This has come up a bit in meetings lately as well as being passed around via email, so I'm sure you've seen it, but if not, here you go. Another great execution by Improve Everywhere. Some personal past favorites of theirs include Slo-Mo Home Depot and Best Gig Ever.
Some of you have probably seen this already, but if not, here 'tis. Doing something like this with the right idea for the right brand could make for a very fun, engaging experience.
Enjoy.
The Cool Hunter points out an interesting execution for Nintendo's highly popular Wii in Italy. Here's what they had to say:
"Retro video game iconic heroes have been making a come back for some time now. From T-shirts through to shoes, we have seen the likes of Mario, Donkey Kong and dare we say their rival, Sega's Sonic The Hedgehog plastering their pixelated faces all over some funky wears.
Hot on the heels of this fad, gaming giant Nintendo have promoted their latest baby Wii in Italy with this interesting wall display created by a series of posted notes. Behind each not lies a message inviting the recipient to relive the 80's through some classic games available on Wii. The post it notes make a nice 3D representation of a 2D pixel. Cute. By Andy G"
Not only do I like the execution's visual tie to the early Nintendo's blocky, pixel-based characters, I also like that the "ad" itself is interactive by nature and provokes participation by the viewer. This is a good reinforcement of the fun interactivity of the Wii, a core piece of what has led to its popularity.
I've been kicking around Bogusky's thought on "What's your brand's game?" some more. I'm posting this as a stream of thought. It's not final by any means but I'm just trying to work out where this is going. I think what he said was quite interesting and it has obviously stuck with me. So, here's how I've been thinking about it lately...
I'm not so sure this question/idea works entirely across the board. At least not if you take literally, which I think he was meaning as he used "Tic Tac Toe" as a possible answer and it was in close proximity to his discussion of video games being a very interesting area he's constantly thinking about.
I believe it might not be so much about what your brand's game is as much as I believe it gets to the bigger question of how will your brand provoke someone into interacting with you. So maybe the question is more about "How does your brand play?" Or, maybe even more importantly, "How does my brand's audience like to play?" and then "How can my brand add value to that form of play?"
I like the idea of keeping it in the framework of something kid-like. And I like keeping it about creating an interaction and getting someone to do something. I also like keeping it about something fun. Games are generally fun. Playing is generally fun.
If you make it about playing, then you can go beyond games. Some kids like to build things - toy models, Legos, blocks, etc. Some kids like to solve puzzles. Some kids like to color. Some kids like to sing. Some kids like to run and dance and constantly be moving around. Some kids like to joke and tease. Some kids like to ride their bikes or skateboards. Some kids love learning and so they play in ways that are educational, yet fun.
I also like playing because it is social. Playing for the most part involves doing something with at least one other person if not a larger group. Playing generally requires people to interact with each other based off of another person's actions in that group. And then someone else reacts based on the new action. And so on, and so on. If you make it about playing, it gets to how is your brand going to do something fun with others.
I've always believed that brand loyalty and/or brand preference is built over time through repeated positive experiences with a brand by a consumer/user. (You can say it, "no duh, Paul.") Those experiences take shape in many forms. How the brand's packaging looks and feels. What the brand's advertising conveys. How the brand's product or service itself looks, tastes, feels, smells, sounds. What others say about the brand. Etc., etc., etc. All of these add up over time and if they all build to an overall positive experience, you're in good shape to build brand preference and loyalty.
By looking at your marketing as how you're going to play with your audience, it might open up new ways of building your brand. Instead of asking what you can tell them that will make them choose you, maybe consider asking yourself how can you play with them to get them interested in choosing you.
When thinking about this, I think it's important to be sure to make it involve your brand's audience and their perspective. You can't just make it about what you want to play. Think back to when you were a kid. You had your favorite ways to play. Your friends might have had other favorite ways to play. Sometimes in order to get them to play what you wanted them to, you had to first play what they wanted to play.
So long as you're building a postive exprience with people who can utlimately become loyal advocates for your brand, does it really matter whose form of playing you're doing? Yours or theirs? Either way, aren't you getting what you want?
I'm going to keep thinking about it and will continue to share where my head is going with it. I kind of like this idea of playing and taking it beyond games. But who knows what tomorrow or the next day will bring as this continues to bounce around in my head.
If you've got some thoughts, I'd love to hear them...
photo via NikonD40Rob
That's the question Alex Bogusky said he is constantly asking himself. "What's next?" He's always looking for the next big thing. The next cool way to bring a brand to life. If you read much about CP+B, you know that's ingrained into their culture and the way they think. It was clear in this interview that this comes from the top.
Last Thursday, Alex was on stage being interviewed by John Temple, editor & publisher of the Rocky Mountain News, about his agency, their work and a bit aboout how they go about it at the request of the New Denver Ad Club to kick off their new organization.
Since Sean already shared a lot of his notes and a lot of what I jotted down when I got home is similar, I'll not recap all of mine, but instead call out a few highlights/recurring themes and share some thoughts.
Pop Culture, Pop Culture, Pop Culture
These two words came up more than a few times throughout the session. It's very evident that pop culture not only influences the work at Crispin Porter, but that it is their mission to do as much as they can to influence it as well. This clearly works for some of their clients quite well (Burger King anyone?) and other's not so much (Miller Lite? no thanks.). In looking through their body of work, you can see that they don't always try to push the limits of pop culture, but when it feels right for one of their clients, they certainly do hit the gas pedal.
Let's Play a Little Game
A short video was presented on the Burger King XBOX games, showing how these came about from early "information leaks" to gaming enthusiasts, to developing a support cast of characters for the King by increasing their presence in TV ads, to the ultimate success of the campaign. Shortly thereafter, Alex was sharing his thoughts on where things are going and that he sees games as an area that is becoming more and more interesting for brands. And then he brought up that this is something he has been thinking a lot about lately.
He said that for the longest time, it has been about "what's your brand's story?" But now he wonders if it shouldn't now be "what's your brand's game?" I think he's right on this. A game is something you play. It creates an interaction. In a story, you're telling someone something. A story is one-way communication for the most part. But a game requires some type of interaction, thinking, reaction. A game requires you to DO something. (More to come on a future post as it's been in my head for quite some time and just keeps building and building as I read and hear more.)
He said Crispin has always been looking to play games with consumers, for ways to be interactive, even before there was "interactive." He used the example of the stolen SpongBob Squarepants inflatables, or Spongenappings as some called them, from Burger King to support this. Rather than getting mad about it or not doing anything about it, they decided to have fun with it and send out a reward for information leading to the safe return of them.
Method Branding
One thing he brought up ever so briefly was that they (CP+B) practice method branding. (Hmmm. Think this is based on method acting?) He said they will take a product home (or in the case of Burger King, eat a lot of burgers) and live with it, sleep with it, play with it, etc., until they find something really special about it. Something you can really love about it. They then come back and start creating ideas based on this. They know they're on to something good when they can look at it and it changes the way they look at the product.
I feel like I have heard this term before elsewhere, but can't quite remember where. I like the idea of looking at it this way. I think it's something that some of the best creatives have probably always done, but maybe haven't always called it such. If you're going to be asked to create an interesting ad or idea for something, what better way to do it than this? You can have all the research in the world but I think there is something to be said for experiencing a product first hand if you can.
Creating Intellectual Property
This string of three words came up a few times as well during the course of the interview. If you visit CP+B's web site, you can see that they refer to themselves as a factory for advertising and branded creative content. Given the way they are approaching compensation on some things now though, I have to think this is how they're looking at their work and ideas for their clients moving forward and that it will impact how they are compensated.
Pick One Please
I think this came up around when he was talking about the method branding thing. He used a couple examples but the one that stuck with me was for Burger King and how they decided to be all about burgers and sandwiches. They decided to not try and chase the leader. They're happy to let McDonald's play around with salads and wrappy things. Burger King is for burger lovers. "How can it not be when your name is Burger King?"
This is something that many of us often hear and/or preach all the time to our clients - that you have to pick one thing and stand for that consistently. You can't be all things to all people. You can't say fifty different things in one ad about why your product is better. Pick one. Repeat it over and over in different ways. Make sure it's big enough to do this. And damn it, make it interesting. Don't just tell people you're this. Show them. And then ask them to show you. Play with them. Make it fun. Sorry. Got off on a tangent there...
Miscellany
Some random other notes from the evening:
- Two people he admires: P.T. Barnum, Howard Gossage
- The only two agencies he mentioned other than CP+B - Goodby and Wieden + Kennedy
- Suck up everything you can from those around you. I suck up everything I can from everyone at the agency - life is a pyramid scheme.
- Don't ask anyone to do something you wouldn't do - if I don't want to go to a client meeting because they've gotten rough to sit through, maybe it's time to do something about that
- On measurement studies - You can raise all the awareness, brand tracking metrics you want, but if it doesn't increase sales, you're going to get fired, so why measure that stuff? The only thing we look at/care about is if it's driving sales.
- On focus groups - Focus groups do to creative ideas what the wind tunnel did to the car - they take all the edges off and you're left with a bunch of cars that look like eggs. The Pontiac Aztek is a great example of a focus group car. (I don't think he was knocking focus groups as a whole on this, just when they're used by clients to judge creative ideas before they're produced and then using that info to "meddle" with the creative/idea.)
- His belief is that you either go with an idea 100% or it doesn't work. To the point that if a client is doing "fearful meddling" on something, he'll stop them and not ask them to trust them but to go with it the way they've presented it and if it doesn't work, they can fire them. His support on this was that they do their homework. When they present ideas they define the problem, show the strategy, show a bunch of stuff that supports all of that and then show the ideas that resulted and support for why they'll work. If you only go 80 or 90%, it's not going to work.
Nintendo of Canada is up to something pretty cool. Check it out.
MTV launched their Puberty campaign today. I haven't explored this too much yet other than playing around on the site and with the Fart game. It's all quite nicely done in my opinion - from the animations and 3D modeling of the characters to the well-written descriptions of them. It feels like they've captured the awkwardness, immaturity and truth of this stage of life quite well. I'll be intersted to see just how far they take this or if this is the extent of it. Either way, it's good for a laugh and some fun.
See the site here. Get more info here and here.
From Hornet's site:
Welcome to "Puberty," those awkward, insecure years you'd love to forget. A unique cast of characters created and designed by Clay Weiner for MTV takes us back to a time in life where people fell in to two categories: popular and really unpopular; and your body did things you didn't want it to do. "Puberty" reminds us that although those awkward years can be pretty crappy, adulthood is, like, way worse.
From the DIGIT article:
Collaborating with creator/director Clay Weiner to animate his character-driven tales about being that magical, miserable time of life known as Puberty, Hornet and Weiner have created 10 spots featuring a cast of 11 pre and pubescent characters. The various scenarios, which will transport you (willing or unwilling) back to the hellish days of middle school angst, began airing in the US today.
The Puberty Web site and viral games, were created in conjunction with WDDG in NYC, and will launch simultaneously with the TV spots and the mobile episodes. Beyond being a brand campaign for MTV, Puberty will be MTV’s first ever foray for original content produced for the mobile community....
“Puberty, as painful as it was, proves in hindsight to be a pretty apt metaphor for life. But the cruel truth is that you never get over it. No matter how old you get you still get pooped on (Doo-doo), you always wish you were more mature than you are (Pubes), you always think you have a big butt (Booty), and they’ll always laugh at you for sticking out of a crowd (Boner). As bad as Puberty is, adulthood is worse.”says Weiner.
Hmmm. Which one of these led to this?
A) Client Briefing: "We like what Axe is doing. Give us some of that."
B) Creative Concepting: "I'm out of ideas. Why don't we just do what Axe is doing. That's the kind of stuff we need anyway. And it'll look great in our portfolios."
C) Agency Presentation: "As you know very well, Axe has leveraged the idea of shagging a beautiful woman quite successfully. So, we came up with an idea that does just that! Whatta ya think!?"
D) All of the above.
Don't feel too bad Mitchum. You at least started with your own brand idea and tried to work the Axe angle in. And it's not nearly as obvious of a rip off as what these guys are.
Thanks to Adrants for pointing out this one.
Samorost2 - The Plot Begins.
This past Friday's Creativity email pointed me to a fun and interesting little distraction coming out of the Czech Republic. The plot of the game is to help the lil' guy rescue his kidnapped pup. The design of the game is very well thought out. The animations, quirky critters, interesting scenes/levels and music all work incredibly well to pull you in to the gnome's strange little world.
One of the things I found most fun was that as you click around trying to figure out what you need to do in order to move forward, you end up being surprised by some very creative thinking that went into a few pointless (as far as moving forward in the game goes) things you can click on. So, not only does your brain get a little stimulation in solving the puzzle but you also get a bit of extra entertainment out of it.
The team at Amanita Design did a great job on this one. So well in fact that it's been nominated at the 2007 Independent Game Festival for awards for Best Web Browser Game and Excellence in Visual Art.
As for my experience, I have given up for a while. I find myself stuck at the moment trying to empty all of the fruit from one basket into another in the third level (I think). I'm blaming it on my bluetooth mouse and will try later in the week with a wired mouse. That little pup is just going to have to wait it out a bit longer I'm afraid.
Anyway, quit reading this and go check it out...
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