“In the Home Showroom Campaign, IKEA joined forces with ordinary people selling their homes. We used their private real-estate ads to launch IKEA’s new sofa TIDAFORS. In return, the sellers got plenty of IKEA’s advertising space for free. A huge success for both parts..”
SMFB — a sister agency of Forsman & Bodenfors in Norway — promoted a new line of IKEA sofas by placing them where they ought to be: inside homes. The agency partnered with people listing their homes for sale or rent to put the sofa in real estate ads and home showrooms across the country. The sofa made its appearance in pictures, on maps showing home layouts and the homes, in turn, appeared in IKEA ads for the sofa itself. Win-win.
Advertising Agency: SMFB Art Director: Hans Magne Ekre Copywriter: Alexander Gjersoe Designer: Nicklas Hellborg Web Designer: Suzie Webb Year: 2011
In a follow-up to last year’s rapping farmers ad, Yeo Valley launched a tv spot during the first ad break of The X Factor live show. The one-off, two-minute music video features a farming-inspired boy band called The Churned, singing a ballad entitled Forever. The ad was shot on location in Blagdon, in the heart of rural Somerset. The launch tied in with a Facebook karaoke competition, where users could sing along to the Yeo Valley track. The winner appeared in a 30-second version of the ad, which ran during the X Factor final on 11 December.
Advertising Agency: BBH London Year: 2012 Shortlist
An epic send-up of big budget ads, featuring a cast of thousands. Song lyrics: “It’s a big ad / very big ad/ it’s a big ad we’re in./ It’s a big ad/ my God it’s big/ can’t believe how big it is/ it’s a big ad for Carlton Draught / It’s just so freaking huge! / It’s a big ad/ expensive ad! / This ad better sell some bloooooody beer!!!
Advertising Agency: George Patterson Y&R, Melbourne Year: 2006 Gold Lion
We open on a small group of hardcore soccer fans, also known as hooligans, standing in a classic British pub. Suddenly, one of them starts singing the first words of “Truly, Madly, Deeply” by Savage Garden. Another hooligan joins in, and as the camera pulls out, we see that the whole pub is packed with hooligans. They all sing together with the power of an entire stadium of fans during a soccer game, turning the cheesy love song into something big, beautiful and romantic. After the last chorus, a super appears: “It’s match day. It’s Valentine’s Day. Let your better half know how you feel. Dedicate and send this song at pumahardchorus.com”. Followed by Puma’s “Love = football” next to the Puma logo.
Advertising Agency: Droga5 Year: 2010 Gold Lion for the Campaign
On October 27th 2010, thousands of unsuspecting passengers arriving at Heathrow’s Terminal 5 were given a welcome home to remember. People were greeted by a 300 strong choir and vocal orchestra singing a medley of songs, completely a cappella, to welcome them back into the country.
Advertising Agency: Saatchi & Satchi, London Year: 2011 Silver Lion
A man travels on an incredible journey using some of Honda’s landmark products whilst miming to the Andy Williams song ‘The Impossible Dream’. His journey comes to an abrupt end when he leaps off a giant waterfall in a Honda Powerboat into the mist below. Surely, this is the end of his dream? However as Andy Williams reaches the crescendo of the song, our hero returns in a Honda Hot Air Balloon to finish off the song in style. Garrison Keillor – the voice of Honda – sums it all up with ‘I couldn’t have put it better myself’.
Advertising Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, London Year: 2006 Gold Lion
Here’s Coca-Cola celebrating along with Santo its 125th year, and once again, we are guilty of naivety. We believe that, even today, the world is not far from the world that we dream of. In fact we are so naïve about thinking this way, that we decided to carry out an investigation to evaluate just how justified our reasons to believe in a better world were. We are proud to present to you “Choir”, created by Santo for Coca-Cola Latin America and their new communications platform: “REASONS TO BELIEVE IN A BETTER WORLD”.
Advertising Agency: Santo, Buenos Aires Year: 2011 Silver Lion
When T-Mobile invited the British public to be part of their next event, people turned up to Trafalgar Square, not knowing what they were letting themselves in for. Thousands of microphones were handed out as it was revealed they’d all be singing karaoke together. After a number of songs, and with a surprise guest appearance from Pink, the event culminated with everyone singing the timeless classic, ‘Hey Jude’
Advertising Agency: Saatchi & Satchi, London Year: 2010 Shortlist
As Maria Sharapova marches to her tennis match, she passes people who sing I Feel Pretty. She slams a ball cross to court, putting an end to the singing.
The ad, set in army camp, features a soldier receiving a letter which goes to the tune of “Dear John”, the country song written by Lewis Talley, Fuzzy Owen and Billy Barton and made popular by Jean Shepard during the Korean war. As the song finishes the sergeant adapts the classic line from Humphrey Bogart, “Play it again John”.
A tough lumberjack is chopping down a tree. As he rearranges his cap, we notice at the same time he does that his underarm begins to song a sweet song. The corny melody is really annoying him. At this point, we see different cliché images of rough and tough men all undergoing the same situation. Finally, one of them applies the New Rexona Men Sensitive and succeeds in shutting up the underarm voice. A male voice in off says: New Rexona Men Sensitive. Even the most insensitive guy can have sensitive underarms.
Advertising Agency: Ponce Buenos Aires Year: 2011 Silver Lion
Glen jumpstarts his day by drinking a Starbucks DoubleShot. As he opens the can, Survivor appears in his apartment. They follow Glen through his full morning routine, singing a personalized version of “Eye of the Tiger.”
Advertising Agency: Fallon, New York Year: 2004 Shortlist
Google is more than just a search bar. However, most of us don’t use, let alone, are aware of its many features. We needed to find a way to share all this free technology with the world. To educate everyone about all of Google’s innovations; we decided to change the way people learnt about it. We got precisely the people who didn’t use this free tech, to explain to the others why they should. Because, only they would be able to explain it in a way that would be fun to watch, and understood by all. By bringing in just a little bit of courage, creativity and fun; each of them pushed the role of technology in our lives and inspired the rest to use it in ways never imagined before.
Transforming something few were aware of to something the whole world cared about; we were able to re-define the role of technology in everyone’s life. From celebrities, scientists, soccer moms, teens to even sports personalities; everyone came forward to find new ways in which technology could make their world a little better.
Advertising Agency: Johannes Leonardo, NY Year: 2011 Gold Lion for the Campaign
We developed a new brand idea for Discovery Channel: Discovery is the
World’s Biggest Fan of the World. We wanted to celebrate all that is epic, beautiful, inspiring, fun and just plain crazy in the world. Fellow fans—from spacewalking Astronauts to Alaskan fishermen to Zulu warriors to Stephen Hawking to Discovery hosts like Mike Rowe and Bear Grylls—sing along to an old campfire song re-written to express how each of them loves the world. In other words, to tell people why Discovery Channel thinks “The World is Just Awesome.”
Advertising Agency: 72ndSunny, USA Year: 2008 Shortlist
This is a film for the online dating service, Match.com, which features a couple finding each other as they examine musical instruments. He strums a guitar and she plays a keyboard. Together they make beautiful music, and it’s clearly the start of something special.
Advertising Agency: Mother, London Year: 2010 Gold Lion
20 – AMERICAN LEGACY FOUNDATION/TRUTH – Singing Cowboy
We saddled up a horse, found a modern day cowboy that happened to have a hole in his neck due to a tobacco-related laryngectomy, and sent him to Manhattan to sing.
A man in a lift, a jogger, a secretary by the photocopier, a man in his car, an elderly lady…in all these scenes from everyday life, we see people singing with their childish voices.
Advertising Agency: BETC Euro RSCG, Paris Year: 2003 Shortlist
This 60-second commercial shows a lifetime of moms by their children’s sides doing the daily, sometimes mundane, things that help their children grow up to be Olympians. All the while, they sing “You’ll Never Walk Alone” from the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical Carousel. The ad builds from a child’s birth and culminates with the Olympics and a proud mom seeing all her hard work pay off. We then cut to a card that says, “Thank you, Mom,” followed by a series of product brand images that ends on the P&G logo with the voice-over, “P&G. Proud sponsor of Moms.”
Advertising Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, Portland Year: 2010 Bronze Lion for the Campaign
Fallon and Cadbury keep Great Britain pumped for the Olympics with a new spot that re-creates “The Final Countdown” — but adds multiple voices singing from the towers and buildings while a runner makes his way, presumably, to the Olympic Gold. An accompanying interactive feature encourages Britons to upload videos of them singing similarly inspirational songs to help team GB to victory.
A taxi driver refuses to let passengers into his cab. Instead, he walks over to the queue and starts to sing for them. The man who joins in is chosen as the lucky passenger.
Advertising Agency: New Deal DDB, Norway Year: 2001 Bronze Lion
Part of Cadbury’s “Keep Team GB Pumped” campaign for London 2012 Olympics, swimmer Rebecca Adlington is serenaded by royal guards, dinner ladies and butchers with Tina Turner’s “Simply the Best.”
AMP wanted to introduce three new products with specific energy functions, designed to help our target, people who live their lives to the fullest. We also needed to increase brand awareness and embed ourselves into their daily life. We wanted to be the most relevant, unlike our hyper-masculine energy competitors. “Walk of No Shame” was an ode to the infamous walk that young people take “the night after” going out. With the look and sound of a mini-musical, AMP showed how one can take a “walk of no shame” as it gets you back on your feet.
Advertising Agency: BBDO New York Year: 2009 Shortlist
DnB NOR wanted to focus on the fact that too few people in Norway have savings accounts. We all need to save up for a rainy day, to secure our future. Unfortunately too many people think that things will somehow magically fix themselves. They will win the lottery or marry the perfect guy, like George Clooney. But the fact is that only some people are lucky in life – for the rest of us, saving can be smart.
Advertising Agency: Try/Apt Oslo, Norway Art Directors: Stian Johansen, Lars Kristian Harveg Copywriters: Janne Brenda Lyso, Jonas Gronnern Production company: Bacon Osl Director: Martin Werner Year: 2012 Shortlist
Aschehoug Publishing built an exhibition consisting of life size monsters to publicize Jo Nesbo’s children’s book Doktor Proktor and The End of the World. Maybe. The exhibition, taking place at the Natural History Museum in Oslo, gave the ‘Moon Chameleon’ and 23 more animals in the book each their own ‘story’; and broke all attendance records for an exhibition at the Museum. Meanwhile, the book topped bestseller charts – the first Norwegian children’s book ever do to so.
The Brief
Our task was to launch the childrens book ”Doctor Proktor and the end of the world. Maybe” – about Doctor Proktor, the children Bulle and Lise and their fight against the cruel monster, The Moon Chameleon. We had a small budget of $100,000 to cover everything – our fees, production, and media spending. Knowing books are losing the battle for childrens attention in Norway and sales are going down, we knew we couldn’t go the traditional way, but had to come up with something that would create buzz, attention and PR itself.
Creative Execution
The creative idea: A big exhibition of full sized monsters – “Doktor Proktor’s Sensational Collection of Animals You Wish Did Not Exist”.
Starring the Moon Chameleon as the main attraction, but also showing 23 other animals you really wished didn’t walk the earth. Some of them from the books, and some of them we made up.
We contacted Norway’s most famous puppet maker and his team of artists – and asked the Natural History Museum in Oslo to host the exhibition. They were all enthusiastic about the project – and the exhibition would never have come to life without their positivity, dedication and great efforts.
Together with the exhibition we also came up with the idea to write a children’s book about the animals of the exhibition. So we made that one as well – and put it out for sales in book stores all over Norway.
The Goal of PR
To create as much buzz, attention and PR as possible around the Doktor Proktor books, especially the new one. We hoped to sell about 15,000 copies.
The target audience were children between 5 and 12 – and their parents.
Documented Results
- Headlined the TV news twice prime time on Norway’s biggest TV broadcaster (NRK), once even live from the exhibition.
- Massive media coverage: front pages on national newspapers, headlined national radio news and an endless number of articles in both printed and online media.
- It is by far the most media covered promotional campaign in Norway for years.
- A new all time high attendance records for the museum – so far 75,000 people have visited.
- Every second child of Oslo has attended
- The book went to no.1 of the sales chart of all Literature – as the first Norwegian children’s book ever.
- The three Doktor Proktor books have sold over 70,000 copies (extremely high in Norwegian standards) since the opening.
Advertising Agency: Try Advertising, Oslo Copywriter: Lars Joachim Grimstad, Art director: Egil Pay Year: 2011 Shortlist
The brief
Fretex is a second hand clothing chain operated by the Salvation Army. Oslo Fashion Week is a big annual happening for the Norwegian fashion industry, and it was a goal for Fretex to be a part of it. The main objective was to create publicity in the media about Fretex and their second hand
operation and the fact that they need more clothes for their operation. Second the objective was to lead fashion oriented bloggers, journalists and people working within the fashion industry the Fretex Fashion Fanpage on Facebook. The target was everyone involved in the fashion industry, but also most people in Norway that have an interest in fashion.
The creative solution
The creative solution of the dramatizing is highly relevant by the placement of where the event took place. The subway-station exit is next door to the Oslo City Fashion Mall where more than 100.000 people go through every day. The event created highly awareness by passers-by and also in the aftermath created more than 150.000 downloads of the film of the event, through norwegian internet online sites and in social media. The client received a big boost in the awareness on their own website and had a 40% increase in the delivery of recycled clothes in the next 4 weeks. Flyers were also handed out to people at the event to promote awareness
We installed a fashion catwalk at a central subway exit at the most central place in Oslo, and used the subway passengers as our models. Normal people were unexpectedly taken by big surprise, being featured on the Fretex catwalk, and demonstrated in that way next years collections. Along the runway and the red carpet used as the platform, there was also well-known fashion stylists, journalist and models being the expert audience, and a well known DJ taking care of the music in a way that matched the different models..
The results
The event created a lot of publicity in the media. The largest tabloid newspaper; VG, made a 3 minute long documentary and placed is as their head TV-story that day, and moved it to the editorial fashion content later. More than 300.000
was exposed for the film the first week. Several other media had good coverage about the event and the footage spread rapidly on social medias across the world. Second the objective was to lead fashion oriented bloggers, journalists and people working within the fashion industry the Fretex Fashion Fanpage on Facebook. After the event there has been an increase of 2.500 members from 6.000 to more than 8.000 members.
Advertising Agency: Kitchen Leo Burnett, Oslo
Art Director: Eirik Stensrud
Copywriter: Thomas Askim Year: 2011 Silver Lion