Moving on…

Last Friday I left Chelsea Pictures, the TV commercial production company I had founded nearly 20 years ago. Basically I wanted to focus on Campfire, which these days is more my cup of tea. I’m moving from the fastidious execution of TV commercials into the more conceptually challenging world of New Marketing via Campfire.

I saw the handwriting on the wall at Cannes this year, where on a bleak Friday morning (yes, Cannes can be bleak) I went over to the Palais to listen to Lonesome Bob Greenberg talk about the agency of the future.

Wandering around the halls of the Festival building at 9 AM I was amazed to find hundreds of people in many very large theaters watching an endless steam of commercials making up the Cannes “short list”. I felt like I was wandering around the set of Brazil. People were absolutely mesmerized by these endless little tidbits of irony and style that millions of other people around the world go out of their way to delete via Tivo, mute buttons and averted eyes.

When I finally found Bob’s speech, there were maybe thirty people, half of them asleep in an auditorium that could have held a thousand… And it wasn’t Bob’s fault, his presentation was damn prescient.

Painfully, I have also been thinking back to 1988, a year after I started Chelsea in Boston, when I was out for an anniversary dinner with my wife, Melinda, and I had to keep leaving her to run to a pay phone outside the restaurant on Newbury Street (no cell phones then), trying to reach a director who had disappeared on me. Even though he was up for a big job that would pay the bills for him and newly formed Chelsea for a number of months he hadn’t let me know if he was truly available.

There were lots of good times too, shooting in a snowstorm in the Wadi Rum desert of Jordan with a crew of 200 French, Italian and English technicians, paddling around the Everglades in a canoe with the same director friend from my wrecked anniversary dinner at sunset on a GM commercial shoot, followed by a huge alligator who seemed most interested in us. Spending a day with James Dyson at his amazing factory in Malmsbury UK, talking about his inventions, his rivalry with Steve Jobs, etc.

I definitely think commercials have their place in advertising, even in Campfire’s world of engaging social media. In some ways I think the most canny spot that was produced last year for one of our campaigns, at either Campfire and Chelsea, was the 30-second spot that McKinney produced as part of our Art of the Heist campaign (view below). Utilitarian, yes, but funny and effective as hell.

I wish my two former partners in Chelsea, Allison Amon and Lisa Mehling, well and look forward to exploring the outer reaches of social media with Mike Monello and Gregg Hale. Of course I’m a bit sad, but Ty Montague’s sage advice keeps ringing in my ears. Ty sez just repeat over and over, “It was a huge success and I did it all myself!” Ty promises you’ll feel a whole lot better immediately.

And even though it’s not true, I do already.

Technorati Tags: Campfire, Net Marketing, TV Commercials, social media

Pontiac: Motorati in Second Life

Pontiac has engaged consumers in a series of innovative experiences, including Pontiac’s Motorati Island, built around a “Power to the People” strategy.

We’ve been extremely sensitive to the Second Life culture. Our insight was there was little “second-generation” experiences in Second Life — ongoing entertainment experience provided by brands.

We created car culture in Second Life with virtual Pontiac cars and car-related entertainment businesses, pursuing a “Fusion” strategy with Pontiac supporting Second Life’s rapid development.

There are three elements to Motorati: 1) Six islands with free land given to 30 specially chosen auto entrepreneurs 2) sales of a virtual Solstice GXP sports car which consumers modify 3) multiple events to draw audience to Second life and Motorati Island.

Pontiac Revs Up Motorlympics On Second Life

To quote Razen Nefarious, our www.motoratilife.com reporter:

“I had to break up a “discussion” between a cute little furry and a goth yesterday after the furry t-boned his vehicle into the goth’s hearse and then started yelling for him to “move that black rust bucket.”
Go to www.motoratilife.com for details or to participate!

Technorati Tags: puppy, social media, Net Marketing, Automobile

Audi: The Art of the Heist

Commissioned by McKinney Silver for the US launch of the AudiA3

Watch the campaign film for more info (05:03)

Challenge. In the spring of 2005, Audi of America launched the A3, a premium compact which was a new category of car in the North American market. It was loaded with innovations and retailed at a higher-than-expected price. On top of that, other luxury car companies who had attempted this before had failed. Audi faced a significant challenge.

Target. Highly affluent ($150K+), stylish, tech-savvy, web-addicted young men (ages 25-34) who are extremely active and mobile

Solution. “The Art of the Heist” embraced the target audience’s need of control over their environment and invited them into an immersive 24-hour-a-day alternate reality. This story blurred fact and fiction by concocting a mysterious storyline that involved consumers in the recovery of an A3 stolen from AudiÕs Park Avenue headquarters in New York City.

At the heart of the narrative were six new A3s containing coded plans for the largest art heist in history; however, one car contained the key to decrypting the information hidden in all the others, and the mystery surrounding the “heist” unfolded in real time over three months across the country. The Heists final chapter was played out in front of a live audience at the Viceroy Hotel in Los Angeles, where we finally discovered who the real villain was.

Media. Over the course of 90 days, consumers engage with the immersive entertainment experience through:

Television
Newspapers
Outdoor
Commuter Rail
Magazines
Websites
Blogs
Live Events
Email
Podcasts
Films
Seeding
Online Advertising
Direct Mail
Radio
Wild Postings
Voicemail

Results. In the first 90 days of the campaign:
» 45 million PR impressions
» 2 million AudiUSA.com visitors
» 500,000 story participants
» 10,000 dealer leads
» 4,000 test drives
» 1,025 cars sold

Sega ESPN: Beta 7

Commissioned by Wieden Kennedy for the launch of SEGA ESPN NFL FOOTBALL 2K4 videogame.

Watch the campaign film for more info (11:25)

Challenge. Launch a new console video football game in a market dominated by EA Sports Madden NFL football.

Target. Young men ages 12-25 who are video game enthusiasts and football fans.

Solution. Campfire created a three-month live story around one man’s battle to stop SEGA from releasing a dangerous video game, SEGA ESPN NFL Football 2K4. A beta tester for ESPN/SEGA’s new video football game, our protagonist, Beta-7, finds himself passing out and tackling innocent people randomly. Getting no response from SEGA, he launches a campaign through Web sites, message boards, blogs and other media to tell the world that this soon-to-launch video game may be hazardous to your health and well-being. And SEGA fights back…

Media. Consumers engaged with the immersive entertainment experience through guerilla web sites, viral videos, and real world events.

Results.
» The campaign was launched in the middle of 2003 and ran for three months
» Overall 2,225,000 people participated the elements of the campaign
» Average sticky time was 10 minutes 55 seconds
» Despite a late start against industry leader EA, Sega exceeded sales expectations in 2003 by 25% and doubled sales in 2004.
» The Beta-7 campaign won major awards at the Andy Award’s, One Show, The Clios, The Art Director’s Club, as well as an unprecedented three Yahoo! Big Idea Chair Awards.