You may be surprised how creative you are. That’s the message that comes across from vodka brand Absolut’s new presence on Facebook, created for German-speaking consumers by TBWA\Berlin. Simply put, the Absolut Best of Me platform allows users to transform their existing Facebook content into a virtual gallery, showcasing their favourite posts, pictures and films.

Creative director Dirk Henkelmann says: “Very active Facebook users put a lot of information on the site, most of which is gradually forgotten. Absolut Best of Me enables them to resurrect it, curate it and display it as an exhibition. When you look back at all your posts and photographs, you’ll be amazed by your own creativity.”

The nascence of the site dates back to November, when TBWA and Absolut were discussing the brand’s potential on Facebook. Says Dirk: “We didn’t want to do just another fan page. When you have a brand like Absolut, whose brand behaviour is driven and inspired by creativity, you’re obliged to do something special. So we decided to give consumers a stage on which they could express themselves.”

Absolut’s consumers are often trend leaders who are likely to enjoy sharing their thoughts and inspiration in an unconventional way. Thanks to Absolut Best of Me they can transform their Facebook activity into an artistic journey that they can post to their wall and share with friends.

The platform is a flash microsite linked to Facebook via Facebook Connect. Once users have selected the material they want to use in their exhibition – and they can tweak and curate for as long as they wish – the selected posts and images are automatically transferred into the Absolut gallery landscape. The resulting animation resembles a virtual stroll through a gallery.

Account manager Alexis Mardon says: “It took us some time to develop the platform not only because of the technical aspects, but because we wanted to find a way of reassuring users that their ‘artworks’ would not be used in any other context outside the platform.”

Congratulations to Absolut for this example of brand behavior which is not a customer relations management campaign disrespecting the privacy of the participants: it’s a gift from Absolut to its fans, enabling them to show off their creativity. Well done.

How did the book come about?

To a certain extent it was provoked by nostalgia. Fifteen years ago, when we founded Fast Company, we organized a meeting based around the premise “How do you overthrow successful companies?” The participants weren’t young dotcoms, but companies that were already large and successful, and wanted to consider ways of engaging with the exciting new landscape that was emerging around them. It struck me that you could organize the same meeting today and ask exactly the same question. The book is an attempt to answer it.

What for you then is the key to success? Is it enough to be disruptive?

It’s no longer enough to be pretty good at a lot of things. You goal should be excellence in a chosen field. The most local, the most global, the most exclusive…the point is to stand for something. Too many leaders want to stay in the middle of the road, which is the road to nowhere.

Thanks to the digital revolution, we live in an age of transparency. Do you find that the most disruptive companies are also the most authentic?

It’s certainly true that you can’t behave one way in the marketplace and another way internally. Your brand must be a reflection of your culture. In that context, your hiring policy and the way you treat your employees becomes vitally important. I’d even say that the “power couple” in this new environment are the marketers and human resources department, because your talent strategy and your brand strategy must be in synch.

Can you give a concrete example of this?

One of my favourite brands in the US is Zappos.com. In just ten years it has become an iconic brand, by doing something is banal as selling shoes on line. The way it uses customer service, performance and theatricality to make technology more human is outstanding. A lot of this is based on its hiring strategy. When you join the company, you embark on a five week training period. Then they offer you 5000 dollars to quit. It’s a way of acknowledging that the company isn’t for everyone, while ensuring that only those who are truly committed to the brand stay on. That’s just one of the reasons why it’s become a passion brand of the highest order. The staff believes in it as well as the customers.

Is being “practically radical” – or “disruptive” as TBWA would call it – essentially about taking risks?

During my research, I unearthed an academic study that identified two different forms of risk-taking. The first might be termed “sinking the boat”: taking a risk that didn’t work. But the second is “missing the boat”: failing to take a risk that might have worked. Too many leaders fail to innovate because they’re afraid of sinking the boat.

In advertising, there’s sometimes a feeling that originality requires big budgets. How do you feel about that?

If you look at any truly creative organization, it’s not about how deep their pockets are, but how original their ideas are. Once again, that stems from their people. And by the way, these people don’t have to work FOR you. It’s enough that they work WITH you. You need to find people who excel in their field and get them involved. It’s the team that counts – I’m a firm believer that you’re never as smart alone as you are together.

Having said that, there is an element of self-help to your book. Can individuals apply your ideas to themselves?

Absolutely. In the last third of the book I talk about how to become a high-impact individual in your field. Just like brands, we should all consider what we stand for and what legacy we want to leave.

TBWA is famous for its work with brands such as Apple and Pedigree. How do they fit in with the theme of your book?

For me, the key to Apple is that it decided that it was not going to be a company that introduced new electronic devices, but one that reshaped what was possible. It doesn’t allow what is currently known about technology to limit its imagination. Instead, it imagines the impossible and then endeavours to make it happen. It’s the ultimate example of starting with a blank sheet of paper.

Pedigree is a completely different example in that it’s a company with a long history. The temptation in this case is to disavow your past in order to carve out a new future. Instead, Pedigree rediscovered and reinterpreted its heritage. The company was started by people who genuinely loved dogs, but somehow over the years that message had gotten watered down.  All large but somewhat stodgy companies were based on an original innovative idea. Sometimes you need to go back to that idea in order to reinvigorate your business. Never be afraid to seek inspiration in your past.

Practically Radical: Not-So-Crazy Ways to Transform Your Company, Shake Up Your Industry and Challenge Yourself, is published by William Morrow & Company.

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

“Most brands use Facebook pages tell users about new flavours, new colours or whatever, but we wanted to be different,” says TBWA Berlin digital creative director Frederik Frede.

An element called RSVP allows users to register with the brand. For Absolut, the benefit is obvious: a database containing  the e-mail addresses of the brand’s greatest fans. But the fans get something valuable in return: first notice of Absolut-related events and occasions, from special downloads to concert tickets.

Another element, Featured Freitag (or ‘Featured Friday’) is a blog packed full of stories and video about fashion, design, music and creativity. On any given Friday you might find soccer-playing robots, an amazing playlist, or sneak peaks of a forthcoming movie about the digital revolution.

“There are over 15 million people on Facebook in Germany, so that was a massive argument for creating the page,” says Dirk Henkelmann, creative director at TBWA Berlin. “We agreed with Absolut that it had to be more than just advertising. If you’re going have a conversation, you need to have something interesting to give.”

For the Featured Friday content, TBWA is working with Absolut’s PR agency, K-MB. Similarly, Absolut’s Facebook community is being coordinated by i365, a joint venture between TBWA and social media specialists buw Group. “An rewarding and enriching collaboration,” says Dirk.

The Facebook format presented certain design challenges – so the team decided to concentrate on benefits rather than beauty. “Wait until you see what’s coming next on the page,” advises Frederik. “I can’t tell you about it yet – but it’s going to be awesome.”

In the weeks leading up to his arrival, TBWA\London seeded content and cryptic messages throughout the web, hinting where Messi will be. The first stop was Hackney Marshes where local teams were in the midst of a game. The second was Brick Lane in East London where they held an on-street “kit amnesty.” Here fans were able to trade in their old boots for new F50 adizeros whilst shaking hands with Messi.

Thousands took photos and video and shared it throughout the web. 368,000 tweets, 3.5 million new adidas Facebook fans and 41% of the entire UK saw it. More proof that a unique idea can earn more media than a pre-planned schedule could ever buy.

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

As TBWA’s Worldwide Director of Media Arts Lee Clow observed in a recent interview: ”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.”

Some of the world’s most inspiring brands have proved that delivering content and becoming part of peoples’ lives is not only possible, it also drives success. This is because they do not distract audiences from the content they love. Instead, they create original ideas that people want to experience.

Check out how Gatorade and TBWA\Chiat Day LA initiated the Replay idea. Or how Absolut Vodka became part of the plot of “Sex and the City” by introducing the Absolut Hunk.

One of the latest examples of disrupting the rules of product placement comes from Germany, where McCafé has launched its newly developed brand idea as a key storyline within the German telenovela “Anna & die Liebe” (“Anna and Love”). Skillfully utilizing both digital and physical media, the campaign was developed by TBWA in Berlin.

Instead of interrupting the audience with commercial breaks, McCafé’s brand belief “Alles Gute beginnt mit einem guten Kaffee” (Everything good begins with a good cup of coffee) is brought to life in a popular TV show featuring fictional Berlin advertising agency Broda&Broda.

McCafé does not appear in the show through conventional product placement – but via campaign placement. Broda & Broda develops the campaign “Everything good starts with a good cup of coffee” while pitching for the McCafé account. Over several episodes, the audience sees how the claim was conceived, how the “first kiss” moment was shot and, finally, how Broda&Broda wins the pitch.

Many other aspects of the campaign will take place simultaneously, giving the audience a chance to interact with the brand both digitally and physically. For example, on the “Anna & die Liebe” site, fans are redirected through banners (in the form of recruitment ads for a new creative director post at Broda&Broda) to the McCafé Facebook fan site. Here, they are invited to upload their very own stories of good beginnings. And to reinforce the brand experience for the audience, the first real poster in the campaign will actually be seen in Berlin four days later, blurring the borders between virtual and real, fictional and actual.

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

The campaign has been made possible with a location-based service developed by TBWAʻs Digital Arts team in Berlin. The web-service unloqable® makes content available only to users who prove their location via a smartphone or a location-based service like Facebook or Foursquare.

McCafé is the the first brand to use unloqable® as part of its marketing activities. Starting today, all McCafé guests checking with Facebook places in one of over 700 McCafés in Germany will be rewarded with free downloadable digital gifts like animations, films or music.

Unloqable® is a web-service that offers location-based accessibility of digital content (music, pics, coupons, codes, etc). The objective is to make this content available only to users who can prove their location via a smart phone or a location-based service like Facebook Places or Foursquare.

Digital content is stored on the Unloqable® server with a web based management tool. The management tool is the heart of Unloqable®: it offers the possibility to set up campaigns, to edit existing campaigns or to evaluate campaigns from a statistical point of view.

In addition to simply setting up a campaign using the combination of a digital content with a geo-data, there is also the possibility to constrain the campaign time or quota basis. For example, some content can be rendered “Exclusive” and accessible only for a specific number of times before expiring.

Users are notified about the existence of a campaign either actively – in nearly real-time by so-called “Checkins” – or passively via e-mail, fan-pages or ads.

The notification contains a link to digital content that has to be unlocked through one of the above-mentioned mechanisms.

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.

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.

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.”

“At TBWA, we no longer talk about PR, advertising, or any other standalone form of communication.

We believe in a thing called brand behavior. Brands must understand that with the revolution that’s happening in media right now, particularly in the use of social media, they have to be 100% coherent in the way they speak to consumers.

This applies for everything a brand does – no exception.

The problem: it’s very difficult to behave consistently if you’re not sure what you believe in.

You need a big idea – a belief – to deliver against. Brands that do not believe in something will not be successful. And the people who work on their behalf will not be able to produce successful messages.

To me, PR ideas that deliver only the conventional wisdom and do not reflect a deeply held brand belief are not interesting – even if the results are there. The Golden Drum festival exists to celebrate creativity, not conventional solutions.

I am looking for PR campaigns that have a clear brand belief behind them.

I also think that the definition of PR has to be clarified. PR is about earned media, not bought media. I want to see how brands and their PR companies entertain and surprise, convince journalists to share a message, without spending a penny on media. PR must create value.

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