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This is the perfect opportunity to share the most read stories celebrating Media Arts and Disruption. Enjoy and pass them on:

(1) The audience is always right. (by Michael Zorn)

(2) Some brands don‘t like change. Change doesn’t much care. (by Michael Zorn)

(3) Cannes Lions 2009: Who will be the big winners? (by Rob Schwartz)

(4) Disruption is liberation. (by Sven H. Becker)

(5) Let‘s do things we think we cannot do. (by John Hunt)

(6) Change: What business can learn from politics 2.0. (by Frank Striefler)

(7) The age of media arts. (by Lee Clow)

(8) The Zimbabwean Trillion Dollar Campaign. (by Gavin Heron)

(9) Act like lovers do. (by Stefan Schmidt)

(10) adidas Originals: Connection with the original tribe. (by Moritz Kiechle)

(11) Images travel but disruptive ideas thrive. (by Perry Valkenburg)

(12)  The beauty of big. (by Jean-Marie Dru)

If you have any comments please email Ulrich Proeschel.

Dr. Sven H. Becker, CEO of TBWA Germany on why disruption is about so much more than advertising.

What is your personal view of disruption?

Many people outside the agency associate disruption purely with advertising, which is a very one-dimensional way of looking at it. Of course we produce disruptive advertising at TBWA, but that is only one facet of what we do. Disruption is a much broader philosophy that has far bigger implications for brands and their behaviour, not all of which is visible from the outside.

Do you still think of yourself as working in advertising?

I don’t even think I work at an advertising agency! That’s what we were about 25 years ago. Today our job is to help companies take their brands in exciting new directions.

Can you give me some examples?

The classic example is Pedigree, which we transformed from a brand that made dog food into a brand that loves dogs. That insight produced some great creative work – but more importantly it changed the behaviour of the entire company: employees were given permission to bring their dogs into work, and so on. More recently, our work with Nivea has enabled the company to look beyond traditional concepts of beauty. Most beauty brands have a very superficial, external view of beauty. But Nivea presents beauty as a state of mind. Not to forget that both companies outperform their category.

It must be quite a challenge, meeting a company and saying: “We’re going to change the way you think.”

Well, of course we work in partnership with them. We don’t just come up with an idea and force it on them. Disruption is a step-by-step process. We work together to unlock the ideas that were lying dormant within their brands. Disruption is about identifying the self-imposed restrictions that can stifle creativity. We call these restrictions “conventions“. The “disruptive idea“ is one that overturns these conventions and allows a company to adopt a unique standpoint, which we call the “vision“. From that, they discover a new truth about their brand, referred to as the “brand belief“. This is a fundamental statement about the brief and should guide all aspects of communication all “brand behavior“.

Clients find this process liberating – it’s as if they’ve discovered something that they were instinctively aware of all along, but were unable to formulate and put into action. We free those ideas and then polish and shape them.

Not all clients are comfortable with the idea of change.

True, and I would never say that disruption is for everyone. A client that wants to carry on doing the same thing year after year without testing new possibilities – and the increased success that those might bring – is probably not the client for us.

The same goes for clients who don’t want to look beyond conventional advertising?

Classic media – TV, print and radio – still have their place, but they are playing a reduced role within the bigger picture. Audiences now receive messages from many different places, so part of our job is to steer clients towards solutions that they might never have considered before. We refer to as Media Arts.

TBWA still makes traditional ads, though?

Traditional advertising is only one of many Media Arts skills. In the past, advertising was all about interrupting or begging for the audience’s attention. But that’s not what we do at all. Our job is to engage audiences in new and unexpected ways, through a wide variety of media. Actually we consider everything between brand and its audience media, just remember what we did for Labello during the New Years Celebrations earlier this year at Times Square New York and the Berlin Brandburg Gate and how we turned the these parties into the celebrations of kissing.

It’s almost as though you’re saying that brands must be more respectful of audiences.

I feel there’s a new seriousness within the industry. Today’s communications professionals should not be interested in artificial, short-term solutions. They should solve problems for clients in a durable way. That’s why we use disruption to form the brand belief and media arts to change brand behaviour rather than just to inspire witty ads. The end result is ultimately more sophisticated and, inevitably, a richer and more rewarding experience for consumers.

You come from a planning background. What difference does that make now you’re running an agency?

I can’t speak for others, but I believe my job is to take clients degree by degree out of their comfort zone. And as a planner rather than an account man I may find it easier to do that. I’m less concerned with diplomacy. I don’t mind pushing clients towards a path that they might resist a little at first when it’s in the interest of the brand.

And what about the agency employees?

Well, my goal is simply to hold everyone at the agency to account and ensure that we apply the philosophy of disruption to everything we do. That’s not a constraint. Disruption is not a series of rules, but a way of looking at the world differently. Once you accept that, it’s very liberating: anything becomes possible. Disruption gives everybody the chance to make a contribution to our client’s success.

If you have any comments or suggestions please email Dr. Sven H. Becker.

Over the years, the Eurostar high-speed train has become the Belgians’ favorite means of transport from Brussels to London. And now, because of the low British pound, London has suddenly become a shopping paradise for Belgians. That’s why TBWA\Brussels came up with a “customized” game of Monopoly.

Remember that great feeling of having the cash and the power to buy even the most expensive shopping streets? This idea was made interactive by turning it into a nationwide game via SMS and billboards. Every single poster had a unique code, and people could buy a poster with virtual money via SMS. As in Monopoly, owners won money when others tried to buy their street. The player who earned the largest amount of money after one week, won. Scores could be followed online. Radio was used to announce the game. The press loved it and sales went through the roof. Why interrupt your audience when you can play with them?

Download your What if.

If you have any comments or suggestions please email Kris Govaerts from TBWA\Brussels.

[Show as slideshow]

Some of the big names in sport have paid tribute to Roger Federer: Tiger Woods, Pete Sampras, Michael Jordan, Serena Williams and John McEnroe all appear on the film titled Love Fifteen, celebrating Federer’s 15 Grand Slam singles titles. To see the stars paying tribute to Roger Federer in the Nike TV ad, click below.

The Swiss ace passed Pete Sampras’s 14 titles from 1990-2002 after beating Andy Roddick in an epic men’s final at Wimbledon, 5-7, 7-6, 7-6, 3-6, 16-14 last sunday.

If you have any comments please email Ulrich Proeschel.

The jury has spoken. The winners of the giant madoholic-t-shirt-swap are: Lennart from Copenhagen, Vesna from Berlin and Trygve from Oslo. Three great shirts. Three great ideas.

Lennart is swapping his beloved Motörhead shirt and the jury has acknowledged that with this, he is giving up a true passion, something that has been with him for a long time. Vesna’s shirt is one of many media arts examples rooted in “Condensed Intensity”, the big disruptive idea that formed the basis of one of the most interesting automotive campaigns developed in the last years. Finally, Trygve from Oslo is handing over his Nissan Haikeren shirt. The idea of the Haikeren campaign is excellent: a Norwegian radio reporter is travelling the roads of Norway in a Nissan Qashqai and breaking the conventions of other hitchhikers, she is not looking for a lift but rather recruiting drivers to join her.

Congratulations to all winners of the giant madoholic-t-shirt-swap.

If you have any comments please email Ulrich Proeschel.

Whatever our nationality, most of us think of ourselves as people with normal tastes and habits. However, when viewed through the prism of another culture, we are often subject to stereotyping. As the annual vacation season approaches, these stereotypes are likely to emerge once again.

To take some well-known examples: Americans are loud and uncultured; Italians don’t queue; the British queue all the time; the Germans take all the sun loungers and the Japanese take photos of everything. These stereotypes are a way of defining one group of people against another.

Do nations feel more united by establishing that others act differently? Is this human nature? Do we define who we are by what we are not? We can see this at international sporting events, where clear divisions of “us and them” are set in place and reinforced by team colours, symbols and flags. These not only help us to identify our own nation, but also our ‘rivals’.

To me, this suggests that a state of being can only clearly be understood when it is contrasted with something else. Advertising has occasionally used this premise.

Take for example Apple’s “I’m a PC” campaign. The ads have run since 2006 and follow the two characters – PC and Mac in human form – as each discusses the merits or failings of the other. PC is unfashionable, traditional and self-effacing, while Mac is clued up, casual and cool. Some examples are linked here.

The flipside of stereotyping, of course, is that the victims feel judged or misrepresented by the other party, and so they draw together in defence. Often they strike back with a response that aims to correct the wrong impression. Values or characteristics that kick against conventions are also interesting to advertisers.

Take for example Windows’ response to the Mac ads. The “I’m a PC” campaign sought to establish a new image for the product by selecting traits that define a PC – stating with “I’m a PC and I’ve been made into a stereotype”. The strategy met a lukewarm response and was soon dropped.

Was the campaign less successful due to a lack of direct comparison? While the ads confront an external rival, they do not have the same dynamic. There is praise for the PC, but no ‘live’ conversation with the Mac – and so the tension is lost. The Apple ads generate debate, conflict, and division, while inviting the viewer to join in.

Read more…

With less than a week to go before the first Lions get announced, Rob Schwartz shares his predictions from the US contenders. Look out for his predictions appearing in the next issue of Shots magazine too.

According to the request, I am to limit my response to US contenders only. And I am limited to only two picks from my own agency. I will simply break a rule and say that I believe TBWA\Neboko, one of our sister offices in the Netherlands, has an outstanding chance of winning the film Grand Prix with their brilliant “Walk-In Fridge” idea they did for Heineken. That said, here are some excellent American contenders:

(1) I love Goodby Silverstein’s “Sprint Widget” for Cyber. I think it really demonstrates the brand idea of the “power of now.” It’s mesmerizing to watch, well-written and beautifully crafted. If you don’t know it, down load it and enjoy.

(2) Droga5’s “The Great Schlep” is an exceptional piece of comedy, pop culture and political persuasiveness. The Sarah Silverman film alone is wonderful and can win on its own. I think the double-whammy will come for the nice integrated package of the entire idea. Plus you can’t argue with the results.

(3) BBH’s “Dig Your Soul In The Streets” is an exceptional example of “I wish I’d done that.” The disruptive twist of launching in the streets first instead of the airwaves and then making a documentary of a great band…well, that’s just flat-out cool.

(4) Anomaly’s “Connectivity” for Converse is just a damn fine piece of outdoor. Great idea, well done.

(5) I can’t ignore Crispin’s “Whopper Sacrifice.” I love how this idea was a total reflection of Facebook behavior. And it was really funny. A new idea in a new medium. Nice.

So there you have it. My five American contendors. Good luck, everyone.

~Rob

Rob Schwartz is the Chief Creative Officer of TBWA\CHIAT\DAY in Los Angeles. If you have any comments or suggestions please email Rob Schwartz.

Paris-based author and mad-blog.com contributor Mark Tungate falls for the perfect shopping mall on a trip to Tokyo.

It’s not every day that you fall in love with a shopping mall. They are functional places at best – full of distractions, but often soulless. That’s why your correspondent was surprised to discover that he’d spent the best part of a day at the Tokyo Midtown shopping complex.

Opened a couple of years ago, the mall has evolved into a combination of meeting place, lifestyle hub and, of course, upmarket shopping emporium. Built in soft and alluring wood tones, with screens and bamboo plants that refer to traditional Japanese architecture, Midtown is anything but traditional. The selection of stores is discreetly luxurious, from Chloé to the Puma Black store (dig those Alexander McQueen sneakers). I also loved the scrumptious stationery of Itoya Topdrawer. In the food hall there is something for every pocket, from takeaway noodles to the fusion cooking at Hal Yamashita’s suave lunch spot.

But none of these are what makes Midtown so special. It bills itself as a “lifestyle museum”, because alongside shopping it embraces art, culture and savoir faire. In the food section, you can take a cooking class. On the interior design floor, you can visit the Suntory Art Gallery or the Design Hub. Artworks by Ken Yasuda dot the environment. And you can also drop in to the 21:21 Design Sight, founded by the fashion designer Issey Miyake and created by architect Tadao Ando. The current exhibition, Bones, reveals the “skeletons” of everyday objects, as if archaeologists had unearthed, for example, the frame of a car.

In Paris, where this reporter is based, we think we know a thing or two about luxury. But the Japanese have discovered the educational, inspiring, guilt-free luxury of the future.

Tokyo Midtown is located near Roppongi Station on the Tokyo Metro Hibiya Line. Click for more information: Tokyo Midtown.

TBWA\EUROPE has put together a worldwide overview on Disruptions in retail, to learn more about the recent publication please email Caroline McGinn.

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions please email Mark Tungate.