This is one of the coolest examples of todays brand behavior: The Pepsi Refresh Everything Project. See, what they say about themselves: “We’re looking for people, businesses, and non-profits with ideas that will have a positive impact. Look around your community and think about how you want to change it.” and check it out. Simply click HERE for all the necessary information.
FYI: The Pepsi Refresh Project Round 1 Voting and Round 2 Submissions are NOW OPEN! It’s time to start campaigning for the ideas you like, voting for the ideas that will make the world better, and submitting your ideas for Round 2!
If you have any comments or suggestions please email Rob Schwartz.
It’s amazing how digital technology has evolved from a source of intriguing gadgets to a backbone of our daily lives, increasingly blurring the line between the real world and the virtual one. It has never been easier, more fun, or more inspiring to connect and interact with alternate environments in realtime.
Acclaimed filmmaker Spike Jonze premieres his latest work – I’m Here, a 30-minute short film – at the Sundance Film Festival this month as part of the first-ever Opening Night’s Shorts Program at the festival. The film is a collaboration with ABSOLUT VODKA, and the partnership acknowledges the brand’s position as a pioneering and culture-shaping brand. ABSOLUT has always stood out in the marketplace as a groundbreaking company that has been supporting artists for decades. Previous collaborations include those with Andy Warhol, Keith Haring and Helmut Newton. I’m Here honors the brand’s history while embarking on a new and innovative alliance with one of today’s most original filmmakers. The film came about when TBWA\Chiat\Day New York and ABSOLUT reached out to Jonze to make a film, and gave him creative control to create the film he wanted.
Read more about this groundbreaking project from TBWA’s New York office, and see the :60 trailer after the jump. Read more…
In a world where corporate sponsorship is often just an old bore, one global player was looking to inspire rather than to preach. To further raise awareness of Visa’s worldwide partnership with FIFA in the Middle East and to create excitement around the FIFA Club World Cup 2009 UAE, Visa chose to get everyday football fans to interact with something bigger than themselves.
True football fans don’t just sit there, they live for the action. TBWA\RAAD Dubai created a one-day event dubbed ‘soccer meets art’: a unique platform for true fans to go out there and play, to celebrate their passion for football.
A 5 x 2.5 meters blank canvas was installed at the center of Dubai International Academic City, a neighborhood housing 13 universities.
More than 8,000 students – many of them die hard fans – were invited to take part, to kick paint covered sponge balls on to the canvas.
All this was to create a unique art piece to be displayed during the FIFA Club World Cup 2009 UAE, held in Abu Dhabi.
If you have any comments or suggestions please email David Finley.
Rob Schwartz is the Chief Creative Officer of TBWA\CHIAT\DAY in Los Angeles He writes an “Inspiration is Everywhere” to the LA creative department every week. Sometimes, he shares them with us:
Amigos,
I watched the Golden Globes last night. I don’t usually watch the Golden Globes but I happen to love comedian/writer Ricky Gervais and he was hosting.
Yet is wasn’t Ricky or George Clooney or even the ever-prolific and brilliant Meryl Streep or for that matter the ever-prolific and brilliant Martin Scorsese who appeared as a flash of inspiration.
It was Robert Downey, Jr.
First off, he had by far the most genuine and funny acceptance speech of the night. Yup, in a show flooded with tears, thank yous, and seemingly endless shout-outs to various and sundry agents, studio muckety-mucks and hangers-on, ol’ RD,j bounded up on the stage and admitted that he “didn’t have anybody to thank.” And that everyone involved in the production needed him!
Of course, this was simply a rhetorical device. He used the negative to be extremely positive. See his disruptive speech here:
But it wasn’t simply RD,j’s sense of irony or spontaneous energy at the Globes that I find so inspiring. It’s deeper than that.
What really inspires me is his talent, his dedication to craft, his overall creative exuberance and excellence. Of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that he had a few rocky years in there. In fact, from 1996-2001, Robert was mired in a black hole of substance abuse, suicidal tendencies and general shit-bag behavior. Yet to his credit, he sought the help he needed and is now enjoying one of the best comebacks in Hollywood history.
Now I won’t dive too deep into his career here. You can go to wikipedia Or imdb to find out more.
I will list some of his most inspired performances that you might want to download and check out:
Sherlock Holmes
Ironman
Tropic Thunder
“Family Guy” (Patrick Pewterschmidt episode from 2005)
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
“Ally McBeal” (episodes from 2001)
Natural Born Killers
Chaplin
Saturday Night Live (He was a cast member 1985-1986)
Less Than Zero
Thanks for reading.
~Rob
If you have any comments or suggestions please email Rob Schwartz.
In response to the terrible earthquake in Haiti, Textuel La Mine (BDDP Unlimited) has put together a bilingual (French and English) website to help families and friends more quickly restore contact and exchange news with survivors.
In this emergency situation, the Internet promises to be the most effective means of communication, as the services provided by social networks such as Twitter and Facebook show. This inspired the agency to create a site totally dedicated to centralizing and sharing information about people being sought.
Very easy to use, the site serves as a center for search notices (with a description and photo of individuals being sought). It lets survivors declare themselves, others to recognize a person being sought, information to be posted, etc.
The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and relevant NGOs have been asked to furnish the data they currently have.
The site is already online and its effectiveness depends on awareness of its existence, which is why it is so important to publicize it to the maximum. Please go ahead and share.
The Recording Academy® unveiled an innovative advertising campaign for the 52nd Annual GRAMMY® Awards, airing live on CBS Jan. 31. The fully integrated campaign, titled “We’re All Fans,” highlights music fans’ unprecedented impact in the current digital age.
The heart of the campaign is the Web site, www.wereallfans.com — a first-of-its-kind interactive fan experience — featuring portraits of GRAMMY-nominated artists composed entirely of real-time, fan-generated YouTube, Twitter and Flickr postings. This user-submitted content is continuously gathered from these social media platforms and refreshed on the campaign site to form a constantly evolving, “living” portrait of each artist. TV, print, out-of-home and interactive all support and will drive traffic to www.wereallfans.com.
“Music connects us all and while it comes to life in the hands of artists, it lives and breathes in the hearts and minds of fans,” said Evan Greene, Chief Marketing Officer of The Recording Academy. “With the natural evolution of social media, fans have become a cultural force driving the power of music, and this year’s ad campaign celebrates the connection between fans and some of today’s most relevant artists.”
“Fans have always been the driving force of music, but with the rise of social media they are now more powerful, more connected and more influential than ever,” said Patrick O’Neill, Executive Creative Director at TBWA\Chiat\Day\Los Angeles. “We wanted to tap into what music fans are already doing: sharing, tweeting, singing about their favorite song/musician/lyric every second, every day, all over the Web. The ‘We’re All Fans’ GRAMMY Awards campaign harnesses this enthusiasm and puts the fans at the center of the idea. And we all know, music is nothing without the fans.”
If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions please email Marianne Stefanowicz.
John Hunt is an award-winning playwright, author, and Worldwide Creative Director of TBWA. He presented his new book “The Art of the Idea” in a presidents lecture at the Berlin School of Creative Leadership. Prior the festive event he had a personal conversation with Michael Conrad. Join the insightful conversation.
(Part One)
(Part Two)
Hunt was born in Zambia and educated in England and South Africa, he was the Creative Founding Partner of TBWA Hunt Lascaris. TBWA Hunt Lascaris has now grown to be South Africa’s premier advertising agency – named Agency of the Year six times in the last seven years. In 1993 John was intimately involved in Nelson Mandela’s first ANC election campaign. Three years later, he joined the South African Advertising Hall of Fame – the first working creative to be so honored, and in 1997 he received the Financial Mail’s Long Term Achievement Award.
TBWA has been named by Adweek magazine as the “Global Advertising Agency Network of the Year” in both 2007 and again for 2009. Led by CEO (and Berlin School Board of Governors member) Jean-Marie Dru, the full-service agency has more than 250 offices in 77 countries. Some of its major clients include Adidas, Absolut Vodka, Apple, Henkel, Mars, Nissan, and Sony PlayStation.
