Since 1937 Ray-Ban has been an expression of individual style, synonymous with independence, boldness and freedom. But it’s Ray-Ban’s passion and authenticity that have marked the history and success of the brand, making it a global agent of quality and style.

Ray-Ban shows the colorful side of the brand’s iconic set by inviting their audience to “colorize” their lives. The global push of the campaign will be led by a viral film launched on YouTube featuring a chameleon rapidly changing colors to a driving techno track.  Two other viral films will launch in the following months featuring Ray-Ban’s iconic Wayfarer style.

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions please email Walter Smith.

The Butterfly Effect is now a popular folk philosophy, used in films and plays and songs all over to explain how every action, no matter how small, creates a change that has a consequence. Some “happening” or seemingly insignificant chance occurrence leads to a chain of reactions which themselves are subject to a number of tiny changes, which can completely alter – or even create – the consequence.

This was first termed a “butterfly effect” by meteorologist Edward Lorenz, who at the time was exploring the difficulty of predicting the weather due to the series of small but causal changes that occur within a complex system such as the environment. This brought a much wider theory into the public domain: Chaos Theory. It was here in which he famously mused: “Does the Flap of a Butterfly’s Wings in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas?” Read more…

Sunday 22nd March was World Water Day and all this week UNICEF’s Tap Project will be running in different cities across the US to raise awareness and donations towards providing clean drinking water for children around the world.

TBWA\Chiat\Day LA is responsible for Tap LA. In addition, this year we have created a week long radio station that will stream on the site www.tapprojectradio.org.

Celebrities, musicians, artists and ad industry legends have all donated time to produce hour long sets showcasing some of their favorite songs and raising awareness of the cause.

The aim of Tap Project Radio is to raise just $10,000 – which is enough to provide clean drinking water for 10,000 children for 40 days.

One of the ad industry highlights is an interview between Lee Clow and David Droga about the initial idea for the Tap Project (originally created just for the New York market by Droga5).

The Clow/Droga interview will air on Tuesday 3/24 at 12pm ET and will be rebroadcast at 6pm ET and Midnight ET.

Take a look at the website/radio station www.tapprojectradio.org and spread the word by supporting the cause through Facebook http://www.facebook.com/tapprojectradio.

[Show as slideshow]

AUDIENCE BEHAVIOR – Audiences don’t live above or below-the-line, and it has taken our industry too long to truly embrace a through-the-line approach. But with the explosive growth of the Internet and the need for a specialized craft, we were quick to draw another line to differentiate on- and off-line advertising. But today’s audiences don’t live in an on- or off-line world either – they live in a “nonline” world. The more people and technology advance, the less separated these two places become in our daily lives. People can hardly tell the difference anymore between when they are “on” and when they are “off”; when they’re connected and when they’re not. People now lead seamless lives existing somewhere between the digital and the physical world with an endless number of connections linking them together.

BRAND BEHAVIOR – Online campaigns tend to be limited to screens and often times don’t affect people’s off-line lives. Brands that stop drawing the line have the opportunity to create entirely new connections that seamlessly and simultaneously impact people’s nonline lives. Marketers need to tear down the self-imposed walls between on- and offline and break through the tyranny of click-through based online advertising. Instead of using separate on- and off-line performance tools, marketers need to look at nonline success metrics to evaluate their initiatives holistically. 

NIKE+: THE HUMAN RACE

 Nike+ is the world’s largest running club, connecting runners from ever corner of the Web, where anyone can be challenged to a virtual race. On Aug. 31, 2008, Nike took this initiative to the next level and to the streets with the world’s largest running event: The Human Race. The charity race brought the online community together with 700,000+ runners competing in 25 cities across the globe. Nike rounded up this unprecedented experience with exclusive post-race concerts as part of the grand finale in each city.

POD HOTEL: PODCULTURE

 The Pod Hotel combines high style with high tech, offering hostel-style, discount accommodations for spendthrifty and Web-savvy travelers. To compete with trendy boutique hotels, the hotel lets visitors make advanced connections with other guests via its closed social network PodCulture. Improving the real-world customer experience, guests connect online in specific forums to meet up in real life to drink, dine, shop or go out. Sales and traffic have increased 40% since PodCulture has been introduced. 

TWITTER: TWESTIVAL

On Feb. 12, Tweeters in 202 cities around the world came together for Twestival under the mantra of “tweet.meet.give.” The volunteer-organized Tweetup with a social conscience was a fundraiser for charity:water offering entertainment, food and drinks while building awareness for the global water crisis. The call-to-action was Tweeted and in less than a month the event attracted 10,000+ attendees. The live gathering is a testament to Twitter’s ability to mobilize Internet activity into real-world action.

Download your Media Arts Monday.

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

10 key learnings from the fastest growing brand in 2008 and the CEO of the USA by Frank Striefler (TBWA\MAL) and edited by Mark Tungate.

The astonishing rise of the Obama brand has become a blueprint for every marketer. His campaign is a case study in marketing excellence that earned him the title “Marketer of the Year” from the trade magazine Advertising Age. 

mad-blog.com presents exclusively the ten key lessons to take away from his campaign:

7. FOSTER CO-CREATION AND GIVE UP SOME CONTROL:

Obama enjoyed a “co-creation” advantage – the passionate support of creative people. Their independent viral marketing impact was phenomenal. It’s hard to think of a political candidate who has inspired so much creativity.

The user-generated viral video “I got crush on Obama” featured a young woman breathlessly singing her love for the presidential candidate. Visitors to YouTube watched Obama Girl’s amusing and risqué performance more than 60 million times.

The “Yes We Can“ music video was conceived by Black Eyed Peas front man will.i.am and director Jesse Dylan. It featured a star-studded cast, including John Legend, Herbie Hancock, Common, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Scarlett Johansson, Tatyana Ali, Nick Cannon and many more. The video and song were put together out of their own volition and not in concert with the Obama campaign. It achieved 11 million views and cost the campaign nothing.

Another prominent example of co-creation was the limited-edition print created by Los Angeles graphic designer Shephard Fairey. He used the proceeds from sales to finance a guerilla poster campaign. In addition to popping up on many streets, the image made its way onto bumper stickers, T-shirts and so on. 

Was Obama happy with all this unauthorized messaging? We don’t know. But he understood the first principle of co-creation: If you want them to do a job for you, you have to accept that they are in charge.

8. USE BIG MEDIA WHEN YOU HAVE BIG TASKS:

For all his mastery of new media, Obama also used also the old-fashioned route to the White House: he out-spent McCain 3-to-1 on TV advertising. 

Obama’s estimated record-breaking TV spend of US$250 million not only dwarfs that of McCain, but that of any previous election, and even the advertising budgets of big spenders like Gap. Anyone watching television during the closing weeks of the campaign knew that Obama’s air war was dominant. Nearly seven in 10 voters said they had seen Obama ads compared to 44 percent who could recall a McCain commercial. 

One week prior to Election Day, Obama turned up the heat with a prime-time 30-minute infomercial shown across most major TV networks. The half-hour simulcast was an extraordinary climax to his media blitz. Channel flippers had a hard time avoiding the ad because it was seemingly everywhere.

If you want to read lesson one through three, click here. For lesson four through six, here.

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

Tryvann Winter Park, just outside the city of Oslo, is Norway’s premier ski resort. Its proximity to Oslo is so close that when the weather is dry, people assume it’s dry on the slopes. Tryvann wanted to communicate that, with the help of snow machines, it’s just the opposite. To do this, TBWA\Oslo created transport billboards that displayed actual mini snowstorms inside. But here’s the kicker: the billboards were connected to a remote control at the top of Tryvann’s mountain. When it snowed at Tryvann, an SMS signal reached every billboard, causing them to snow as well, and people were instantly reminded that they could hit the slopes. The campaign increased ticket sales and was a huge hit with the press throughout the country. If you can’t bring the people to the mountain, bring the mountain to the people.

Download your What if.

A funny thing happened on my way to judging the One Show Interactive today in New York. Due to an overload of the broadband system, fellow judge Ty Montague and I left the very modern and wonderful IAC building and wound up doing our judging duties in the cozy confines of the One Club itself at 21 East 26th Street. 

It would have been largely a non-event save for the fact that the room we were in had a wall of fame. Literally. 

Yep, as Ty and I were hunched over out laptops looking at the current state of digital creativity, there was David Abbott. And Bill Bernbach. And Ed McCabe. All staring down at us. 

Amil Gargano was there, too. Along with Phyllis Robinson, Roy Grace, and Diane Rothschild.

And modern legends, Jeff Goodby, Rich Silverstein and Dan Wieden. And of course, my boss Lee Clow was there, too. (Looking very retro.)

It was surreal. 

Yet for me, personally, quite comforting. After all, One Show Interactive can mesmerize a man. There’s all manner of genius design and ingenious technology. There are apps that blow you away. Websites that dazzle. Project summary films that can make the most mundane idea seem like the most magical. 

Read more…