Sometimes a piece of advertising transcends this thing called Advertising. In honor of Steve Jobs, Apple’s “The Crazy Ones.”

Full disclosure, this film was made by TBWA\CHIAT\DAY, Los Angeles.

Source: Rob Schwartz, Chief Creative Officer, TBWA CHIAT DAY, LA on forbes.com.

Nicolas Bordas, author of “L’idée qui tue” (“The Killer Idea”) and President of the TBWA France has shared on his blog an amazing charity idea developed by TBWA London. Check this out and give eggs:

I was in London the other day, and I discovered the “Eastern Egg” operation.  The idea is simple: buy a beautiful painted wooden egg (done by one of fourteen designers) for £10 and the money goes directly to the Red Cross in Japan.  The eggs are painted by an awesome “egg bot” (see below video).  To place your order, just go to www.eastern-eggs.com. What’s more thanks to PayPal you don’t have to be in the UK to participate!

Eastern Eggs from TBWA\London on Vimeo.

What if a pet food brand was not a company selling products, but a global fan group for everyone with a furry friend? What if it was not just about dog nourishment – but about dogs?

That’s what happened when Pedigree set out on a global mission to connect with consumers like never before. Together with TBWA, the brand held Disruption Days in several markets around the world. This process led to a powerful brand idea: everything we do is for the love of dogs.

“Dogs Rule”, said TV spots and posters featuring cute, mischievous and faithful hounds. Pedigree seemed to be speaking to and on behalf of dog lovers everywhere. The company even changed its working practices to allow dogs into its offices. Salespeople went on the road with dogs. The brand behaviour reflected the disruptive idea. What’s more, this was the first time Pedigree had spoken with a single, global voice, bringing power and consistency to the brand.

But there was still more to be done. So in 2008, Pedigree’s European markets took part of the marketing budget and used it to support dogs who really needed it: the millions of dogs in shelters.

With the help of Media Arts, Pedigree turned its global idea – Everything we do is for the love of dogs – into localized brand behaviour. The adoption drive was launched across nine

European countries with an emotional, impactful TV ad. Over images of dogs behind bars, a voiceover said: “I know how to sit, how to fetch, and how to roll over. What I don’t know is – how I ended up here.” The spot explained that when customers bought any Pedigree product, the company would make a donation that would help dogs in shelters find a loving home.

In the UK, the adoption drive was launched at Crufts, a famous dog show. British actor and comedian Neil Morrissey was enlisted to host a mass dog walk in London. Pedigree even produced a weekly documentary called “Dog Rescue” featuring the UK’s leading shelter, Battersea Dogs’ Home.

In Germany, real dogs from local shelters “spoke” to dog lovers via captions on posters. Smaller markets focused on PR activities. In the Netherlands, for example, Pedigree installed cardboard cut-outs of dogs on lawns and in parks. The signs read: “I wish I was here.” In Austria, interactive posters featured dogs with many leashes – consumers could remove a leash containing details of the adoption drive. In Ireland, a hard-hitting poster featured several photos of dogs. These were removed over time, confronting the public with the fact that 43 homeless dogs are put down every day. Hungary took an online approach, allowing potential owners to pick their rescue dog from the Pedigree website.

RESULTS

The reaction was overwhelming. People showed their support not only via Web buzz, but in concrete numbers. In Ireland, the brand grew by 8% and the adoption drive generated more than €400,000 worth of free media coverage. In the UK, the campaign raised over €1.9 million for homeless dogs. The German magazine “Dogs” described Pedigree as “the most dog-loving company”. In Spain, 150,000 people subscribed to an adoption drive newsletter. And in the Netherlands, the campaign was so successful that it was extended for an extra ten weeks at the request of retailers. Across Europe, Pedigree raised over €3 million for the drive.

And most importantly, the adoption rate of dogs grew by 30%, helping thousands find loving homes.

It was the ultimate expression of Pedigree’s brand belief: to make the world a better place for dogs.

In an absolut world New York’s Time Square would not be cluttered with advertising but would be the home of amazing art. This is how the IN AN ABSOLUT WORLD campaign was launched in 2007. Now this vision can become reality with your help. Check out the Times Square to Art Square (TS2AS) project, get involved and help turn all billboards on Times Square into art.

But even better, this is not only about donating to support the foundation it is about sharing your ideas for New York’s most famous square. So the initiators ask: “Do you have a clear idea on what Art Square should look like?” And invite you to upload your Art Square on the website.

For any comments or suggestions, send an email to Ulrich Proeschel.

Whether you’re cheering, crying, jumping for joy or doing the Mexican Wave, supporting your nation’s team during the World Cup consumes a lot of energy. In order to stay in peak supporting condition, you need a bite from time to time. Which is why McDonald’s – the official FIFA fan food – came up with the entirely relevant idea: “Feed the passion.”

With the help of TBWA, McDonald’s set out to disrupt the conventions of sponsorship communications. Rather than plastering the stadium with logos, it chose to address fans directly in a highly contextual manner.

Posters set the scene for the pan-European campaign. Showing a massive Mexican wave by supporters dressed in the brand’s gold livery, they carried the line: “Cheering takes a lot of energy: Feed the Passion.”

Soon after that, the fun and games began.

To entertain fans and stimulate conversations, McDonald’s and its agency decided to run newspaper ads commenting on each match. Obviously they couldn’t create the ads at the last minute. But how could they predict the outcome of each match?

Answer: they couldn’t. The agency created hundreds of ads in advance, predicting many possible results. This was pure Media Arts dedication.

Things kicked off gently enough, with ads that were trailers for coming clashes, such as “Italy v. Paraguay? They’ll be hungry for a result.” Or “Portugal v. Brazil? Classics don’t come much bigger than this.” (Alongside an image of a Big Mac, naturally.)

But the campaign moved into high gear when the ads were able to capture the full drama and unpredictability of soccer. How about the moment when the Netherlands took on favourites Brazil – and won? An ad the following morning commented: “Netherlands 2, Brazil 1. That’s a tasty finish.”

The executions showed a relish for visual puns. Accompanying an image of a milkshake: “France 1. Africa 2. That’ll shake up the group.” Or with a picture of a cup of coffee: “Slovenia 0, England 1. It’s a real ground out result.” The words amusingly summed up the gruelling match fans had sweated through the night before.

The magic of the campaign lay in its being able to comment on victories and defeats almost in real time. Serbia asked their fans how good it felt to beat the Germans 1:0 (the score was spelled out in fries and a couple of blobs of ketchup); France’s disastrous showing was rewarded with an image of a McDonald’s dessert – a sweet cure for the post-match blues.

Even countries that had not qualified were able to join in the fun. Ireland had been eliminated thanks to a notorious “hand-ball” by France’s Thierry Henry. So when France went out of the tournament, the Irish papers contained this ad: “French fries.” Other non-qualifying countries asked themselves questions such as “Who says we still can’t lift the cup?” or pledged to keep the faith until 2014.

Nearly every aspect of victory and loss was addressed. When Germans woke the morning after celebrating a 4:0 victory over Argentina, McDonald’s suggested a hangover cure.

And then, of course, came the final. Spain asked their fans to show pride in their colours, which neatly mimicked those of McDonald’s! The last ad in the campaign read: “Jump, jump and then jump some more. Congratulations Spain.” The image? An empty carton of fries, its contents scattered all around.

RESULTS

This was a campaign shaped by the World Cup itself. It fused a relevant idea with contextual advertising to speak to and involve the fans. All in all, 25 countries participated. Hundreds of ads were published, millions Macs were sold and many more fans participated.

And the campaign proved that even in media as traditional as newspapers, a disruptive idea and Media Arts skills score big with the public.

For any comments or suggestions, send an email to Ulrich Proeschel.

TBWA’s top creative says brands must resonate emotionally across media or face the consequences.

A year ago, Lee Clow gave up the title of Chairman and Global Creative Director of TBWA Worldwide and designated himself Worldwide Director of Media Arts. In his first major interview since adopting the new role, he explains why brands must take an emotional approach to communications.

Lee warns that brands face becoming “irrelevant” or even “the focus of online contempt” if they fail to express a consistent identity every time they come into contact with consumers, whether it’s via advertising, packaging or the store experience.

“Finding the disruptive idea for a brand, which usually comes out of its emotional centre, and which we call the ´brand belief`, is the first step to creating a powerful multimedia brand”, he explains.

It used to be very simple.

Brands did advertising: they talked at people; they bought television commercials and held you captive. Now they must interact with their audience in a multifaceted but coherent way.

Everything a brand does is basically a medium and a message. And it needs to be true to a simple, single-minded idea. Using the example of Apple, Lee observes: “There isn’t a single thing Apple does that isn’t a message that confirms or reinforces how you feel about the company. I often tell people that the best ad we ever did was the Apple Store. We do great TV commercials, we do wonderful billboards, but you walk into an Apple store and you’re now immersed in a brand that’s going to change your life.”

“If you buy a product, even the process of opening it becomes a brand experience,” Lee emphasizes.
“Think about any brand that you like; any brand that you spend time with; any brand you go online and check out. It’s usually a brand that has touched you from a number of different points. Because it’s true to its character, you like and admire it. You actually want to go online and find out what’s going on, or if you drive by a billboard it reinforces how you feel about the brand.

“Successful brands are not cold: they have a soul, a character. But thanks to the power granted to consumers by the internet, brands that betray their characters risk getting slapped around”, says Lee.

“The reality of the new media world is that if your brand does not have a belief, if it does not have a soul and does not correctly architect its messages everywhere it touches consumers, it can become irrelevant. It can be ignored, or even become a focal point for online contempt. This insight lies behind the expression Media Arts. You are studying the science of how to bring brands to market. But I think you’d better keep your intuition, your instinct, and your emotional compass intact. Because the emotional centre, the belief of a brand, has to inform its behaviour, and this can’t all be done with the left side of the brain.”

“Ultimately”, concludes Lee, “You’re going out into the media world and creating something that I call art, it happens to be the art of communication. It’s storytelling.

“Great brands have a story, our job is to tell them.”

Fortune Magazine named him “Master of Disruption” in 2006. Now he has been named “CEO of the Decade” by the same publication. Steve Jobs has turned around basically everything he and Apple touched over the last years: personal computing, how people enjoy music and how the stay connected on the move. By using digital technology in way that it helps and entertain human beings, he was the key driver of one of the most amazing success stories in business.

Check out Steve Jobs’ hits and misses in an amazing online timeline. Click here.

Fred Vogelstein reported in 2006 in Fortune Magazine: “Apple’s trick has been not just its game-changing tech breakthroughs (music and computers made easy) but its relentless push to disrupt itself before others have a chance to do so. “The thing that most people don’t realize about Steve is that he is not only really good at taking technology and turning it into good-looking, easy-to-use products, he’s really good at doing it faster than anyone else,” says Paul Saffo of the Institute of the Future in Palo Alto.”

Consumers who have never picked up an annual report or even a business magazine gush about his design taste, his elegant retail stores, and his outside-the-box approach to advertising. (“Think different,” indeed.)

Fortune Magazine says: “It’s as if his signature “one more thing” line now applies to him as well.” So, let’s wait for the next chapters of “one more thing”. But first, check out some of the most iconic examples of Apples brand behavior, some advertising developed by TBWA\Chiat\Day and TBWA\Media Arts Lab.

Or enjoy all “Get a Mac” commercials on apple.com. Enjoy and remember, get one.

Happy Holidays. Mad-blog.com will pause for a couple of days. We have started this blog to celebrate Media Arts and Disruption in February 2009 – after ten month up and running we are very happy about the outcome. But even more important is the fact that all of you are happy with our online publication, the numbers seem to prove this. Our visitors come from 143 countries. Over 6,000 have been visiting mad-blog.com from more than 100 times, I would call them regulars and more than 6,700 have subscribed to our RSS feed. Thanks for all the support. I am looking forward to seeing all of you again next year.

Happy Holidays,

Ulrich

One more thing, if you are still looking for some holiday fun. Read our top five posts of all time:

(1) Insights on the revolution by Michael Zorn (TBWA\BERLIN)

(2) The Age of Media Arts by Lee Clow (TBWA\WORLDWIDE)

(3) Disruption is Liberation by Dr. Sven H. Becker (TBWA\GERMANY)

(4) Disruption in a disrupted World by Jean-Marie Dru (TBWA\WORLDWIDE)

(5) Let’s do things we think we cannot do by John Hunt (TBWA\WORLDWIDE)