ACTION PACKED10 MUST-READ POSTSJUNE 2012

Karaoke BreathalyzerWith uncanny punctuality, Ogilvy Brazil and Bar Aurora

& Boteco Ferraz are releasing one big idea per year.

Before it was the $73,000 bar tab, then the Drunk Valet

and this year they’ve just come back with the very

relevant Karaoke Breathalyzer. You don’t have to

guess much to figure out what it is about.

As always, perfectly put together case study too.

1.

KidculatorsThai advertising is incredibly unique. It’s been treating

us with quirky ideas over the years, specially on TV

and print. And I always wondered how their particular

outlook on life would translate into activation ideas.

Finally I’ve got the answer, from our OgilvyAction office

in Bangkok.

This idea that they came up with for Dr Miang Mental

Maths School is full of soul, funny and emotional at the

same time.

Dr Miang is a small local math educational centre,

facing strong competition from big international

franchises like Kumon. So how do you demo the

uncanny skills that this little maths wizards can

acquire? They turn them into real life calculators

(‘Kidculators’) that are able to compete with the

registering machines at the supermarket.

Just watch the case study. It’s really charming.

2.

The book that can’t waitAmazing idea and beautifully produced, ‘The Book that

Can’t Wait’ seems like a posthumous homage to the

late Ray Bradbury.

The setup is very simply, while books are very patient

creatures, the new authors behind them are not and

need their first books to be read in order to publish a

second one.

Eterna Cadencia, an independent publisher and

bookstore, wanted to help and published a specially

printed book which uses ink that fades off in a couple

of months, prompting readers to hurry up. The story is

very well told and the case study really enjoyable.

From an old friend of mine and superb ECD Javier

Campopiano, now in Draft/FCB Buenos Aires.

3.

The 2012 Cannes Promo & Activation Grand Prix

Last night the Promo & Activation winners were

announced and American Express’ Small Business

Saturday from Crispin Porter + Bogusky snatched not

only the Promo & Activation but also the Direct Grand

Prix.

A truly big idea that not only re-shaped the economy of

small business across America. It even managed to

get it proclaimed a national holiday by law. How often

an advertising campaign can claim that?

There’s a new case study other than the one above

that I’ll try to post as soon as possible, as well as the

rest of the winners.

4.

The 2012 Cannes Promo & Activation Gold winners

It’s been a great upside of entries and Lions given this

year, with a record 17 Gold statues. Here are the top

winners. More Silver and Bronze winners in the days

to come.

Read more...

5.

Cannes 2012 Grands Prix that feature activation

The blur of categories is stronger than ever. With a

huge amount of identical or similar entries across

Promo & Activation, Direct, Media, PR, Mobile, Cyber,

Outdoor and even Radio.

Apart from the Promo & Activation Grand Prix (shown

above) that also came with top honors in Direct, here

are other Grands Prix that are based on some sort of

activation idea:

Read more...

6.

Half of HBO for freeOne of my favourites for its simplicity and relevance.

To communicate their 50% off promotion on their

premium offer, HBO took it literally. Instead of the

annoying ‘Channel Not Available’ sign on those

channels you haven’t subscribed to, they allowed

viewers to watch 50% of the screen (which in turn

could be even more annoying).

Great and simple idea by Ogilvy Guatemala, and old

time friendRamiro.Eduardo@ogilvy.com that has just

got a Direct Gold Lion.

7.

Help: I want to save a lifeHere’s another one of my favourites, that I hadn’t seen

before Cannes. Done by ex-boss and old time friend

Ted Royer at Droga5.

It’s a beautifully simple idea to increase the donations

of bone marrow, which is extremely low specially

because people perceived the process as difficult and

tedious.

They worked with an NGO to simplify the process to

the minimum and it turned out that just a few drops of

blood are enough to get tested and registered as a

donor.

The brilliant idea? To bring the bone marrow test kit

together with a simple bandage kit. So next time you

cut yourself you could easily aim to save a life too.

Don’t miss the case study. In perfect Droga5 fashion,

it’s beautifully crafted. It has just won Gold in Promo &

Activation and the Grand Prix for Good among others

at Cannes.

8.

Swebus JackpotCannes was full of grateful surprises, in terms of smart

work that wasn’t published before. One of those little

gems was the Swebus Jackpot for Sweden’s most

reliable mean of transportation, the bus.

Hitting head on to its main competitor, the train, they

run a jackpot that allowed train users to bet on which

train would be more delayed and rewarded the winner

with one hundred euros in bus tickets.

Clever and simple.

9.

Sorry about the twigs, folksThis completes my week of pleasant surprises at

Cannes Lions, an integrated campaign for Monteith’s

cider. To demonstrate that their products are made of

real crushed fruit and not from concentrate, they used

a clever trick. Simply ‘planted’ a few twigs in each box

of Monteith’s and let people complain. And complain

they did.

After a few days, a full-fledged campaign came out to

explain why the twigs were there in the first place.

Another surprising gem that one a Promo & Activation

Gold Lion among other metals in other categories.

Next week I’ll be publishing a few common themes

that emerged among the winners.

10.

action packed is a collaborative site looked after by the creative community at OgilvyAction Asia Pacific. Here we collect and share the most exciting activation work from around the world to help you stay in the know and get inspired.For easy reference, the posts are organised into categories like shopper, trade, experiential or promo.Here you can see the full list of tags.

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