This is one of the most amazing examples of great brand behavior: The Pepsi Refresh Project. Instead of putting money into a Superbowl ad, the soda company decided to refresh the world, by giving away $20million of the complete year.
Pepsi are giving $1.3million in grants to projects that ‘refresh’ the Gulf in the wake of the oil spill. Voting started today. 10 votes per day per person. Please vote!
If you need inspiration how you can ‘refresh’ the Gulf, check out Fast Companies top-5 projects of Pepsi’s extension of The Pepsi Refresh Project.
For any comments or suggestions, send an email to Ulrich Proeschel.
In 2010 Pepsi decided not to run an ad during the Super Bowl. For over 23 years they had taken the conventional approach of putting their can into a superstar’s hand and hoping that others would follow.
But as a brand that believes every generation can refresh the world, they wanted to change something. The decision was radical. No Super Bowl ad, but 20 million US dollars to fund projects that would make the world a fresher place. People where invited to submit their projects, and the whole world could vote. The budget for a one day event now funds a full year of causes. 1000 submissions are accepted every month, but when the Pepsi Refresh Project was launched this figure was achieved after 2 minutes. Since then, over one billion media contacts have been generated during the first twelve weeks of the project – and as the web buzz continues, even more staggering numbers are round the corner. But the numbers are only one side of the coin. More importantly, this campaign is producing value every day. Value for the community, value for the planet and, last but not least, value for Pepsi in the hearts and minds of its audience.
For question and further information simply email Carisa Bianchi.
Rob Schwartz, Chief Creative Officer of TBWA\CHIAT\DAY Los Angeles. shares his thoughts on METAL POTENTIAL on his personal blog. This is what he said about Gatorade Replay:
This isn’t an ad. This is an idea. A big one. It was conceived to be the ultimate product demo. Here’s how it goes. What if you took two rival high school football teams and had them replay a significant game…15 years later. The teams would need to train and get back in shape. And oh yeah, they’d need plenty of Gatorade. Two teams on the New Jersey-Pennsylvania border did this. Here’s the trailer, but got to MissionG.com to see more of the story. Also FOX has turned it into a series. You’ll find more info on that here.
By Tom Morton, executive planning director, TBWA\London Group
In a terrible blow to the ad industry’s carbon footprint, most people collecting Cannes Lions this year will have to fly over from the US. American agencies have the budgets, the chutzpah and the easy familiarity with digital to pull off the campaigns the rest of the world wants to make. Expect Team America to do better in South France than South Africa this year.
My self-serving full-disclosure prediction is that Pepsi Refresh and Gatorade Replay will challenge for top Titanium and Integrated Lions. Both campaigns managed to give their brands a genuine role in the world, touching on some real human truths along the way. Gatorade Rematch could edge it as it will touch the hearts of every alpha male viewer. As soon as you see that Rematch gives former high school athletes a shot at redemption, Gatorade gets up there with The Wrestler and Jerry Maguire. Asked in an interview what made him cry, Sean Connery answered ‘athletics’. Expect a similar reaction here.
DDB Stockholm’s Fun Theory campaign for the VW Golf could put in a strong showing. ‘What if we spent the budget behind enabling people to have fun?’ is a pleasing conjecture for a global audience but it’s a bit too generic compared to the competition.
This year should see more maturity in the Cyber and Titanium Lions. We won’t see any more funny-shaped barcodes walking off with big prizes. Now it’s the turn of smart uses of existing technology to triumph over the novelties. Having digital native Bob Greenberg chairing the Titanium Lions Jury will help here. So we should see Tribal DDB’s rendering of Monopoly on Google Maps or Crispin Porter’s Twitter-based customer service Twelpforce getting recognition.
Film Lions could be a contest of old school craft against new school laughs as BBH’s The Man Who Walked Around The World vies for honours with W&K’s The Man Your Man Could Smell Like. The astonishing level of craft and performance in the Johnnie Walker epic should see the man in the kilt edging out the man ON A HORSE.
So that’s 2010. In the interest of playing the prediction game, I prophesize that Nike’s Write The Future will storm the 2011 Film Lions, assuming any of the featured players escape the curse of Nike and are still standing by the end of the World Cup.
When Carlos Ghosn, Nissan President and CEO, unveiled the Nissan Leaf last year he heralded it as “the unveiling of a real-world car that has zero – not simply reduced — emissions. It’s the first step in what is sure to be an exciting journey — for people all over the world, for Nissan and for the industry.
It was a significant entry into the carbon emissions reduction arena with what was sure to have a major impact on the conversation. A conversation, which at that time lacked a common thread for people to follow and rally around.
The immediate opportunity for Nissan was to own the global conversation around mobility. Not simply from a new product standpoint, but from the standpoint of a new mobility lifestyle — a lifestyle preparing the world for a new kind of car.
The TBWA\Digital Arts Team, led by Colleen DeCourcy, was asked to cultivate this conversation and give it a place to live online. The teams generated thinking around celebrating zero emissions mobility, the coming of the electric vehicle revolution and how this can be a central part of a common journey to a sustainable future. In response, they created, ‘Journey to Zero.’
Under the watchful tutelage of Richard Saul Wurman, global thought leader, TED (Technology Entertainment Design) conference founder, author and the planet’s premier information architect, journeytozero.com became a platform for this ongoing conversation.
The Digital Artists started by partnering with Wade Davis, noted anthropologist, ethno-botanist, best-selling author and National Geographic Explorer documenting his conversations, observations and experiences at COP15 – the United Nations 2009 Climate Change Conference. Using the above, the team pushed content to consumers in real time starting a global conversation around change.
Constant Communications was the mechanic employed to reach consumers through social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Posterous, and on journeytozero.com. Almost immediately after starting the conversation, it grew in bounds. Not only did the program gain great momentum with the consumer audience, but zero emissions and green leaders and influencers also engaged in perpetuating and growing the conversation.
The initiative was not created to sell the Nissan LEAF directly; however, one can imagine that there will be a residual effect now that so many consumers were engaged in the program and have a new mindset around zero emissions and mobility. It is a journey Nissan initiated, and one that is so important to the future of mobility.
In the words of Wade Davis, “The very existence of alternative ways of thinking and doing are what will save us — hence being aware of diversity and new ways are what will drive the future of sustainability.”
Jean-Marie Dru is the Chairman of TBWA Worldwide He writes a memo to all his colleagues at TBWA every week. Sometimes, he shares them with us:
In 2008, TBWA\Chiat\Day Los Angeles was tasked to reignite the spark both in the Gatorade brand and in those who drink it. Because of the brand’s tremendous growth over the years, it was starting to lose its core sports relevance as consumers forgot Gatorade’s fundamental reason for being – superior sports hydration that fuels athletic performance. The brand was losing its meaning and in danger of becoming more akin to soda pop than sports drink.
In talking with athletes of all ages, the team found that whatever they do, wherever they go, the best athletes always take their attitude, swagger and passion with them. They may lose a step here or there, gain a few pounds as they age, but the one thing that doesn’t change is their competitive desire and will to win.
They tool inspiration from the fact that rivalries have fueled athletes throughout the history of sport and asked, what if Gatorade used a sporting rivalry as a catalyst to give one-time athletes a second chance?
Two U.S. high schools, Easton High School in Pennsylvania and Phillipsburg High School in New Jersey, have a 100-year-old rivalry and, in 1993, were named by Sports Illustrated as the best high school football rivalry in the country. However, the 1993 meeting between the two teams ended in the worst possible way, a 7-7 deadlock. No true rivalry should ever end in a tie.
Here was the brand’s opportunity. Fuel a grudge match. Provide the original players a second chance to play the ‘93 game and settle the score once and for all…15 years later: Gatorade “REPLAY” was born.
Gatorade REPLAY originated as a five-part online documentary. Cameras captured every part of the 90-day journey, from the physical workouts to the deeply emotional moments and the relationships built on and off the field. Gatorade’s expertise in coaching, hydration and sports performance supported the men as they re-evaluated their health, got back in shape and fine-tuned their skills. Then came the REPLAY.
On Sunday, April 26, 2009, 15,000 fans jammed Fisher Field. Tickets for the REPLAY game sold out in 90 minutes, putting the 15,000-seat stadium at maximum capacity. Demand for the game spilled over into the eBay grey market, with some auctions fetching up to six times the ticket’s face value. Even NFL Gatorade athletes Peyton and Eli Manning took part as assistant coaches for the event. The entire Easton and Phillipsburg towns became participants – and in addition to the teams, the original ’93 cheerleaders and marching band members came out of retirement. Suddenly whole towns were transformed into fans, helping fuel the rivalry and cheer on the teams. The game was broadcast live to local markets with the rest of the country joining in online on www.gatorade.com.
The REPLAY winners were Phillipsburg, but it hardly mattered. Gatorade had made their mark and proved their role as a catalyst for athletic achievement.
Further testament to the size and power of the idea, in November 2009 REPLAY became a documentary television series with a one-hour primetime pilot airing nationally on Fox Sports Net during Thanksgiving weekend. We have received requests to turn the documentary into a feature film from all the major studios and we are currently filming Season II in Detroit, to be broadcast on Fox Sports Net.
Today Indy Saha, Head of Strategy TBWA\London group and Agency.com (twitter: @indysaha) shares with us some interesting thoughts on the recent Facebook announcements:
From a social and cultural point of view, THEY ARE THE BIG DEAL. They will change the way you interact with social networks and how you surf the internet forever, how brands can target consumers and will challenge the dominance of Google as being the most powerful company online. In fact in year from now any website which has not incorporated these changes, will look very archaic.
WHY IT WILL CHANGE THE WAY YOU INTERACT WITH THE WEB AND SOCIAL NETWORKS
Social networking will no longer happen just in social networks it will happen on every site of the internet. Imagine being on any website and being able to “like” that site by simply clicking a button, whether that is an article, a band, a song. You will be able to leave comments on that site, see what your friends have done on that site, what they think of the content on that site and you will even be able to see which of your friends are currently on that site, and connect with them on that site.
But then imagine going onto another site, and because your likes and activities have been remembered, the site becomes personalised to your tastes or to your friends tastes, or it even suggests stuff that people who liked similar things to you also like (this is the beginning of the “semantic web”), so if you have “liked” various artists/ bands across various sites – by the time you get to a music streaming site like Pandora, it will generate a playlist automatically of songs you might like.
When you do go onto Facebook itself, it will suggest communities you should join of people who also like the same things as you and let you connect with them and share ideas and interests.
Facebook have also introduced their own currency called “Facebook Credits” which allows one payment system across all app. So you will not need to have separate accounts for payment across Farmville or 1-800 Flowers, but a seamless centralised payment system like ITunes, a seamlessness which will make commerce take off on Facebook in a big way. [I can see print publications developing Facebook editions which will be powered by these micro-payments.]
WHY IT WILL CHANGE THE WAY BRANDS TARGET CONSUMERS
We will probably see a shift in branded experiences taking place on proprietary microsites and no longer having to be in social networks.
A brand will now know how popular parts of their site experience are, which bit of content are the most relevant. Not only this they will know the demographics and maybe even the locations of audiences engaging with their site, as well as how they are engaging. This will open up developing more attitude based advertising. Wherever consumers go on the web, they will carry their preferences, behaviours and friends with them.
And this is WHY FACEBOOK WILL CHALLENGE THE DOMINANCE OF GOOGLE
Google has a massive advertising and search platform based on keywords. Facebook is creating an advertising and search platform which is based on behaviors, attitudes, preferences and social connections [what your friends like and do etc], this allows the creation of more powerfully targetted relevant advertising and experiences.
These for me were the big out takes as people who work in marketing. For more information you can watch the keynote in full here.
Jean-Marie Dru, the inventor of Disruption and Chairman TBWA Worldwide delivered today a speech at the State Tretyakov Gallery on the occasion of the official housewarming of TBWA Moscow. Here are some sound-bites for all of you who couldn’t attend:
“We are in the grip of a terrible recession. And recessions are always times when we isolate and withdraw into ourselves, when we do not take risks, when we become more cautious.
And yet every day you ask yourself: how to grow, how to create more organic roles at a time when you have less resources.
This is where we can contribute. This is where creativity can contribute. Provided that creativity focuses in the right direction.”
In his first public lecture in Moscow Jean-Marie Dru covered three areas, that he believes are essential for the future of our business: (1) Brand Ideas (2) Brand Initiatives and (3) Brand Content.
“First I will underline the importance of brand ideas, then the fact that brands must take more and more initiatives, and last but not least that brands must create new content.
At his return to the company in 1997, Steve Jobs decided to remind the world of what Apple stood for. You all know the “Think Different” film, it works as well today as it did 10 years ago.
This film has stood the test of time. It works just as effectively at the depths of the worst crisis we have never known. In fact, it may even be more inspirational today
You surely know that the person behind that film is Lee Clow, the creative soul of TBWA. He is at the origin of all our campaigns for Apple. And here is what Lee likes to say on ideas such as Think Different: Brand Ideas Win, Good Ads Don’t.
What he means by this is that we cannot be satisfied merely with advertising ideas. What is needed now are big brand ideas.”
“In fact, communications strategies can sometimes contribute to reinforcing companies’ business strategies. By “reinforce”, I mean that strong communications can create great enthusiasm and more conviction around the companies’ strategic direction. And this happens more often than we think.”
“The old saying « actions speak louder than words » has never been more true. And that’s why we’re not just in the business of telling brands what to say, but also in the business of guiding them in how they should behave. (…) All initiatives that go beyond the mere products and services you brand delivers, initiatives that reinforce what a brand stands for.”
“My last point is that we are going to create more and more brand content. This is a consequence of the end of repetitive advertising.
So we have to come with unexpected or entertaining ways of communicating. All the stunts we are doing for adidas are good examples.
The first one is a billboard campaign in New Zealand for the All Blacks. A drop of blood taken from each player on the team – thirty of them in all – was mixed into the ink used to print the posters.
You can imagine the impact in a country where each citizen sees himself as an All Black. Rather than just being a slogan, “Impossible is Nothing” is actually a declaration that you’re ready for anything. Like playing vertical football: Slide One CNN journalist called it “Sky soccer”.
“For the soccer World Cup in Germany, Slide the Cologne train station ceiling was painted in the style of a Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, featuring the world’s greatest players. And we also built this huge bridge with Germany’s famous goalkeeper, Oliver Kahn, at the exit of the Munich airport. This gives you an idea of the scale of the installation.
Then, at the last European football cup, we imagined this spectacular representation of the Czech goalkeeper, on the giant wheel in Vienna made famous by Orson Welles. The goalkeeper was able to stop all the shots thanks to his numerous arms.”
“We should not underestimate the importance of ideas like these. They accelerate the penetration of the central idea. More than that – they bring it to life. And they make it bigger. And the bigger the idea, the stronger the brand.”
This is one of the most amazing examples of great brand behavior: The Pepsi Refresh Project. Instead of putting money into a Superbowl ad, the soda company decided to refresh the world, by giving away $20million of the complete year.
Then, at the last European football cup, we imagined this spectacular representation of the Czech goalkeeper, on the giant wheel in Vienna made famous by Orson Welles. The goalkeeper was able to stop all the shots thanks to his numerous arms.”
