Le Salon des Refusés

Each issue of Directory gives room to 40 case studies. Our ambition is to tell the story of each idea coherently. What has made Issue 35 particularly hard is that we shortlisted for inclusion over 100 submissions. In other words, some 60 great ideas didn't make the cut.

Many of these will win awards in Cannes and their omission here will make us look appropriately ridiculous. So, to apologise in advance (okay, and to cover our a*ses) here is some of the work we would have shown if we had another 100 pages.

Direct Mail

Agency Agentur am Flughafen, Altenrhein, Switzerland
Client Lux Goldschmiede
Title Golden Age in St. Gallen

Idea

To invite the right sort of people to the opening of jeweller Mark Ecknauer's new shop in St. Gallen, potential customers were mailed a card on which was a layer of gold. They had to scratch off the gold to read the invitation beneath. When they brought their gold scratchings to the event, it was weighed and exchanged for real gold in the form of money-off coupons.

Results

170 guests came to the event and a lot of jewellery was sold.

Our Thoughts

Agentur am Flughafen have produced a steady of stream of top-class DM for their clients. Love how this appeals to people's innate greed as well as their sense of fun.

Agency BBDO Guerrero, Makati City, Philippines
Client Self promotion
Title Book of Crap Ideas

Idea

To stimulate the attendees at the agency's 10-week course on creativity, a book was created with paper made from elephant dung. Silk screened onto the delicate texture of the paper, the book showed the importance of new ideas.

Results

Much demand for the book, which is now being scoped out for publication as a commercial concern.

Our Thoughts

Irony, dontcha just love it? The craft skills on show here, though, are first-class. Julie is convinced this should have been selected for the main part of the magazine. http://crapideas.com/

Agency Kolle Rebbe, Hamburg
Client Rosenthal Porcelain
Title The Weddinglope

Idea

In Germany, it is a tradition to wish newly-weds good luck by smashing china. The noise is said to drive away bad spirits. The Weddinglope was an envelope of china, inside which was a gift voucher. So friends could give an imaginative wedding present which was (a) in tune with tradition but (b) useful.

Results

Offered for sale in Rosenthal stores, the Weddinglope helped increase sales by 32% over the same period in 2014.

Our Thoughts

It's not really Direct Mail – more of a business idea than a media idea. That said, what an innovative way of getting people to give Rosenthal china as wedding presents.

Agency Wunderman, New York
Client Land Rover
Title Uncommon Owner

Idea

Data revealed that when Land Rover owners were considering a new car, it took them three months from consideration to purchase. So a 90-day campaign was devised across different channels. At first was an emotional appeal. Then a series of rational messages before phase three concentrated on transactional elements, the benefits of buying a Land Rover precisely now.

Results

Over $24m in sales after the first wave of communications.

Our Thoughts

This may not have creative bravura but is a brilliant demonstration of how to do direct marketing properly. It's thorough and thoroughly professional.

Agency Bowling, Brussels Client Jaegher Bicycles Title A brochure scale 1:1

Idea

To give potential customers the feel of a new Jaegher cycle without having to go to the workshop in Ruiselede, a 40 inch x 27.5 inch brochure was created, with actual-size photographs showing the detail of the craftsmanship.

Results

Not known.

Our Thoughts

If the cycles are hand-made and beautiful it follows the brochure needs to be as well. Again, the craft skills in this book of the bike are amazing. It's got to win Design awards, surely?

https://bowlingbrussels.wordpress.com/

Agency VML Kansas
Client Youth Ambassadors
Title I'm Not No-One

Idea

To help rewrite the book on effective social reform, who better to rewrite it than at-risk teenagers themselves? Teenagers in Kansas City told their own stories offering readers an intimate and sobering look into their everyday lives.

Results

Sales of the book have raised more than $150,000 for the Youth Ambassadors. Even President Obama has referred to it in his 'My Brother's Keeper' initiative.

Our Thoughts

I couldn't stop reading this. We use the word 'authenticity' a lot in advertising these days. Here's authenticity in the raw. Our problem is that this isn't really Direct Mail. It may well have been mailed to a few opinion formers (Obama, for instance) but we don't know for sure. What we do know is hearing the voices of these angry, bewildered but also incredibly optimistic kids is very moving.

http://youthambassadorskc.org

Digital

Agency BBDO Berlin
Client Smart Car
Title Smart Monster Launch

Idea

Smart fans were worried the new Smart car was going to be bigger than the model it was replacing. Smart added fuel to the flames by publishing a teaser film, which seemed to suggest the new car was not going to be big, it was going to be HUGE.

Results

The video went to #1 in the viral video charts. Blogs and car nuts were full of it. On the day the (nice small) car was launched web traffic was at an all-time high.

Our Thoughts

People will always believe what they want to believe even if it makes very little sense. So when Smart told Germany they were going to make a car the size of a small lorry millions believed them. Almost.

Agency BBDO, New York
Client Gillette Venus
Title #UseYourAnd

Idea

Venus learned that many women felt trapped by the labels they were given. Just as their razor was pretty and smart, so women could have more than one attribute. They could be more, if they used their 'and'. Poet and optimist, fashionista and soldier. A video was made and uploaded to YouTube.

Results

15m views within six weeks, over 20m on YouTube to date. 650 posts on Instagram, 98% positive sentiment recirded.

Our Thoughts

Broadcast in seven languages, this had global ambitions from the start and seems to have resonated with women around the world. It's great. The only snag being #likeagirl for Always with approaching 100m views is arguably greater.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFEaj2rNknU

Agency Impact BBDO, Beirut, Lebanon
Client Loto Libanais
Title #blackcatsonholiday

Idea

In Lebanon, black cats are considered bad luck. So your chances of winning the lottery were severely damaged if you saw one. BUT black cats are lucky in Britain, New Zealand, Ireland and Japan. So a film was made in which Loto Libanais were shown trying to export all of Lebanon's black cats to countries where they would be appreciated.

Results

Not reported

Our Thoughts

Hilarious. What more do you want? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7GUGH_aZ6E

Agency JWT, Beirut, Lebanon
Client Touch Mobile
Title Touch Leb Keys

Idea

When Lebanese people text they have to use the qwerty keyboard. But there are letters in their language which don't exist in English so they use numbers instead though this makes texting very slow. Leb Keys was a new keyboard which saved time and let Lebanese people express themselves in the language they use every day.

Results

Unavailable.

Our Thoughts

It's getting harder for brands to create services or utilities people will actually appreciate
and use. This is genius if only because it is amazing no-one had thought of it before.

https://www.jwt.com/en/beirut/work/touchlebkeys/

Agency Leo Burnett Istanbul
Client Samsung
Title Hearing Hands

Idea

To launch a new Call Centre service for people hard of hearing, a stunt was set up in which a young deaf guy walked with his sister across town. Secret cameras recorded his amazement as everyone he met along the way could communicate with him in sign language.

Results

The film was viewed 8m times online. It got 1,218,000 Facebook Likes and was reported across many media channels.

Our Thoughts

Real people in real situations we can really connect with equals YouTube success.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrvaSqN76h4

Agency MRM Romania
Client KFC Romania
Title #richkidsofinstagram

Idea

Money is tight after Christmas, but you can still have a lot of fun with very little money. To bring that proposition to life, #distractiecubaniputini (which means 'Little money/Big fun') trolled #richkidsofinstagram. Romanian kids recreated rich kids' poses.

Results

Not known

Our Thoughts

This is a brand demonstrating it really does know its customers.

http://littlemoneybigfun.tumblr.com/

Agency Pereira & O'Dell, San Francisco
Client Intel, Dell
Title What Lives Inside

Idea

A new online web series starring Colin Hanks who journeys through a mysterious world of his deceased dad's creation, his Dell Venue 8 7000 Series tablet with Intel® RealSenseTM snapshot helping unlock his creativity.

Results

Viwers submitted over 6,000 sketches of which 144 were selected and featured in the film.

Our Thoughts

The demo commercial meets Hollywood storytelling.

https://insidefilms.com/

Agency Saatchi & Saatchi, Milan
Client CoorDown
Title The Special Proposal

Idea

To show that people with Down's Syndrome can lead happy and fulfilled lives, a film was shot on hidden cameras in which a young man with Down's proposed to his girlfriend not that she should marry him but that she should come and live with him, away from her parents.

Results

The film has had 3.5m views with no media spend and was even shown at the United Nations HQ in New York.

Our Thoughts

No TV commercial could ever move you as much as a film like this can. Through creativity, a relatively small charity in Italy has reached the world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnaajSxOsWI

Agency serviceplan, Münich
Client 02 Germany
Title Watch Out!

Idea

Kids glued to their smartphones can walk straight out into the road without thinking – with fatal consequences. Watch Out! Used beacon transmitters at traffic lights and road intersections to warn kids by blocking whatever they're doing with an alert on their screens.

Results

Over 7m parents were reached and over 6,500 push notifications sent out from the app to date.

Our Thoughts

It's not a message, it's not a story but it is a brand communicating to its customers loud and clearly that it is there for them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDxxas7uSYY

Agency VML Kansas, USA
Client Gatorade
Title #BeLikeMike

Idea

In 1991, Gatorade made an iconic commercial with Michael Jordan. In 2015, the film was recreated with fans re-enacting famous MJ moves at a live event and in social media. The best pieces of content went into the new spot.

Results

Nearly 40m video views in total with 1.2m for the spot on day one alone.

Our Thoughts

I always say the challenge for agencies today is to create ideas people want to be part of and this certainly does that. The only reason it is not in the main part
of Directory is because, rightly or wrongly, we chose AKQA's 'Last Shot' (on pages 34-35) instead.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VogPS6UIVYQ

Agency Whybin\TBWA, Sydney
Client Tourism New Zealand
Title 5x1NZ

Idea

To get young Australians to go to New Zealand, the idea was to show just how much they could do in one day. A Red Bull athlete completed five adventure sports in one hour and in one continuous move.

The film drove visitors to STA Travel where they could book their own 5x1NZ Adventure Pass.

Results

Bookings at STA Travel shot up by 95%. PR to the value of$1.9m was generated and ROI of 8:1 was generated.

Our Thoughts

A (long) demo commercial on YouTube issued a tacit challenge to young Aussies, are you up to it? Then partnerships with Red Bull and STA ensured that branded content led directly to sales. This really is how to do it, marketers take note.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwAkdo_hl7U

Agency BBDO Guerrero
Client Chalcot Audio
Title Noli Me Tangere Audiobook

Idea

'Noli Me Tangere' is one of the great works of Philippine literature but is now rarely read outside school. To promote the audiobook, posters were created using conductive ink. The ink strokes formed electrical circuits. Human touch closed each circuit, activating the circuit board to play audio clips from the book.

Results

In a leading bookshop and at the Ayala Museum, the installation attracted thousands of visitors as well as much media attention.

Our thoughts: Innovation in the print industry seems to be coming from new inks (see Leo Burnett Sri Lanka's work for Ceylon Newspapers on pages 92-93.) This brilliant idea just needs scaling up to become a real game-changer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OwbJfkitqM

Ambient, Outdoor & Events

Agency Clemenger BBDO, Sydney
Client Dolmio
Title The Pepper Hacker

Idea

Glued to their smartphones and tablets, families no longer talked at mealtimes. Dolmio believed that dinnertime should bring people together so they created a device to help. Hidden in a pepper grinder, it shut down all TV and WiFi connections, disabling mobiles.

It was given to a number of Mums and hidden cameras filmed what happened.

Results

80m views of the online film, $11.8m in earned media, 23,600% ROI.

Our Thoughts

Candid camera certainly seems to be the way to get huge numbers of views, especially if the film has a simple human truth to it. Digital connections are interfering with human connections. See the Durex case on pages 50-51. Wish we'd had room for this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUgv5MDF0cQ

Agency DDB Mudra, Mumbai, India
Client Zee News
Title The Misunderstood Scoreboard

Idea

When India played Pakistan at cricket, Zee News, who took a different view of the news, put up an electronic poster, which appeared to be a live scoreboard of the game. Only instead of recording the number of wickets lost, the board tallied up the number of lives lost so far. The score: India 0 for 547,290. Pakistan 0 for 546,371.

Results

#TheMisunderstoodScoreboard became a trending topic. 250,000 watched the video. People lit candles at the poster site in memory of the fallen.

Our thoughts: Reminding people that sport and war are not the same thing is a powerful message for a news channel to broadcast.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnCTwFnZYAI

Agency Drive Dentsu, Beirut
Client Audio Kultur
Title Underground Music

Idea

To get more readers, which would help magazine Audio Kultur get more advertisers, the idea was to play the sort of underground music the magazine supported under ground. Literally. Motion sensors in the gutter detected passers-by. Music played and the magazine stand became illuminated.

Results

Distribution widened, readership tripled and brands started advertising.

Our Thoughts

Love the idea, love the film, just too much competition for this issue. But bravo to Alain Shoucair and team. And keep up the good work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjxndGcL504

Agency Geometry Global, Dubai
Client UAE Roads and Transport Authority
Title Back Off Radio

Idea

Tailgating in Dubai caused an unacceptable number of accidents. To stop accidents before they could happen, monitors using laser and GPS technology were fitted to taxis. If a driver came up too close behind the taxi, an alert message was sent directly to its radio warning them to slow down.

Results

A reduction in traffic accidents.

Our Thoughts

Tech put to good use like this is really inspiring.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nTjF7D036w

Agency Ogilvy & Mather, Berlin
Client Coca-Cola Germany
Title Powerade Active Billboards

Idea

Why just create a poster when you could create a new sport? Posters you could pull, push and climb.

Results

Thousands of people interacted with the posters and many thousands more watched the online film.

Our Thoughts

We love advertising that gets people to do stuff. Like push, pull and climb.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJB4DJpq4mw

TV, Radio, Traditional Media

Agency TBWA\Chiat Day, Los Angeles
Client Gatorade
Title Made in New York

Idea

When Derek Jeter retired from baseball team The New York Yankees, he was filmed walking to the stadium for his last game, thanking his fans.

Results

10.5 views online, a top trending topic on Twitter, 846 stories published about the event.

Our Thoughts

If you want to know how to do emotion in a TV spot, this is how.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vxd9W0RVgFY

Agency Wieden+Kennedy, London
Client Honda
Title Keep Up

Idea

On TV and online, the spot challenged the viewer to read the rapid text. Then they were directed on to a second spot where the text is faster and a third, where it positively shoots across screen culminating in the endline: Get to better faster.

Results

Not shared

Our Thoughts

The only problem with this neat idea is the fact it is in the shadow of W+K's award-winning 'The Other Side', which you can expect to do well at Cannes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8VlX4Ekk80