around the twittersphere and its simple but funny content seems to have quite a high return rate. Did someone find the secret combo?

AC/DC Rocks the Office

To create a buzz around their new single "Rock N Roll Train", AC/DC just launched the world's first video on Excel. Yes that's right, AC/DC just turned one of the most boring software into a music video player. Your old spreadsheets just became a bit sexier. Is this the future of the Web?


Click here

Cannes Young Lions 48 hours ad contest

I know I haven't been posting for a while in this blog. The reason for this is that I am actually involved with a new project which includes an internal communication's blog. Adding this to my daily job and it was pretty much impossible for me to post anything these days.

But here I am. As passionate about advertising as ever and I wanted to talk to you today about this new contest put up by Cannes Young Lions. It already existed during the previous editions but this time it is open to the world through a partnership with Youtube.


The objective is to create a short viral ad in line with a given brief. The brief was given out last Friday at midnight (GMT) and the participants had 48 hours to upload a film on youtube. Now they have 2 weeks to make it go viral.

We tried to participate with a few friends, but since a major event was happening outside of the city where we live and since the stores there only open on Saturday (and only until 6pm) our two original and best ideas were just too complicated to come to life.

However, when we were about to give out, we came out with this idea, involving the most spotted dead legend worldwide: Elvis.

So tell us what you think about it and please vote for us here (Search: Violin)

M83 - We own the sky video contest

M83 (aka Anthony Gonzalez) is an electronica band from Antibes, France. To increase the buzz around its new single "We own the sky", M83 decided to launch a video contest for the song on youtube. The buzz around it was quite big. Actually, the demand was so big that the deadline was even pushed back.

The contest did reach its objective: I personnally never heard of M83 before and so did most of my friends who are now forwarding the video through facebook, twitter or their blog. Quite a good 2.0 PR operation.

Almost forgot to tell you that the winner are Young Replicants, a teenage director's label and design collective from L.A.

T-mobile copy?

In one of my notes written in January, I posted a video of the now well-known T-mobile Dance flashmob in Liverpool station. This ad was viral big time since it spread through the Internet, but was also used in traditional advertising too (TVC on British TV the next day). So it was a kind of surprise for me to see pretty much the same thing happening again and with such a big success... again!



The 200 dancers in Antwerpen Central Station were promoting the Dutch TV version of “in search of Maria“, a BBC format, staged by the Belgian commercial VTM network.


In my opinion, it is quite a bold bet to do this only a few months after T-Mobile's huge worldwide success. It is obviously not as successful as T-Mobile's flashmob, but it still works. Copying someone else's work is definitely not encouraged in the Advertising industry (Despite Luke Sullivan encouraging junior creatives to do this in his book "Hey Whipple, Squeeze this", as a start) but we have to admit that it can do its job in some situations. Two important things are needed though: the time factor (don't air it right after the original), and location (different market). Finally, it will also depend on the sucess of THE ORIGINAL. As an example, I doubt a new "Gorilla ad" would work anywhere. In the case illustrated here, none of these variables are respected. The debate about who was first is always a hot topic (just check the French website Joe la pompe, a database of "coincidences and/or copied work"). The fact that T-Mobile's idea is itself a copied from a flashmob "freeze" might give this new adaptation a justification. Because in the end, the objective is to make people like it. And people don't seem to get tired of these flashmobs.

However, if you think brand for a second, repeating someone else's idea might not be the best strategy (even just conceptually). Your brand needs to differentiate itself vs. other brands, and I don't believe copying someone else's work is the best way to achieve this objective.

Guitar Hero - Metallica

Last November, I posted a note talking about a viral for Guitar Hero made by Droga5. It was called "Bike Hero". At the same time we also had a buzz around Heidi Klum's ad for the same game:


The series of ads continued for a while featuring several star athletes and singers until last week, when we discovered this ad for the new Guitar Hero Metallica:


Guitar Hero is not a game anymore. It has become part of popular culture in several countries and the communication around it reflects this statement very well: everybody is playing it. The guys in the ad are College basketball coaches, well known in the US. The other guys, well I hope you know them, it would be worrying.

Honda - Let it Shine

This new ad for the Honda Prius is quite similar to Viral Factory's Sheep viral. This time, instead of sheep, we see cars arranged in a grid that use their headlights as pixels to create an animated sequence. The agency is Wieden + Kennedy Amsterdam. I personally prefer the Sheep viral.

Extreme Led Sheep Art - Samsung

Another great viral from the London based Viral Factory, a continuation of their work for Samsung. The video has been out for more than a week already but people doesn't seem to stop talking about it. I have met the guys a few times, particularly during my stay in London. When you see their office and have the chance to talk to them it is easy to understand how they get these crazy ideas. Despite their very serious 360 approach and strategic thinking, the team is very fun to be around and this is reflected in their projects.

Coke and Facebook

Great article from Adage talking about how a fan created page became one of the biggest things on facebook. The fact that the page was created without any involvement from the brand made this tool even more precious for the brand. I think the buzz effect is always stronger when people know that the company is not behind the story. This case is a diamond for Coke since we are in presence of very strong branding but generated by consumers themselves. This clearly shows Coke's lovemark status and their late involvement is even seen as just a benevolent service for the two fans.

How Two Coke Fans Brought the Brand to Facebook Fame

Soda Has Most Popular Page After President, in Collaboration Between Creators and Marketer

Pop quiz: Who has the most popular page on Facebook? Barack Obama. Who's second? Coca-Cola. Yes, sugared water runs second only to the leader of the free world. Who was it again that said people don't want to be friends with brands?

Coca-Cola still remains perplexed over why, of the 253 pages on Facebook devoted to the beverage, Messrs. Sorg and Jedrzejewski's page is the only one that has amassed millions of 'fans.'

The Coke page, which totals 3.3 million "fans," wasn't even created by Coca-Cola, but by a pair of Los Angelenos who just love Coke.

In late August 2008, aspiring actor Dusty Sorg was hunting for a Coca-Cola fan page he could join on Facebook. He didn't find one that seemed legitimate so he hunted down a high-resolution digital image of a Coke can, uploaded it to Facebook and made a page.

Popularity a mystery
And the page grew. And grew. There are 253 pages on Facebook devoted to Coca-Cola, but for some reason, Mr. Sorg's page -- which he runs with his friend Michael Jedrzejewski, a writer -- took off. The guys weren't sure why theirs ended up with millions of fans -- Facebook fan pages, at least last year, were relatively static, and the guys said they had been pretty inactive on it as they got busy during the winter holidays.

And most people can't actually do that much with branded page -- unless a brand is putting dollars behind it. Which Coke didn't.

Coca-Cola still remains perplexed over why Messrs. Sorg and Jedrzejewski's page took off.

"We've discussed a dozen hypotheses about why it took off," said Michael Donnelly, director of worldwide interactive marketing at Coca-Cola Co. One theory the company keeps coming back to, he said, was the quality of the photo -- a crisp, high-resolution image of a Coke can covered with a thin layer of condensation. "For us as marketers, luckily it was exactly right -- the can we had in the marketplace. ... It grabs you." He said another theory is that Messrs. Sorg and Jedrzejewski had very active, expressive "social graphs," i.e., their network of Facebook friends. But "we can't measure that," he said.

Facebook Page Statistics -- Top Pages
	Name	# of Fans	Daily Growth Rate	Weekly Growth Rate
1	Barack Obama	5,881,499	0.10%	1.45%
2	Coca-Cola	3,287,101	0.19%	2.93%
3	Nutells	3,052,502	0.18%	2.98%
4	Pizza	3,005,922	0.20%	3.52%
5	Cristiano Ronaldo	2,730,570	0.23%	3.93%
6	kinder surprise	2,581,651	0.18%	3.13%
7	Facebook	2,492,881	0.27%	4.22%
8	Windows Live Messenger	2,469,402	0.13%	2.75%
9	Sid	2,409,639	0.17%	3.25%
10	Boo	2,343,221	0.20%	3.95%
Source: AllFacebook.com

Problems with the page
As the page picked up fans, it also racked up spam and obscene comments -- issues that can plague many large pages on the social network. In November, Facebook decided to start enforcing a policy that says anyone creating a branded Facebook "page" must be authorized by or associated with the brand. Independent Facebook users could still create homages to brands, but they must live as a "group" or fan club.

"The problem was they had created a page, not a group," said Mr. Donnelly. Facebook made the decision to either close the page or let Coca-Cola take it over. Coca-Cola instead proposed an alternative: Let the creators keep the page but share it with a few of Coca-Cola's senior interactive folks.

"We threw a variable to Facebook and said we're interested, but we'd rather walk away from it than have it be perceived that we caused this action," Mr. Donnelly said.

Over the December holidays, he got in touch with Messrs. Sorg and Jedrzejewski to explain to them that this was a Facebook-driven change, and asked if they'd want to join him in administering it.

A friendly approach
Now normally when a giant multinational company calls a consumer about something the consumer has created in that company's brand name or image, it's not a good sign. And initially Mr. Jedrzejewski said he was worried about it.

"Everyone has this vision that if something like this happens, the big company will send you off to Guantanamo," he said. "This was exactly the opposite."

Coke instead flew the guys down to Atlanta for a few days of meetings, a tour of the World of Coke museum and a visit to the company's legendary archives. It was a friendly, not heavy-handed approach, Mr. Jedrzejewski said.

"We talked openly about ideas, the future of the fan page," he said.

Coke's actions in sharing the page are indicative of not only the lessons the beverage giant has learned in the social-media space but also proof that big brands can tread gracefully in social media.

Coke's progress
The company has come a long way. Its initial reaction to a Diet Coke-Mentos viral video sensation in 2006 was that the stunt didn't fit the brand's personality -- after all, people are meant to drink Diet Coke, not use it to make geysers. Now the company appears to be more at ease with its consumers creating content on its behalf -- and it's largely eschewed a destination-centric philosophy as it has recognized that its expressive fans are everywhere.

Mr. Donnelly recounts how in the early days of the web, big marketers would define success by how much traffic came to their websites -- and they've only recently become comfortable with the fact they can deliver a message through gaming, rich video and other places across the web. The same thing happened in Second Life, when marketers busily built islands, or destinations, within the virtual world. And it's a natural tendency in social networking.

"This page is a fan page and happens to be the biggest one, but we recognize that when you do a search you see 253," he said. And when it comes to communities, they recognize they need to ask advice, counsel and permission before engaging. "We don't want to be a big brand there doing big-brand advertising."

On Holidays!

Dear Readers,

I will be spending the next 10 days in Spain for some well needed holidays. I leave you with two nice ads from the last Superbowl. No interpretation needed here: I'll be back to the same agency. Just thought I'd show you some work-related ads, since there is a big chance you'll be at work when you read this.

See you in 10 days!

Vodafone - RC Office Grand Prix

Not the best viral I have seen but the fact that a lot of people is still debating over the credibility of a bluetooth controlled car means that it did its job.

There is no recognizable "WOW" effect, the one you usually find in good virals, but the subject of the video is quite appealing for a lot of people. So this means that even with a mediocre viral, if you manage to find your audience you will be successful.

I suppose the agency behind this is BBH. However, if you have more news, let me know about it.

Crisis on the web?

A very interesting article from Webkitchen. I personally haven't really noticed the effect of the crisis on Web advertising. I think the crisis is just increasing the speed of the transition towards digital advertising.

"According to the Union of Belgian Advertisers and researchers Profact [as published on Digimedia (dutch)], there is no crisis on the Internet. According to this report, 90% of all advertisers said the crisis does impact the way they work and over 80% reduced their budgets by 10 to 20%.

Where it gets interesting, is where they are spending their money. 55% of all advertisers said they will spend less money on tv, newspaper, magazine, movie theater, radio and street ads. However, 37% of them said they are investing more in Internet advertising.

On top of that, I also see a lot of interactive agencies looking to hire extra Flash designers and developers. This week alone, I saw at least 6 job openings across Europe on Twitter. I also received a couple of emails from agencies looking for people.

While talking to agencies at both FITC and FlashCamp UK last week, I found that this seems to be a common trend. Most of the people I talked to still had plenty of work but are expecting a cutback in marketing projects. Most of the people I talked to are planing on filling any gaps with research (looking into mobile development came up frequently) and diversifying their skill set.

Now, I may be completely wrong, but to me it sounds as if “the Internet” is doing ok at the moment. I’m sure there have been some cutbacks here and there already but the bigger agencies seem to be doing alright."

Feel free to give your opinion by posting a comment.

Merci la galette - St Michel

Very nice website by the French agency Australie for St Michel's galette (Typical French biscuit). The idea was to launch a competition inviting users to create a film around a St Michel-made character. The buzz around the website became quite big in France and the films are also very fun to watch (if you understand French though).

Click here for the website

and here is one of the films

BlackBerry Bullet

Direct hit to Apple's Iphone here with this ad from Guava NYC. This ad talks about the superiority of Blackberry's first touch-screen ever. However, how smart is the tag line in the end of the ad "nothing can touch it" when advertising for a touch-screen phone.

Update: Apple's answer

Audi Q5 - Synchronized

Another post concerning production companies and this one comes from Tempomedia for the new Audi Q5. The ad agency behind it is Heimat Berlin. The commercial works in a perectly organized way, (I guess it is the insight for the Q5), and the music adds a positive touch to this feeling of a perfectly running world.