Last week I took part in a workshop, focused on finding the proper communication platform for a Danish financial institution. It proved to be much more difficult than I’d imagined. Why? I’ll give you three reasons.

Firstly, they sell a low-involment product. Somehow people dont really care about how their money are managed, as long as it “works”.

Secondly, the underlying mechanics of privat banking, interest rates, payments and retirement savings are perceived as very complex.

Thirdly, the market is very generic. Most players offer largely similar products. That doesn’t make the branding easier.

I bet it’s a quite general problem for banks, accounting firms, investment bankers and insurance company.

Since then, I’ve done some thinking on the subject. Mostly on how to communicate something  which is complex and low-involving in a simple and slightly more involving way. This is when i stumbled upon this video in Neil Perkins blog

(made by the talented people at good.is)

I’m a big fan of this way of communicating a complex thing. Using a short video, showing numbers and words in an animated way, supplied by small icons of tanks, bombs and disabled persons.

Couldn’t this be used to explain complex economic issues? Especially to, lets say, 15-35 year old people, who’re used to this kind of visual style from internet videos? I bet it could. I see stacks of money rising and falling, icons of old and young people flashing over the screen.

//Jakob

On sunday the 31 of August, millions of people will celebrate together by running 10k in 25 cities all over the world. And I bet the product- and brand developers will be celebrating with them. So how come everyone’s running and celebrating? Well, I’ll tell you that in a sec. First of all, Let me tell you about Nike+.

In short, The Nike+ technology is a measures and records the distance and pace of a walk or run. This is done via a small chip, placed in the running shoe, which communicates with either your Ipod Nano or a Nike+ wristband. In this way, you can keep track of your personal records and personal workout statistics.

 But the real stroke of genius lies in the online integration. On the nike+ website, you automatically upload your running route, distance, pace etc. You can challenge other runners or join one of the many teams or clubs. You can set your own goals and follow your and your friends’ development.

 The members of the online Nike+community have run a total of 125 million kilometres and counting. And in six days, Nike+ entusiasts are going to run together all over the world. Why? The answer is quiet simple: The people behind Nike have been able to combine a product relying on groundbreaking technology (the chip/wristband/ ipod) with a fantastic online service. The community creates a common feeling between running ethusiats from all over the world. Thats content if you ask me. And that’s definately active engagement. 

 Me, I’m not a great running ethusiats. Give me a bike and I’ll race you up the alpe d’huez. But running’s not really my style, and I haven’t got the Nike+ gear. But I’ve registered online to see how it works, and on my front page I’m reminded of the sorry facts:

“I’ve completed 0 workouts for a total of 0 kilometres. My avergae pace is 0’0” per km”

This makes me sad, ’cause I’d really like to be a part of this community. It looks like great fun. Running’s never looked so attractive. Think I’ll wish for a pair of Nike+ running shoes for christmas. I’ve seen you can design them yourself. Mine would definately look like this:

//Jakob

Back from my holiday and first thing I stumble upon on adverblog is this recommandation of Coca Cola Zero’s advergame Coke Zero Rooftop Racer. As I eagerly try it out I soon find out that trying to balance a coke zero on the roof of a nascar racer isn’t my idea of fun. But it makes me linger a moment, doing some much needed, back-from-tour-de-france-watching-mode thinking on the branding of diet coke and coca cola zero.

First of all, let’s have a look at the two beverages themselves – how similar are they in the way they are produced and the way they taste? Diet Coke is sweetened with the artificial sweetener Aspartame, while Coke Zero is sweetened with a mix of Apartame and Acesulfame Potassium. So both are free of sugar and calories. What else is new? Well, to me and many others they taste similar, but the official statement is that Diet Coke is based on a genuinly new syrup formula, while the Zero is based on the original Coca Cola formula. But no big difference here, either.

 So how come women tend to prefer diet coke, while men prefer coca cola zero? It’s quite simple, just open your eyes and look at the different branding of two similar, sugarfree coca cola products.

 When you compare the commercials and ads, what immediately gets obvious is the hughe emphasis on gender and the idea of a specific masculine and a specific feminine way of living and thinking. The masculine Zero was launched with the “A Taste Of Life As It Should Be” tv ad-series.They all center on a young male main character, who experiences meeting his ex-girlfriend with her new boyfriend or breaking up with a girlfriend “as it should be”, involving half-naked dancing, horny women, big motorbikes, choppers and lots of explosions. 

Diet Coke, on the other hand, target women with their Light It Up tv ad. Our female main character is out rollerskating, drinking diet coke on a sunny day to a groovy, happy soundtrack. She’s having lots of fun with her primarily female friends, focusing on the social aspect of living.  

The two products’ homepages only underline this masculine vs. feminine branding. While Zero’s homepage is held in dark colors and features the above-mentioned racer game and news and clips on Nascar, Diet Coke’s homepage is held in silver and white colors, while clearly showing Diet Cokes partnership with The Heart Truth, a natinoal U.S. awareness campaign for women on heart disease.  

 Well, obviously none of the above is rocket science. Not at all. But I still find it noteworty that we consumers buy these classical masculine vs. feminine values through preferring either the masculine Zero of the feminine Diet Coke. Once again, branding and the theory of symbolic surplus value show their effective teeth.

I’m looking forward to see if we consumers buy the same concept, if danish dairy product giant Arla launch both a masculine and a feminine low-fat milk. Yummie!

Good to be back // Jakob 

This was again one of my favourite seminars. They have cool shit going on. They presented 3 cases that they were and had been working on lately. NIKEiD – Nike’s custom shop on the Net and in their NikeTowns. Nothing new but very cool and excellently executed – a service that not only sells high priced sneakers, but also creates WOM, goodwill, etc. I actually heard that they were also doing a photo version og ID, where you upload a picture and have that put on the shoe. Next was Baller’s Network – basically a game scheduler for people who play basketball. In here you can find out where the games are, you can challenge friends, find out who’s the best and the worst. Many of the same functions as Nike+, a bit more niche, but very cool. They integrated an application for FaceBook, so that you can have challenges and challenge directly on your profile. Again everyone talks about it but Nike just does it – no pun intended. Other cool stuff – The Human Race is a happening where they hope to get 1 million runners out to run 10k’s on August 31. 2008. Stefan Olander, Global Comms Director for Nike, announced it almost as 9/11. Very American…for a Swede that is. Every one who docks their Nike+ are a part of it. But they will do Run London’ish stuff in something like 10 cities. Basically this is a Nike+ event. Finally, of smaller stuff, they presented an other cool little application called My Nike+ Mini, which is a little avatar for your FaceBook profile, which reacts according to your runs and activity – so it links up with Nike+ and does fun stuff. The basic concept of Nike revolves around 3 pillars – Customization, mobility and personal data. They create stuff that drives use of product and creates loyalty and WOM. Yes indeed.

/Baek

Hey all, new blogger here on digitalvinyl coming up! 

For 25 years ABSOLUT Vodka have been building their marketing campaigns around different appearences of its distinctive bottle. Now,  ABSOLUT is changing focus from the product –the actual bottle of vodka- to the optimistic visions and ideas of the product’s target group.

“In an absolut world” is the catchphrase of the new campaign, which will break in the U.S. in the middle of May.  “The new campaign visually answers the question: what if everything in the world was a little bit more ABSOLUT? It’s not necessarily about perfection, but about making the world better by seeing it with fresh eyes. As the story unfolds you can expect commentary on topics and ideas big and small, serious and humorous, timeless and of the moment” said Rob Smiley, Creative Director at TBWA/Chiat/Day/New York.

Personally, I like the idea of ABSOLUT adressing some important and heavyli opinionated topics like gender, the thrustworthyness of politicians and art vs. ads in public space.

ABSOLUT’s pre-campaign spot presents a massive pillow-fight between angry protesters and police as an alternative way to resolve conflicts.

Still, ABSOLUT have learned that it’s not always a free ride and a walk in the park to portray people’s idea of absolut world.

In a Mexican ad, ABSOLUT portrayed many southwesterns U.S. states as a part of Mexico. This reflects the visions of many Mexicans, since it’s actually a historical reconstruction of the borders before the american-mexican war 1946-48. 

 As a response to the massive American boycott of it’s products,  ABSOLUT has withdrawn the ad and given this statement: “We are truly sorry and understand that the ad has offended several persons. This was not our intention. The ad has been withdrawn as of Friday April 4th and will not be used in the future.” http://absolut.com/iaaw/blog

Well, it seems like Absolut has a lot of visions and good intentions. At least as long as the visions don’t stop consumers from buying their products. Wonder if there’s a Mexican ad-director who is looking for a new job right now.

// Jakob

The Danish fashion designer Mads Nørgaard’s done a trilogy called the Copenhagen Experience replacing the traditional runway shows during fashion week with short fashion films taking place on the streets and in cool spots in the city of Copenhagen.

The third is yet to be shot but the others display Danish supermodel Freja Beha hanging out in the streets with her good-looking fashionista crowd and going to cool sub-parties in Kødbyen (the Meatpacking District). The legendary Copenhagen punkband Sods’ song “Copenhagen” goes along with the films in different versions with my favorite DJ Djuna Barnes and Anders Trentemøller mixing the recordings.

It’s a new and refreshing take on presenting a collection while capturing the crowd of the usual suspects on the fashion/party/clubkids scene – really, the stuff and people that create the energy in Copenhagen.

/ iben

The few good men out there, frequently listening to the Digital Vinyl gospel has probably noticed the serials of ‘Dove-vertising’ admiration. The story continues here, but as in any good drama, the storyline now takes a dramatic turn. And I must admit a  somewhat predicitable add-on to the Dove sequal…

Dove’s viral video attack on beauty advertising has produced a strong criticism against Unilever from e.g. activists and bloggers who see it as hypocritical coming from the same company that markets Axe. Why can Unilever, also being the marketeer of Axe, question and attack the ad values of beauty industry ? When you unleash an viral film like “Onslaught” on YouTube, you’re looking for trouble. This viral film illustrates the dilemma in a very direct and understandable way. 

It is definitly a dilemma, and a relevant perspective in a corporate brand point of view. Even if only one in 100 people may know that Unilever owns both brands, the web 2.0 is empowering the word of mouth. The crowd is anticipating the next steps of Dove/Unilever. 

If your’e interested in reading more aspects of the story, Adage did a great piece on this.

 //Annette

I just thought I’d invite you all to attend the second version of Act Out Awards, which will take place on thursday, November 28, 2007. in Hal D in Copenhagen. In short ACT OUT AWARDS is the result of the following discouse:

The Challenge: The technical schools in Denmark have a bad image within the target group (15-17yrs). It‘s an uncool place with old-fashioned courses. The schools offer much more but it is hard to get the message through to these ad-resistant youngsters. We concluded that we had to change the schools from withing. We had to works on the identity before we could get startet on the image.

The Solution: Creation of ACT OUT AWARDS – a competition that allows for technical creativeness while showcasing the schools’ offers. Using youngsters’ media: website (www.skabdig.dk), user-generated content, viral campaign, MSN Messenger TAB and PR activities.

The Results for ACT OUT AWARDS I: 52 teams competed. 100,000 website users. 600 students/ potential students attending the Awards Show ceremony. The value of additional press coverage amounted to 65% of the total campaign budget.

Here is a short clip of the Awards show from the first execution. Excellent fun.

In the course of the first round of ACT OUT campaign, we actually had someone make a tribute fan video for the compaign. This has never happened to me before, so I’ll share that with you also. If you don’t have a fan video yet…I highly recommend it. It works wonders for your ego. That really shows the power of User Generated communication.

Finally I’ll share one of the clips we made and seeded for viral distribution. Not conventional sex and violence, but all about technical creativity and how women can now pee standing up. Our final bastion has fallen…speaking as a man.

Read more about the ACT OUT campaign on www.skabdig.dk. Hope you all enjoy and hope to see you in Hal D on November 28.

/Baek 

As a twin or tag-on to the fantastic Run London (and Paris, Berlin, New York, etc.) Nike+ has created a new engaging piece of communication or activity. The event is called Nike+ Supersonic. And people competed in 100m and 1k sprints. Finalists won a set of Nike+ trainers and an iPod nano. So simple and yet so effective and cool. They molded the entire campaign around the same idea. The commercial, the myspace subsite (http://www.myspace.com/NikeSupersonic), the event, the after party. And with the products center stage.

Great job… Here is a link to Wieden + Kennedy’s experience with it.

 http://wklondon.typepad.com/welcome_to_optimism/2007/11/nike-supersonic.html#trackback

 /Baek

I must admit. I have a huge respect for what DOVE has achieved during the last couple of years. Now Dove has launched The Reality Diaries online. A true engaging idea!
In a more teen-focused way than the usual, thought provoking pieces Dove does, the diaries log the lives of four 15-17 year old girls and their thoughts on boys, beauty and body image.

The site hosts videos showing interviews with the four girls, answering questions such as ‘so, you don’t have a great relationship with your mother’ and so on.

The site has (not surprisingly) already been met with some sceptism. According to Contagious Magazine, the all-female creative and strategic think tank 3iYing, commented: ‘When we stripped away the amazing music and cool video effects of these films and got down to the real message, we realized there’s a contradiction here. Dove claims it’s helping girls to build self-esteem. Instead, it often feels like they’re encouraging people to pass judgment on girls. The anti-beauty-industry tack doesn’t fly for a generation that uses Photoshop to clean up their Facebook images and is used to seeing paparazzi images of celebrities on bad days.’

Well, judge for yourself. No matter what I applaud the ongoing dynamics these guys add to the concept, and I think that this case illustrates that it is important that you move on with caution – especially if you are a beauty gigant trying going upstream.

/Flinck