Hell Yeah!! 25th of june. I made it back to Belgium alive. I left my home and family on tuesday the 14th of june to go and judge the direct category in Cannes for the Festival of Creativity. Me together with 24 other persons, mostly creative directors. Under the lead of Alexander Schill from ServicePlan Germany. Check the jury out here and here

I stayed at the Martinez. Hell Yeah!!! 20 metres from the Gutter Bar. Hell Yeah!!!!!! But my room had a view to a railroad. And trains were passing by at 6.30 am. Hell No!!!!!!!!

Nevertheless, wednesday we started judging.

The jury president gave a golden bullet to everyone in this jury. To make clear that we were looking for ideas and campaigns that directly hit the heart of the consumer.

Seperated in 5 little groups of 5 people each. I was with Gary (USA), Tiago (Portugal), Albert (Austria) and Raj (India) We didn’t see a lot of great work during that first day. But we did see this awesome peace of dimensional mailing from South Africa. Spark Hope. And at that point we didn’t even know that Xolisa, (the South African jury member form Joe Public Jo’burg) had something to do with it. Otherwise we wouldn’t quote it as high as we did ;-)

We saw some other cool stuff, but at the end of the day we were a bit dissappointed about the small amount of really cool stuff. Maybe 3 or 4 pieces during the whole day.

After the first day of judging we went to the Gutter Bar, we went eating . And most importantely, we were comforted by the guys and girls from the other groups: they did see more good work than we did.

After a short (that stupid train again!!) but intense sleep and a way too expensive breakfast (37 euro!!!! Luckily the organisation payed those kind of things) we were escorted to the Palais for the 2nd Judgement Day.

And what we all hoped happened. We did see more good pieces than the first day. Some belgian stuff too. Hooray!!!!! We saw the Spread the TedX campaign from Argentina

and the Budweiser Poolball campaign, also from Argentina.

These guys suck at football but they sure know how to make great ads. Or is it the other way around? Later that week we found out that these 2 lovely campaigns came from argentinian jury member German Yunes’s agency (Ogilvy Argentina) Arriba German!!!

That evening and night, same routine. Gutter Bar, dinner, gutter bar, sleep, 6.30 train. Aaaagh!!! Stupid train!!

Day 3. Switching groups again. During the session in my group we judged work from my agency and more specifically from me and my copywriter @imanava

Radio1-Revenge on Callcenters

<p>Radio 1 - Revenge on callcenters & helpdesks from Mortierbrigade on Vimeo.</p>

and Studio Brussel-Share Your Parents

<p>Studio Brussel - Music For Life - share your parents from Mortierbrigade on Vimeo.</p>

Never felt so small in my life. But my group seemed to like it. At least that’s what they told me. I would get to know if they were talking the truth the next day, during shortlist discussions.

 And that next day arrived as fast as the train that woke me up the next morning at... 6.30

 Saturday morning – Day 4 – Shortlist Day.

The organisation gave us a pile of paper with all the shortlisted campaigns on it.

I quickly browsed it and counted 20 shortlists for Belgium. Almost as much shortlist as inhabitants. Nice! And from those 20 shortlists, 8 were from my agency: mortierbrigade brussels. And guess what? The people from my group didn’t lie. They really liked our work. Radio1-Revenge on callcenters and Studio Brussel-Share Your Parents were shortlisted 2 times each. Another campaign from me and my copywriter made it to the shortlist. Share If You Care – A fundraising facebook app for Pakistan.

<p>Share if you care from Mortierbrigade on Vimeo.</p>

I was a happy camper.

 When we took a look at the rest of the shortlist I noticed that a lot of great work was on it. Spark Hope was on it, the Spread the TedX was on it...

After a brief chat we started to walk around the room and began to give points to every campaign that was on the shortlist. It was there that I discovered some campaigns I didn’t see during my first 3 days of judging. Just to name a few: Coca Cola friendship machine (Ogilvy Argentina and German again!! Aiai Cabron!!),

American Rom (a really ballsy campaign from Romania)

and Tesco – Subway Stores from Cheill Worldwide Seoul, a real piece of innovation.

We had a long day of judging and discussions and after a short break around 6 o’clock we entered the room again. We got to see the points and the rankings and then we discussed about some works that we wanted to bring into the shortlist again. I was glad to see that Budweiser Poolball finally made it to the shortlist.

We called it a day at euhmm... almost midnight and went for some pizza. Went to sleep at 2am and woke up at 6.30 because of a stupid train.

Sunday – Lions Day. Today we were gonna give Lions to the campaigns. Exciting.

Raul Perez (Spain) was sitting on my left and Tony Bradbourne (New Zealand and aka the man who made the Iggy Pop Direct GP 2010) was sitting to my right. ROCK ON!!!

We had some discussions during the day but in the end everyone agreed on most of the Lions. We had 11 golds which is OK but not a lot when you know that over 1800 campaigns have been entered.

Golds for Tesco,

Coca Cola Friendship machine,

Human Rights Watch, - Burma,

American Rom,

Decode Jay-Z.

We handed out more silvers and a lot more Bronzes.

When the jury voted on my campaigns (from my agency or from me and my copywriter) I had to go outside. And I can assure you, those were the worst minutes of my entire young life. In the hallway you feel a mixture of all kinds of body liquids searching for a way to get out. When finally they let you back into the room everybody has a pokerface. In that case your campaign remains shortlist. When your campaign has a lion, some of the guys lift their thumbs up. And those moments with thumbs up were the best moments of my entire young life. The result: 3 bronze lions for yours truly and his copywriter. And 6 bronze lions for Belgium. Together with the 20 shortlist Belgium is ranked 6th country in the direct jury. Not bad for a country without a government.

After handing out all those lions we took a break and we came back for another important round. We were about to judge for the Grand Prix.

After one hour of debate, discussions and judging pro’s en contra’s we unanimously awarded American Rom with the Grand Prix. Why?? Because it was as good as the other contenders for the Grand Prix. With a little difference. This campaign showed a lot of courage from the client’s side. The brand was in deep shit and they took a serious risk by running this campaign. But it worked out and we wanted to show the advertisers all over the planet that sometimes it pays to follow your instinct and to just put your balls on the table!!

So that was that.

We were finished at 10PM

We went to eat something with some of the jury members and got a good night sleep.

When I woke up at 6.30 because of the train, I wasn’t angry at the train no more. How can one be angry about a train when we just awarded a Gold Lion  to this campaign about a miniature train. Enjoy the Come Back Ferrorama-campaign.

 Many thanks to the jury with the most down to earth people ever!!!!

Cheers,

@sebadevalck

Just saw some work for Burger King on the internet.

Thanks to the site: 10minutesaperdre.fr that was showed to me by my copywriter Arnaud Pitz aka Dirty Patch.

First thought it came from Crispin Porter and Bogusky. But when I googled it I saw it was work from Ogilvy Brasil.

Nice to see that other agencies than CP+B can produce nice and fresh work for Burger King.

The Idea:

"One cashier, one hidden cam, one printer. That´s all Burger King needed to prove that Whoppers are made to order. Exactly your way. When a person ordered a sandwhich, a picture was taken, without anyone noticing. The client got your freshly made Whopper with your face on it. Burger King has proved that each sandwich is unique, made to order, especially for each customer."  - txt from www.adsoftheworld.com

Check out the "WhopperFace"-case here:

Just one remark. I find it a pity that they used only one cashier, one hidden cam and one printer. The case movie shows us on top of that only one Burger King restaurant too.

I really like the idea and it's "have it your way"-strategy relevance.

But with such an idea it would be nice to have more restaurants, more cashiers... in the case movie.

PS: The fact that we still don't have Burger King in Belgium really freaks me out. Support this cause on Facebook, right here.

 And now a bit of personal work.

Bonjour Micro - A Radio1 campaign made by an advertising agency from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Radio1 (National Radio Belgium ) is doing lots of stuff around the 50th anniversary of the Independence of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Congo used to be a belgian colony.

Even the Belgian King Albert II is attending the festivities arround the 50 years of independence in Congo.

For belgians, Congo is part of their history. That's why Radio 1 organizes something big around the 50th anniversary of independent Congo.

The 26th of March there will be a huge event in Antwerp. A Congo-evening with debates, true stories, concerts, literature and poetry. The event will be broadcasted on Radio 1.

So, Radio1 asked our agency (Mortierbrigade) to come up with a campaign to announce their Congo-evening.

Initially they asked for a TV-commercial (30") and a magazine and newspaper ad.

Me (Sebastien De Valck) and my copywriter (Arnaud Pitz) came up with the name for the event: BONJOUR MICRO. (Hello Microphone)

It's an name based on a well known belgian joke about former Congolese president Mobutu.

We, at mortierbrigade brussels, took the whole independence-thing very literal.

We thought: "Since Congo is celebrating its 50 years of independence, it could be interesting to let a congolese advertising agency create the whole campaign on an independent basis."

Are they able to do such a thing over there?

Do they work the same way as we do over here in Europe or in the States?

What kind of feeling are they gonna put into the campaign?

Is the cliché image about Congo we belgians still often have reality or not?

The only thing we would do ourselves is filming the making of and puting that online. So people could see the whole process.

The Radio1 marketing manager (Peter Claes) was immediately enthousiast about the whole project.

So, we started to look for the right agency in Congo. After a few google-attempts and a few phonecalls, we found an agency that, in our opinion, would be able to do the job.

We contacted them and they were immediately interested. They were proud about the fact that they could create a campaign that's all about their country.

From that point, the whole development of the actual campaign (tv-commercial and print) was something between Radio1 and their "new agency in Kinshasa (Congo)"

This is the video message Radio1 sent to their congolese advertising agency to brief them on the project.

People were able to follow the making of on facebook.com/bonjourmicro and the Radio1 website. A team from mortierbrigade and Radio1 went to Kinshasa to film the making of. Young documentary director Lennart Stuyck filmed the making of and we edited it on the spot to put it asap online for people to follow.

We made teasing 15" TV commercials (showing footage from the making of) and banners (inspired on what the congolese agency was doing for the print ad)  to invite people to follow the making of on the internet. We were invited in national radioshows to talk about the whole project.

And the congolese agency continued working on the real Bonjour Micro-campaign.

You can check the making of (sorry, but it's in dutch) on http://www.facebook.com/bonjourmicro

Here you can see one of our 5 teasing 15"-commercials.

And here are the ad and commercial made by the congolese agency:

Not exactly what we would've made ;-)

but nevertheless looking fine and delivered in time.

You can check the case movie here:

I finally saw the campaign I was talking about in the previous post. I found it on ihaveanidea.org

http://ihaveanidea.org/inbox/2010/02/25/bbdo-toronto-tropicana-bring-the-suns...

I expected something more spectacular after reading the story a few weeks ago.

I read a few weeks ago on the web about a spectucular guerilla ad from BBDO Toronto for Tropicana. See the txt below.

National Post: Ad-ventures to the extreme

National Post - Friday, January 15, 2010: http://bit.ly/74gnSU

Thanks to the democratic broadcasting capabilities of YouTube, the Internet has been a boon for event and stunt marketing. Brand-sponsored promotions with a handful of live viewers -- from dancing flash mobs in London's tube stations to a human stampede chasing a wheel of cheese down Whistler mountain -- can now potentially be seen by millions of people around the world.

That trend will get even bigger this year as an increasing number of brands fuse reality television with event marketing, chronicling the results in pieces of branded entertainment that can be seen in traditional and digital channels.More...

I stumbled upon this while checking a Victor&Spoils twitter status.

To promote the new EOS 7D, canon launched this user generated campaign. 

"THE STORY BEYOND THE STILL"

"Introducing the first user-generated HD Video Contest where photographers become filmmakers, and we all see beyond the still. To kick off the contest, Canon asked photographer, Vincent Laforet, to interpret what story lives beyond this still and to tell that story with the new Canon EOS 7D. His will be the first chapter of seven, each ending with a still photograph for the next aspiring filmmaker to interpret. Posing the question to everyone, what do you see beyond the still?"

The idea is simple. You can participate in the writing of a story behind a still image. Vincent Laforet (photographer) filmed the first chapter based on a still image. And now it's up to the rest of the world to come up with the second chapter based on the end image of the first chapter. And this will be continuing chapter after chapter after chapter.

Check it on:

http://vimeo.com/groups/beyondthestill/

It's a nice way to show what the camera can do. And I think it's much more effective than putting up a poster that says "The photo camera that also films in HD."

Again, it's a brand that shows and proves something instead of telling something.

I guess the target audience probably is 'creative photo and film amateurs and semi-professionals or maybe professionals'. So I think this campaign is spot on target.

I'm looking forward to see the next chapters of this story. And I sincerely hope that a lot of people will submit their stories for another chapter.

I was thinking about why some advertising campaigns are viral hits or not.

Well, I can't tell you why. Because advertising is no exact science.

But while thinking about it, the conditions needed for viral success can be reduced to two major basic conditions.

The fist condition is "The big idea"

Is the idea simple, clear for everyone on this planet and relevant for the brand?

Of course mentos and coke light got a lot of attention because of the Mentos-Coke Light geiser experiments ( http://tinyurl.com/zwvoz ). But it's not a viral advertising campaign. It's simple, good and entertaining stuff and the clever marketeers of Mentos and Coke Light attached their wagons when it was already a hit. So that doesn't count for me.

Big ideas for me are ideas like: Whopper sacrifice ( http://tinyurl.com/yze48pe ), The Best Job in the World ( http://tinyurl.com/kjytad ), Subservient Chicken ( http://tinyurl.com/l6tq74 ) and so on.

Brand relevance and - very important - lots of fun.

The second condition is "The Client"

Still way too many marketing and brand managers think that a viral hit equals doing something with their brand on youtube, facebook or twitter.

They think that a movie which is a bit more funny than their average commercial will travel around the planet.

Well, it's not like that.

It's pretty impossible to know what will explode on the net. But it's perfectly possible to know what's not gonna work on the net.

The trick is, for everybody, to step out of their 'control freak'-mode and get into their 'unleash-the-fury' mode.

So, when there's a relevant idea for your brand and you don't think that it will be rubbish on the net (be severe on that one) than don't touch it.

Or it least only touch it to make it more relevant or funnier.

And just have the guts to launch it out there without tweeking it too much so that everyone at the marketing department can go home safe without taking a risk.

Some of the biggest successes were made while taking risks.

So, if you're judging online advertising ideas in the near future. Keep this in mind.

If it's relevant, fun and a big idea, then unleash the fury, people!

(inspiration for the quote http://tinyurl.com/ya4yv5x)

Brammo, an american manufacturer of electric motorcycles (check http://www.brammo.com) did a rather innovative campaign to draw the attention.

Just as many campaigns nowadays they didn't just communicate all the advantages of their 100% electric motorcycles, but they prooved it.

What did they do?

Well. 2 Guys made a trip from Detroit to Washington DC to with the aim to give a electric Brammo Enertia (nice bike by the way - the green one) to Barack Obama.

It doesn't sound quite special. But for me it becomes more special when you now that they made a sort of blog-website where they publish their daily adventures. Befor they began their journey they asked online if people could offer them a place to sleep and/or a place to recharge their batteries.

The whole process of showing every stage and getting the people to help you on your quest is what makes this campaign so nice for me.

They got national news coverage. They raised awareness for Brammo and for electric vehicules in general.

They didn"t get to see Obama to give him the bike as a present, but they found some kind of solution to that.

Oh yeah and they got Jay Leno to test the bike. Pretty neat!

Check it on http://www.jaylenosgarage.com/at-the-garage/electric/brammo-enertia-powercycle/

And you can check their entire trip on http://www.shockingbarack.com/

Okay, I may be a little late with this subject but I find this thing so revolutionary I wanted to share it.