Oliver Kahn bridge crossing the Autobahn near Munich Airport

To welcome all guests of the FIFA World Cup 2006 kick-off match in Munich, adidas did not roll out a widespread poster campaign across the city. Since the goal was not just “talk of the town” but rather “talk of the world”, this conventional solution was turned down. By building a 65-meter wide Oliver Kahn bridge across a four-lane highway close to Munich International Airport adidas managed to create the buzz tbrand was looking for.

One execution. Global press coverage.

This advertising landmark disrupted the “No Advertising at German Autobahn” rule. And after five months of preparation the big Kahn was unveiled. Wider than a Boeing 747, this single installation was the key visual for global press coverage. Over four million people commuted through it and many more saw it in the press. In the first week after revealing it, it was displayed on double-page spreads in leading magazines like Focus, Stern, AutoBild and Fortune. And hundreds of daily newspapers talked about it, including New York Times and Financial Times.

If you have any comments or suggestions please email David Barton (david.barton@tbwa.de).

On the totem pole of marketing, it doesn’t get much lower than the old-fashioned coupon. But in a tight economy, retailers and manufacturers are putting some real energy behind this relic and turning it into something completely new. New technologies are taking coupons to the next level: from online, mobile, loyalty card, location- and behavioral-based coupons, “digital couponing” makes it a whole lot easier to receive and redeem.

Whether it’s to get consumers to try something new, build awareness, create one-on-one relationships or drive sales away from their competitors, digital coupons are attracting a new breed of customers who never bothered with paper coupons. Oh, and by reducing their reliance on paper-based coupons, brands can better measure effectiveness and reduce cost, waste and fraud. Watch this space.

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If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions please email either Frank Striefler (frank@mediaartslab.com) or Erik Hanson (erik@mediaartslab.com).

For the UEFA EURO 2008, adidas needed an unusual give-away for fans and clients alike. The goal was not only to accompany them through the European Football Championship, but also way beyond it. A map of Europe was designed in the style of historic country caricatures, depicting the star players of all 16 participating nations in the “Football Battle of Europe”.

Football map of Europe

The back of the map served as a playing schedule where every battle’s course could be charted. So every game filled the map with another piece of football history.

If you have any comments or suggestions please email David Barton (david.barton@tbwa.de).

Big brand ideas influence everything a brand does. They impact the complete brand behavior of a brand across all media, actually the must be the guideline way beyond communication. Everything is media today: the products, the staff, the fans, the retail-space, the location where you open up your new HQ as well as the language you use in your day-to-day conversations.

In all that the relevance of social media in the relationship between brands and their audience becomes more and more important. B.L. Ochman gave her viewpoint on the most common myths in social media in Business Week. She puts it this way: “Using social media to market your business is a good idea. Just don’t plan on getting your whizkid nephew to do it for free.” 

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The 51st Annual GRAMMY Awards was televised last Sunday, live from Los Angeles. Aside from releasing beautiful print, TV, OOH and interactive communication, they were able to get millions in free press simply by including the press in the idea. But before we get to that, the idea: the idea was about celebrating the music that makes us — that influences our lives. Specifically the lives of artists like Stevie Wonder, Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, Coldplay, Lil Wayne, Kanye West and Rihanna.

The team of TBWA\Chiat\Day in Los Angeles took the songs that inspired these artists’ lives and careers and constructed their faces from it. “We all have a song that inspires us, drives us or makes us feel better — music that makes you the person you are,” said Rob Schwartz, Executive Creative Director at TBWA\Chiat\Day. “This campaign celebrates the influence that music has on every one of us and asks the question: Do we make great music or does great music make us?” Read more…

Scratching detail

As part of the new global brand campaign for Absolut which was launched in spring 2006. Subway windows where turned into a revolutionary new media space.

Absolut did not go for the conventional solution by putting poster-like stickers on the windows. The Swedish vodka brand actually engraved their message into a plastic protection layer which covers all subway windows in Berlin.

If you have any comments or suggestions please email Richard Breaux (richard.breaux@tbwa.de).

Windows on a Berlin subway car: one annoying, the other entertaining

Armed with clever “instant” copy and sharp placement, Jameson Irish Whiskey and TBWA\Chiat\Day New York engaged their audience in some real-time conversations. In busy locations across major cities in the US, live wall projections caught passersby off guard as the impromptu billboards bantered with the unsuspecting crowds. A laptop instantaneously typed out messages that interacted with those passing the projections.

One even helped a lucky lady hail a cab in a busy area of New York City. We always say we need to have a conversation with our audience. Now we can literally do just that.

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The biggest challenge for Big Ideas today is where they take root. Big Ideas with no means to reach people are nothing more than Intellectual Property.  They are only useful where we can use them. I’d like to propose five guidelines for adapting Big Ideas for the new media landscape.  

 1.  It’s More Important To Have A Point Of View Than A Line. 

Activities thrive better than ads in the new media landscape.  So the most useful Big Idea is a point of view than can inspire activities.  John Grant refers to this as a Marketing Enthusiasm: a point of view on the world that is bigger than the brand or the product.  Persil’s ‘Dirt Is Good’ is more than an eye-catching line.   It is a marvelously rich point of view about how children develop through play.  For example, its website currently promotes a list of 33 things to do before you’re ten.  Contrast this with Samsung’s alleged Big Idea: ‘Imagine’.  There’s no point of view there, nothing to engage with. So ‘Imagine’ ends up shoehorned in as the opening to its line of copy.  Russell Davies nicely mocked what happens to meaningless Big Ideas online:   “It was OK when a Big Idea had to support three TV scripts and some posters, but its flatness shows when the poor digital agency has to turn it into an immersive, online experience, not just a silly game of whack-a-mole with the brand mascot.”   Read more…