TED recently held their second “Ads Worth Spreading” challenge. The non-profit called for agencies, producers and brands worldwide to submit work that had the power to inspire ideas and change people’s worldview. They created a YouTube channel to house the content, and the panel of judges consisted of six teams of two, each with one TED speaker and one advertising guru.
The ten winners were announced this Tuesday at the TED2012 conference. They include, Canal+, Chipotle, Engagement Citoyen, L’Oréal Paris, Mazda, Microsoft, NTT Docomo, Prudential, Rethink Breast Cancer and Sharpie.
The spots are beautifully produced and extremely inspirational. A couple of our favorites are Sharpie and Engagement Citoyen. But all of them are worth experiencing.
I think all of us on the business side of advertising hear the reoccurring phrase in our heads “What makes an ad good?” That voice nagging at the back of our minds is one that inspires not only good ideas, but fresh ideas. Sometimes there comes a brand that decides the fresh thing is to push their message in a more subtle way; allowing the audience to connect the dots.
The video clearly states it’s for Delta. You see the logo on the trucks, it’s uploaded by their YouTube channel. But it isn’t an in-your-face brand presence, and it’s not necessarily asking you to buy more tickets or love their airline more. They’re sharing an insight into the travel of your bag, and they want to tell you about a new service they provide. Simple, friendly, and you can decide for yourself if bag tracking will entice you to board a Delta plane.
Then there’s this video:
It’s not linked to the brand page, can’t be searched on YouTube with the company name… and it currently has 2.8 million views. After watching, most people probably figured it was too perfect to be anything else than an ad for LG, but the clever way they told a story about their product warranted shares around the internet.
So what have we learned? Every brand has a story to tell; make sure you tell yours the right way. Or maybe just that with a little extra thought, ads don’t have to always feel like ads. Or maybe I should head out and get myself an LG. They seem to have a nice, slim design…
While the Google Doodle video wins in the awesome department, make sure to check out Mashable’s top 7 spookiest YouTube videos here. Consider yourself warned. They are spooky. You will jump.
Nike recreated 1500 pairs of replicas of the shoes made famous by Marty McFly in Back to the Future. Nike put 150 pairs a day for 10 days up for auction on Ebay and raised millions for The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research. They also raised much-needed awareness for Parkinson’s. The YouTube video is still at the top of viral video charts, so the campaign continues to work hard and be just as fun even after the shoes were auctioned off to die-hard McFly fans and Parkinson’s supporters.
In addition to being a super-smart campaign combining a great brand, a great cause and one of the most iconic movies of all time, it was also a treat to see Christopher Lloyd as Dr. Emmett Brown after all these years. The auction ended this past Monday and the auction sales reached into the millions. Donations will continue to be accepted here.
The social sphere is abuzz today with the battle between the Old Old Spice Guy and the New Old Spice Guy. We saw it first on Adland then it popped in our inboxes via Creativity.
Just when we stopped thinking of the Old Spice Guy here he is again in a whole new Fabio-ized form and we’re invited to participate by voting, tweeting and if you’re like me, getting lost in the YouTube land of neverending video responses to their latest tweets. This is a great example of an already successful campaign that just keeps gaining new energy and momentum.
According to today’s AdAge Digital, checking in to TV commercials is now a reality. For Pepsi commercial viewers, the reward for the first 50,000 viewers to check-in in sweet: a coupon for a free Pepsi.
Users have to download the iPhone app “IntoNow” and hit it while the commercial is on. The app recognizes the ad and downloads a coupon right to the phone. Simultaneously, the app’s fingerprinting technology also gathers key data for advertisers—identifying if the commercial is being viewed live, on DVR or even on YouTube.
Old Navy tapped into a similar trend a few months ago by inspiring the first 1,000 viewers to use the Shazam app to identify a song then earn a free pair of jeans. It’ll be interesting to see where this new trend of interactive TV goes.
In a previous post we revealed a little link that leads to a goldmine of amazing creative work, generously compiled by Google Labs. As promised, today I’ll be the first in a series of Sawteeth sharing favorites from the doc. And trust me, in a body of work with so many insanely smart ideas, it was no easy task choosing just one. After clicking through 106 inspiring things, I fell in love with In B Flat. It rocks.
Conceived by Darren Solomon from Science for Girls, In B Flat is a collaborative music project created from a collection of 20 user-generated YouTube videos. The videos feature people playing different instruments, all in B flat. When played simultaneously, the music samples create beautiful compositions in completely unique variations. The idea is smart, simple, and leaves me somewhat sad, because I didn’t think of it first.
If you were on the B train crossing from Brooklyn to Manhattan on October 8th, you can stop reading. If you weren’t here’s the scoop: indie Brooklyn rock band Atomic Tom used the B train to perform live the track “Take Me Out” from their new album “The Moment”. They did so, however, without instruments. Using only their iPhones, specifically the apps Shred, Drum Meister, Pocket Guitar and Microphone, they played the track to a packed house. The resulting YouTube video has received over 2 million hits in less than a week.
According to this article, the band has already been approached by Apple. Translation: do not be surprised to see this pop up during a commercial break of your favorite TV show in the very near future. Now stop reading, download Shred to your iPhone and get iLoud.
We’re very excited about the new Twitter that’ll be rolling out over the next several weeks. It promises to be easier, richer and faster. We’ll be able to see embedded photos and videos directly on Twitter, thanks to partnerships with DailyBooth, DeviantART, Etsy, Flickr, Justin.TV, Kickstarter, Kiva, Photozou, Plixi, Twitgoo, TwitPic, TwitVid, USTREAM, Vimeo, yfrog and YouTube. We’ll also have easy access to related content and even mini profiles. How smart. So cool.
We are equally as inspired by this beautiful video used to make the announcement. And absolutely in love with the song choice.
While Twitter change is in the air, we’re thrilled to debut our new truly fabulous twitter background. Check it out.
