Video Projection Mapping is fast becoming the technique to use for companies to get their message across. In the last year alone major brands like Nike, Bentley and Nokia have all used the latest technology to market new models.
Explained in its simplest terms Video Projection Mapping is all about projecting images and moving images onto 3D objects. The exciting new technique has the ability to turn any surface – a building, river, even a human being into a compelling display.
The latest ideas and technology involved in Video Mapping allows advertisers and marketers to bring a whole new dimension into their campaign, and in the right location can create a unique buzz that no other platform can do.
This buzz has attracted many brands to jump on the video mapping bandwagon...
Nike recently launched their Jordan Melo M8 in spectacular fashion by projecting onto water fountains.
Hyundai created the stunning effect of the new Accent driving on a wall, highlighting their new slogan "New Thinking, New Possibilities'.
H&M's flagship store in Amsterdam came to life for its launch, when a mixture of fairytale images were projected onto the historic building.
These projections never fail to cause a huge buzz, with passers by forced to stop and stare at the technological wizardry, with many staying for duration of the 5, 10, 15 minute show, or however long it may be. This is what sets it apart from many other media platforms and why it looks set to be the future of marketing.
Volkswagen have just launched a lovely new Experiential campaign to celebrate the launch of their new 2012 model Jetta. The campaign began in October with random "Pop Up' art galleries appearing throughout major cities in Canada.
The outdoor exhibits featured limited edition long-exposure light paintings created by the Jetta using state of the art techniques. The framed and hand numbered paintings were then precariously hung around the cities allowing the more daring of passers-by to take the works home for themselves.
The 'thieves' that did manage to bag one of the pieces for themselves were then encouraged to share their finds - with Volkswagen Canada's Facebook page already receiving photos of the works of art suspended from homes and offices walls.
A simple and brilliant campaign. Absolutely love it.
When Heinz’s PR came to us and asked if it would be possible to create a Heinz ‘Beanzstalk’, we jumped at the chance!
A 20ft ‘Beanzstalk’ appeared overnight in London’s Soho Square, along with a Heinz gazebo with comfy orange ‘Bean-bags’ and chefs serving hot beans and toast to the passing crowds.
As well as the chance to sample a pot of hot Heinz Beanz (1 of your 5 a day) people could also pick up a free 4 pack of Heinz Snap Pots to take home or back to the office for lunch. Brand Ambassadors were also giving away recipe ideas using Heinz Beanz.
This Experiential event was held to promote the new limited edition Heinz Beans can design, with the the '1 of your 5 a day' message as well as support the latest television ads featuring 'Jack' and his 'magic beans'.
As well as being a fun day for all, the ‘Beanzstalk’ appeared in the Metro and Twitter was buzzing with the news of free beans for all in Soho!
We were up super early to fit the newest window display at John Lewis, Oxford Street this morning. The window was for Swatch's new 'Full Blooded Collection' available at John Lewis, Swatch stores and online.
Have you noticed recently the rise of the 'Mum'? Whilst always traditionally the 'gatekeeper' of the family finances, Mums have evolved from staying at home to 'having it all', with busy lives and countless consumer decisions all day every day.
Whilst it was once easy to attract kids with bright colours, free gifts and pester power, factors such as the ban on advertising unhealthy snacks to children has meant that the pressure is on for marketers to reposition brands quickly to attract Mum- the key household decision maker. There has become a need for marketers to seek to create deeper emotional ties to their brands in order to create and maintain brand loyalty.
Raising children is now an emotionally fraught and competitive business, with NCT classes, breastfeeding debates, Eco nappies, organic clothing, homemade vs shop bought. Eating too much salt? Eating too much sugar? All of their 5 a day? Too much TV? The debates and latest advice keep coming thick and fast.
Tabloid press and celebrity magazines are filled with images of the latest pregnant celebs, the highs and lows of pregnancy fashion and then of the course, the parade of well dressed mothers balancing their well dressed offspring on one hip whilst juggling a Blackberry and a Starbucks and still finding time for Baby Yoga... the pressure for perfection in all areas of Motherhood is overwhelming.
Bring on then, the brands that seem to have been devised (or so they will have us believe) with Mum in mind. P and G brands have recently employed the 'Proud Sponsor of Mums' tagline used over many of their key global brands such as Fairy, Pampers and Lenor.
P&G's 2011 'Pround sponsor of Mums' Advert
It seems to be doing the trick beautifully for some especially John Lewis, who won awards for its emotive 90second television advert that follows a woman from babyhood to being a Grandmother. During the ad's TV campaign, the 90-second ad was discussed every 11 minutes on average on Twitter while was one of the most watched videos on YouTube in April with a 4.9 out of five approval rating.
John Lewis' award winning 2011 Ad
This also goes to show what a huge impact Mums have socially for brands. Facebook and Twitter are prime tools when targeting this market but other third party influencers such as the almighty Mumsnet have also had a huge effect. Traditionally powerful WOM marketing has exploded online with good and bad reviews of products and services spreading at amazing speeds.
Founded in 2000, Mumsnet is the giant of the online forums, with everyone from Politicians to marketers seeking their approval. The sites’s 10th birthday party was hosted by Google UK at their London headquarters where guests included Ed Miliband and Steve Hilton. Gordon Brown has referred to Mumsnet as ‘one of the great British institutions'.
Mumsnet has also launched a blogging network that allows its authors to share advertising revenue on the content they generate. Brands will be offered the opportunity to display ads across the network and will be allowed to share products with the bloggers for reviews. The network will include celebrities, such as former foreign secretary David Miliband and TV presenter Aggie Mackenzie, and members of the Mumsnet site. They have also launched ‘Gransnet’ earlier this year.
It seems then, that it will be a case of 'Mums the word' in Marketing for quite a while to come.
There have been an explosion of new so called 'boutique' festivals in the last few years. Alongside the big money makers such as Glastonbury, Bestival and Latitude there are so many more 'independents' making a name for themselves. Standon Calling, Blissfields, Lounge on the Farm, End of the Road but with one of these happening seemingly every weekend from May through to September, what really makes a festival special?
If you were to ask the Secret Garden Party, the answer would be simple: the people. The team behind this festival have spent years cultivating and maintaining that truly magical vibe that takes a public event from good to amazing. It's all about participation and they hammer it home at every opportunity...
'The Secret Garden Party is a temporary community that is as free, irreverent, friendly and engaging as it is possible to be. It is conceived as a moment in the year where you can connect to your creative powers, explore your wildest fantasies and meet thousands of people who all want to meet you. It is a gathering that exists for only four days - away from cities and schedules, brands and boundaries – founded on participation and with the potential to change your life. It is a festival of the arts…where everyone is the artist.' Roots & Shoots: What is the Secret Garden Party all about?
And this is where something great happens. You get some of the best artistic, musical, fun loving and creative minds together in one place and you tell them that the only rule is 100% participation... the result? Imagination and creativity on levels you won't ever have experienced before.
Self styled 'Fun Scientists' Bearded Kitten curate the 'Collisillium', an amphitheatre that houses mud wrestling and mass participation 'Guess Who' games by day and circus acts and general rave ups on the hay bales by night. The almighty Kigu Crew (who are responsible for the tribes of cute Japanese animal costumes seen at UK festivals) hosted a 'Super Kigu Land' where they drove around the site 'poaching' Kigu wearing animals and taking them back to HQ to party. There is nothing as funny in the animal kingdom than watching Pandas dance to Dubstep...
Bearded Kitten's 'Collisillium'
'Super Kigu Land' at this years Secret Garden Party (www.kigu.co.uk)
We even got the chance to go a 'Dirt Banquet' hosted by Guerilla Science which featured a 3 course meal (in a field?!) with speakers during each course exploring the nature of dirt, how we taste and perceive food and even the idea of sexuality as dirty... eye opening and delicious. The meal began with pickled Martinis and ended with the dissection of a jelly brain! During the rest of the weekend they also invited gardeners to... 'Acquire the wisdom of whores, embody the drug, race a cockroach, listen to the sun, smell an orangutan, feast on filth, count to infinity, cradle a maggot, speak to aliens, draw the intestines, dine in space, and come ponder how remarkable it is that you are reading these words at all'
'Chemistry Vs Physics by Guerilla Science at the Secret Garden Party
Of course it helps that Secret Garden is blessed with one of the most stunning festival sites in the UK. A sparkling lake that is fit for swimming in on sunny days (and which also hosts a floating island structure, accessible by boat), rolling green hills and the most beautifully lit trees we've ever seen. They don't just stop here though, with knitted tree jumpers, a shoe tree, pianos, tree houses and four poster beds hidden in the woods... the attention to detail is astounding. Paint fights, laughter workshops, dance offs and the most fantastical fancy dress you ever saw... you could almost forget that Blondie, Andy C, Alex Metric, Yasmin, Mylo and the Mystery Jets were playing!
SGP claims to be 100% independent of corporate partnerships and refuses to cover the site in banner sponsorship (they feel that 'sitting in the countryside under a giant Pepsi logo can be a little disconcerting'). Instead the presence (if any) of brands involved with the festival goes seemingly unnoticed.
An amazing giant pedal powered punch machine (see below) from the clever folks at Courvoisier sat atop a hill like it had no other more natural home in all the world, just as last year the fabulous 'Hendrick's Carriage of Curiosities' brought electrocuting cucumbers and bedtime stories on red velvet blankets to a crowd who come to the garden each year to indulge in jelly wrestling, laughing workshops, bands hanging from tree tops and discovering hidden worlds inside fireplaces in the woods...
When it comes to magic, Secret Garden is off the scale. Such thought, love, imagination and downright insanity goes into the production of this festival each year that no two experiences are ever the same. With it's love of community creation and arts based spectacles such as 'Burning Man', the Secret Garden Party has earned itself a fiercely loyal following and the word is spreading fast. This year tickets sold out in record time, all the way back at the start of June. The audience asked for the festival not to get any bigger and rare as it may seem, the powers that be listened. The Secret Garden party will remain how it is; of the people, for the people and by the people and because of this you can guarantee that this festival won't be losing it's magic any time soon.
Increasingly when we are designing Experiential activities for clients, there is a growing need for the brand to be able to use the activity to engage their online audience. Less and less do brands want to simply sample products or have brand ambassadors verbalise key messages. They want to create interactive physical and emotional experiences that also translate online.
There are some Brands out there doing this in really innovative and exciting ways. These are just a few of our favourites...
Tiger Beer ‘Know the Not Known’
Don’t just go with the ordinary. Discover More. Get switched on to what’s on. Find the place where the Tiger Beer flows. tigerbeer.co.uk
Tiger Beer has launched a campaign that features up and coming contemporary talents from the four fields of art, music, design and film and will provide access to the best parties in London.
Using ‘connection symbols’ users are granted access to underground, invite only, Vice magazine and Tiger supported events. Other channels utilised are Twitter and You Tube and Flickr- encouraging consumer generated content and a multi way flow of conversation between Tiger, the Artists and the consumer.
The Tiger’s series of ‘Not Known’ events reached number five this May with a collaboration between two of London’s best promoters, Dirty Canvas and Deadly Rhythm. Dirty Canvas and Deadly Rhythm have been pioneering UK bass music for years across London – between them pushing the most forward-thinking sounds in grime, dubstep, house, funky and techno and all areas in between.
Dulux ‘Let’s Colour Project’
This award winning campaign by paint manufacturer Dulux saw them take their mission statement – ‘Let’s Colour’ – quite literally, by completely rejuvenating grey, graffiti covered corners of some of the world’s major cities.
Dulux has big global ambitions. Its highest margins are delivered in sales of colour paint, yet only a minority of global homes are decorated in colour. Creative agency Euro RSCG were asked to create a strong, shared global communications platform to demonstrate how Dulux could ‘add colour to people’s lives’.
It began working on a global integrated campaign, with social media at its heart – the internet being seen as the primary channel for being able to communicate simultaneously with its local brands all around the world.
To get local communities interested in taking part, momentum was built around a social media campaign. A ‘Lets Colour’ project blog was launched as an open and direct way to start sharing the project with the public.
Visiting four cities – London, Paris, Rio de Janeiro and Jodhpur they invited members of the local community to help paint streets, squares, schools and buildings that were in need of a colour makeover.
Real time content was uploaded to the blog and to You Tube, Twitter, Facebook and Orkut, whilst a documentary entitled ‘Walls’ was filmed at each location (later being used in the Brands ATL activities). This documentary was viewed online more than 400,000 times in four weeks, and was YouTube’s 12th most tweeted video in its film category within two days of going live. The film received more than half a million views within four weeks of debuting, putting it in the top 2% of YouTube’s films and making it film of the week in the UK. Now, dozens of future events are being prepared by the brand.
The campaign was awarded a Gold Watch at the Golden Drum Awards in 2010.
For Euro RSCG the campaign has been a winner too. The Documentary won it a prestigious TED award for the best 'Ad worth spreading'.
Volkswagen ‘Fox’ at Planeta Terra Festival
A car brand wants to promote a new car to a whole host of fashion conscious early adopters... take it to Festival right?
Well that is almost exactly what Volkswagen Brazil did recently when they sponsored the biggest music festival in Sao Paulo, the (sold out) Planeta Terra Festival. They decided to promote the ‘Fox’ through an ingenious mashup of Twitter, Google maps and real world prize locations.
Volkswagen hid secret tickets across the entire city, and then displayed them on a microsite using Google Maps. The catch was that the only way to zoom in on the wide angle of the map was to have the community band together using the #foxatplanetaterra hash tag. The more tweets made, the more you could zoom in on the map, ultimately revealing the pinpoint location of each ticket. Then it became a foot race in the real world to find them, day and night for 4 days.
In less than 2 hours, the campaign #hastag became the #1 trending topic in Brazil, where it stayed for the length of the campaign. This brilliant promotion technique was devised by BBDO Brazil.
