Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Happy New Year!

I wish you all a great New Year. Thank you all for visiting Directdaily. Cheers!

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Burger King "Whopper Virgins"

Burger King and Crispin Porter + Bogusky have commissioned Stacy Peralta, director of Made in America, to document Whopper Virgins, people who taste Burger King Whoppers for the very first time. The documentary, will show people without American bias taste testing the Whopper alongside the McDonald’s Big Mac. Burger King travels in 13 planes, 2 dog sleds and 1 helicopter over 20,000 miles to find people who have never heard of the WHOPPER and perform the world’s purest taste test. Locations visited include a remote hill village in north Thailand, a rural farming community in Romania and icy tundra of Greenland.

Watch the video here:
Whopper Virgins

Agency: Crispin Porter + Bogusky, USA.

VEA eDay "Confessions at the toilet"

During eDay 2008 online sinners had the opportunity to confess their interactive failures to the high priests of online comunication. Advertisers and communication professionals asked them anonymously about their web based doubts. The word of relief by the high priests did have a healing salvation for the participants. They developed a striking guerrilla poster. Even at the toilet the target group was driven to the "fathers of online communication".

Agency: L'eau Amstelveen, The Netherlands.

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Weeds "Selling drugs for ratings"

Weeds is a show about a single mum who starts selling pot to make ends meet. It was being shown on Prime, a relatively new channel on New Zealand television. So they needed to get Prime to start challenging the other, more mainstream channels. To promote Weeds, they dressed a real home up as a drug house, complete with a hydroponics room and drug paraphernalia. Then they put it on the market. It was promoted how you would with any house on the market ­ with a full-page ad in the Property Press, a prominent weekly real estate newspaper. The copy was written as a send-up of real estate clichés, and invited interested parties to turn up. When they arrived, a fake real estate agent gave them the full tour. And when the bemused folks left the house, they were given a business card with details about the show. After thumbing their noses at the law, the Open Home, as well as getting one of the highest response rates ever in the area, gained coverage in the New Zealand Herald (New Zealand's largest daily newspaper). It turned Weeds into one of the highest-rating shows on Prime ­ viewership was up 600% over the previous week ­ and helped turn the channel into a main contender.

Agency: DraftFCB Auckland, New Zealand.

The day we bombed Wellington.

An international conference was being held in Wellington, New Zealand's capital, to ratify a treaty that would ban cluster bombs. They had to get New Zealanders to oppose a weapon they had never heard of. They flew above Wellington and performed the most literal mail drop ever, letting loose 30,000 bomb-shaped leaflets out of a plane. The leaflets were also petitions addressed to the New Zealand Minister of Defence. People signed the leaflets and sent them in to show their support. 34% of the leaflets were signed and sent in. The event gained coverage on 3 News, New Zealand's most-watched news programme, and the Dominion Post, the capital's leading daily newspaper. But most importantly, the treaty was signed. After being ratified in New Zealand, the delegates took the treaty to Dublin, then Oslo. And the campaign went with them. There is now a worldwide ban on the manufacture and use of cluster bombs.

Agency: DraftFCB Auckland, New Zealand.

BMW seeks opinionated porsche drivers.

With the luxury car market facing declining sales, it has become more important than ever to attract new buyers rather than just up-selling existing drivers. Unfortunately, BMW's competitors in this price bracket ­ like Porsche ­ tend to have fiercely loyal customers. Previous attempts to contact these conquest prospects had achieved dismal response rates. Subvert the traditional car launch process and ask prospects to review the car ahead of journalists. They sent Porsche drivers a mysterious package containing an mp3 player. There was no branding on the pack - the only clue was the German postmark. The mp3 message (in authentic German accent) spoke to people individually by name and invited them on a top-secret sneak preview test drive. Respondents were chauffeured one by one to a private airport, where they unveiled the new BMW X6 and recorded their comments on camera. They filmed each person with a dashboard camera as they put the X6 through its paces on the runway, and then edited the footage so that each driver had their own personal review on DVD. The most satisfying result was capturing Porsche drivers on camera raving about BMW. But the results also stacked up from a numbers point of view. A staggering 72% of these completely cold prospects said YES to a test drive. This was the most overwhelming response BMW has ever had in New Zealand. So overwhelming, in fact, that they had to stop mailing when they were only halfway through the list.

Agency: DraftFCB Auckland, New Zealand.

Condomi "Shopping Bags"

Arouse interest for the erotic shop Condomi with as little expenditure as possible. When customers leave an erotic toy shop, they are usually equipped with shoppingbags that are intended to look inconspicuous. Therefore they designed shopping bags that deal with the subject sex openly and playfully, thus deliberately provoking people and attracting great attention. The shopping bags very soon became cultic objects. Condomi customers turned to walking advertisements and attracted interest which produced an influx of many new customers.

Agency: DraftFCB Kobza Vienna, Austria.

Monday, December 22, 2008

KitKat "Bench"

Have a break...

Via

Kenzo "Flower Billboard"

A really nice promotion for Kenzo. They give in the month of December 50.000 flowers away in order to promote there new fragrance FlowerbyKenzo.

Agency: KR Média, France.

Thursday, December 18, 2008

WWF/Adena "The End"

WWF/Adena has spent years making people aware of the implications of climate change and that everything may come to an end if we don't do something to stop it. From the smallest things, to the biggest, the planet. In order to get people to join up over the 2007 Christmas period, they enclosed a WWF/Adena insert in certain book collections in several bookshop around Madrid. The insert looked like just another page in the book. A leaf of the same paper, same weight, same colour, same font... On the page was written "The End", surprising the reader that the book had ended long before the last page. In this way they wanted people to understand that any story, anything, can end before it is supposed to if we do nothing. So, on the other side, they asked them to help stop climate change by joining WWf/Adena. WWF/Adena received a reply from 20% of the enclosed coupons, considerably increasing during the first two weeks the number of mebers and partners.

Agency: Contrapunto Madrid, Spain.

Friday, December 12, 2008

Primus Beer "Responsible Drinking Action"

In order to encourage responsible drinking, they designed an action for Primus Beer using urban elements usually involved in traffic accidents. Light poles and hydrants were covered with disco globe mirrors, icons of nightlife. A poster completed the message: "Don't end your night here. Don't drink and drive".

Agency: Lew'Lara\TBWA São Paulo, Brazil.

OFF! "Blood Bag"

Every year during the monsoon season. Thailand is hit by outbreaks of dengue fever. During this time of the year, the Thai Red Cross usually has its big annual donation campaign. In 2008, SC Johnson (Thailand) co-promotes with the Thai Red Cross Society in its annual blood donation campaign with the emphasis to eradicate the dengue fever. SC Johnson sees a great opportunity at this to encourage trail usage of OFF! in conjunction with the Thai Red Cross campaign through product sampling across the infested regions of Thailand. A product sampling piece was created to dramatically and effectively demonstrate the need to give blood but to the right party! (to those people in need instead of the dengue carrying mosquitoes!) On the blood bag was a bold headline that reads: Give Blood To Those Who Deserve It. Inside the blood bag there is a sampling sachet of OFF! This sampling piece is given out at street corners, handed out at blood donations points, and also mailed to previous blood donors nationwide. Also other medium to reach target audience with posters, ambient and stickers. The results from this co-operation saw around 30% of blood donors were aware and influenced by the OFF sample piece (3.78 out of 5 point-scale, in intention to participate in this activity) Also with this co-promotion, the over-all number of blood donors increased by 20% from the previous year.

Agency: DraftFCB Thailand.

Expedia.com "Cappuccino Promotion"

The Internet-based travel provider expedia.de would like to advertise an Italy special in an attention-grabbing way. They used an unusual advertising space that is also typical of Italy: the milk foam on a cappuccino. In cooperation with coffee shops (Deli Star), stencils are distributed wich are used to create the offer in cocoa on top of the milk foam. Underneath the cup is a paper coaster printed with expedia.de's name and text explaining the offer. As a result of the positive customer feedback, the Italy special will be repeated next year.

Agency: Serviceplan Munich/Hamburg, Germany.

Fiat Linea "Map"

New Linea with Blue&Me Nav. Without it, you're lost.

Agency: Leo Burnett São Paulo, Brazil.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Volkswagen "Mechanic Recruitment"

Volkswagen dealer Martin Schilder, one of the largest car dealerships in the Netherlands, was in serious need of 6 mechanics. Their job was to find them. Regular ads run the previous 6 months had failed to find the mechanics. And there was not much left in the advertising budget. So they sent 2 young women in an old Volkswagen to several car repair stations. They asked if a mechanic could take a look under their car because of a strange sound. Every mechanic immediately put their car on a lift to take a look. There they saw their hidden message: 'Wanted: Mechanics. www.martinschilder.nl'. This whole stunt was filmed by a hidden camera and put on the internet as a viral. With a lot of free publicity as a calculated consequence. The mechanics were very surprised when they saw the hidden message underneath the car and often asked colleagues to also take a look. The viral film was posted on a lot of car related websites and a lot of free publicity was generated, not only in all kinds of car dealer magazines, but also in regional newspapers and even in the largest national newspaper. This publicity was planned and hoped for. By doing so they could reach more mechanics than were actually visited. The 6 mechanics were found!

Agency: Doom & Dickson Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

IKEA "The BESTÅ Cube"

The task was to create a direct mailing for the BESTÅ storage system from IKEA. BESTÅ allows many different cabinet fronts to be combined freely, and the mailing should encourage IKEA Family Members to purchase it. IKEA Family is IKEA’s customer club. They produced a magic cube with a different cabinet front printed on each side to communicate the endless combinations possible with BESTÅ. It came in a box that was designed to look like a living room inside. Each cube was also a voucher for a free delivery service for BESTÅ, providing an extra incentive for the purchase. The direct mailing was a great success - within two months, 42% of all contacted Family members had purchased a BESTÅ storage system and used the free delivery service.

Agency: Jung von Matt Hamburg, Germany.

Schwarzkopf "Back to Black"

They were asked to develop a dialogue marketing promotion which communicated the product benefit of Schwarzkopf Re-Nature, which aroused curiosity about the product and generated as many requests for Re-Nature samples as possible. Re-Nature is a regimentation crème which gradually restores the original natural tone to grey hair. Their mailing focused on this product benefit quite simply by illustrating the result as a progression from light grey to black, beginning the text very timidly and becoming increasingly confident. This enables us not only to highlight the external appearance but also to dramatise the confidence regained thanks to Re-Nature. In particular, the traditional letter itself becomes the whole message, with an entertaining product presentation. The Success: As simple as it is successful. A high response rate was achieved; 9.4% ordered the sample of Re-Nature by e-mail.

Agency: DDB Hamburg, Germany.

Wieden + Kennedy "Christmas Card Making Machine"

The “Christmas Card Making Machine” is an over-sized Christmas card display in the London agency’s front window. The card houses two large screens showing a scrolling chain of 12 characters. When passers-bys stand in the footprints outside the window, the installation captures their image and embeds their face on a character, which then joins the chain. The ever-growing chain can be viewed at www.christmascardmakingmachine.com, where users can also create their own Christmas cards.

Agency: Wieden + Kennedy London, United Kingdom.

CoffeeCompany "WiFi Headlines"

They wanted to attract more students. So it installed WiFi in some of its stores near universities. The problem is, lots of students just come into the store for the WiFi but hardly look at the menu. So They and CoffeeCompany decided to move the store's menu into the WiFi menu of customers' laptops.

Agency: They Amsterdam, The Netherlands.



Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Cars and Boxes "Babes on Cars"

Cars and Boxes, the German toy car specialist, wanted to create awareness for the online store cars and boxes.de and point of sale. The core market is the collectors’ community of adult men who love toy cars and who also love the aesthetics involved in muscle car culture. The toy cars from Cars and Boxes are so authentic that the clichè "women and cars"concept still works. They created a 2006 calendar showing, in 12 different themes, models posing on toy cars. The calendar is part of the campaign which also includes in-store poster and ads. The calendar was sold out in a really short time and increased hits on the Webpage.

Agency: Jung von Matt, Germany.