How to be” the most exciting agency in the world”(The Guardian)

Today What did Bill think is back.Back from London, back from a little downtime, back from the FIB, I mean Back actually.

So yesterday I was watching this ad for Puma from a talented NYC agency and I wanted to write back.

This film (2010) is the last one of a great campaign for Puma, «After Hours Athlete» , which is running since one year and try to be out of box in sport/lifestyle retailer sector like Nike or Adidas.Even if the two giants recently launch two campaigns very lifestyle, stylized with not only sportsman’s but also artists (see few posts below), their communication are still centred around sport values.

Not Puma and not their agency, Droga 5 who wanted to focus on the very common people, us, I mean all of us. We are not superman, Messi or Lebron James, but we compete (or not) friendly in a day to day activities.
The simple night in a crappy place with friends, miss the cab, finish in a turkish kebab, walking back home in the morning exhausted. That’s us. Not some modern heroes.

The first film was typically introducing this insight.It was a finely tuned piece of work.A beautiful film directed by Ringan Ledwidge.

But even if this campaign is very nice and interesting, I want to talk about the agency.

What is this agency which is very young (Start in 2006), Independent (created by David Droga, who serves as its Creative Chairman) and so succesful (Grand prix craf and integrated grand prix at Cannes Lions this year).
Droga5 is widely recognized as one of the leaders of a new wave of 21st century advertising and communication companies, and is the fastest growing independent agency in the United States. The agency is also known for creating award-winning campaigns and social movements for a broad variety of clients (Which is maybe more impressing).

The young team works for various client as Coca Cola, Unicef, Bing, Puma, Microsoft, Unilever…

The big strength of this agency is definitely to create buzz and social movement.

The perfect example is the campaign “Decoded Jay Z”, powered by Bing. A double hit, one for the new artist biography the second one for the Microsoft search engine. The result is tremendous!

Then some campaigns like ”it’s a match day, it’s a valentine day” for Puma (where they film a group of supporters, almost  hool, singing love songs instead football songs) are sometime criticized, but I like the state of mind.so fresh.Remind me England…
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To know more about Droga 5, this is their website:  http://www.droga5.com/

How to be the Nike CEO

We traditionally use to think that a CEO office is suppose to be very serious in the last floor of a large building. Something very big with black and white frames and a smart mini bar.
I was reading Fubiz.net today and I discovered this one of Mark Parker, Nike CEO since 2006.

Indeed, during a work for whitewall Magazine, the photographer Steve Benitsy, took some pictures of the big boss office.
This one is very impressive. Hundred of item collections and rare frames of Andy Wharol.

    Let’s see the pics!

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And at the same time, USA is still in a day-to-day love story with Tornado.Everydays looks like a little bit annoying now.

How Brazil is not only a football legend factory

I’m not especially a big F1 fan, but like everybody I like legend, story, great destiny. If we are not fan of Nirvana music, we still like Curt Cobain, if we don’t like Basketball we can’t forget Michael Jordan.
Anyway, this is the same with Ayrton Senna.This F1 legend who reigned on his sport for 10 years in the 80/90′s will stay in mind forever because he died during a race in Italy during the St-Marin championship the first May of 1994.

So 17 years after, Senna is still know as one of the best pilot of his generation. Not only for the performances (he won less than Prost and Schumacher for instance, by the way the first one was his big rival and also friend/enemy during all their 10 years on field).Yes, not only, because Senna was also a character, very charming but also aggressive in his style. He was a legend in Brazil like Pelé. Considering like an expert in driving, he knew perfectly all part of his car and was every time trying to improve it with his engineers.

That’s why a movie about him arrived in cinema .Rewarded by the Sundance 2011 festival, the fictional documentary about his life making by Asif Kapadia look like a true hero story about a man, a sport, a view, a LEGEND.

The trailer is very good, music, great pictures, action, girl and arguments. Everything is there to attract even people who are not fan of F1 like me.

And in the same time, Pete Doherty could face private prosecution over Party-goer’s death…

How to be famous very soon

Today I gonna make the promotion of one friend project.I mean, it’s more than a project, its a BAND. Actually I won’t just promote a band because my housemate is the guitarist of, but rather to help you guys, to be early adopters and to shine in your next dinner with friends.

 Yes, The Low Suns are a five piece, who blast out soulfully cinematic songs from their hand-made studio in London. But more than that it is a very ambitious and atypical band.
When the London music scene had never been so dynamic with some bands like Metronomy and The Good Shoes (That I like by the way) are starting to be known even outside UK, The Low Suns are different.
Influenced by Jeff Buckley, The Flaming Lips, 1940s Gospel and sci-fi soundtracks, are starting to make an ambitious patchwork of orchestral riffs, with lyrics that reek of English romance, sung to IMAX sized melodies from the heart and soul. They said that.

The band is formed with:
Jack Berkeley – Vocals, Ali Boyd-Brent – Guitar, Si Clark – Guitar/bass, James Durrant – Keys/Bass and Jarrod Pizzata – Drums

They started (and still play) in their hand-made studio there:

But I was enough lucky to see them in their  private showcase in London bridge Studios last week, where some important people were probably there to supervise the promising band.
I can’t say things better that what their website is saying ” A music made without irony, for both for the bedrooms of now and the stadiums of the future. And this time they’re even making it in a fire-proof studio…”

And the “Never gonna care”  below, is such a thing in Live!

Actually the band start to tour and will be in Jericho Tavern in Oxford the 30th of April and soon in Madison Square Garden in NY.

For me, this is typically the kind of band who can work with Creative production groups like HBO. Entourage, How to make it in america, Californication… are some TV Shows which succeed, also because they used to work with talented bands like Phoenix recently for the music.
In my opinio, The Low Suns are totally in the HBO style.
If  tomorrow I want to be a manager, I would definitely put some £ on them.

For more information about The Low Suns, go to their website: http://thelowsuns.blogspot.com/
All in search of The Low Suns…

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And at the same time, tonight will take place the Spanish Star Wars, Episode IV, or how Madrid will try to beat again Barcelona without finish the game at 10VS11.Such an planetary event.

How Heineken left his mates to join the perfect dandy cool beer drinkers crew

Last week, I was with a mate watching the Champion’s league in Bar Kick of Shoreditch (Very nice place by the way, with table football and stuffs).
Anyway, during the half time, I saw this ad starting and after few seconds I told to my friend “look, its nice to be viewed like the Stella Artois guy in UK”.Indeed, the Stella Artois guy, is always very classy, smart, clever, charming and Seduce everytime the nice girl.Always finishing by “Une stella Artois forte s’il vous plait”

After few more seconds I realised I already saw this ad and actually it wasn’t for Stella but For Heineken.This ad already buzzed online a couple of months ago and was broadcast in UK for the UEFA champions league since a couple of weeks.
But, let’s watch it:
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The film, is a part of the new Heineken campaign with the new tagline “Open your world” (It’s remind us the “open up” of Nescafé…).The ad, created by Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam, features 90, 60, 45 and 30-second TV spots.The film is very nice, good production, actions linking, the charming French actor Eric Monjoin, music and staring of the music band The Asteroids Galaxy Tour.

The new positioning, “open your world” is more on the seduction side. The beer, as a classy tool. One of the brand spokesman, Tara Carrarao, told actually “Our consumer knows how to navigate the world, is confident, open-minded and resourceful”. This is very close of what Stella Artois is dealing with since few years with his saga

Lets check it with two films:

See? Pretty similar atmosphere isn’t it? We can even ask ourself about the lack of innovation of Heineken who just bought the Mexican CCM beverage group, this group owner of Dos Equis beer which created the famous film “The Most Interesting Man”, which is more old school but pretty in the same spirit.

(Awesome by the way!)

Anyway, it’s my personal opinion (And I know everyone liked the new campaign) but for me, Heineken did a mistake.
Why?
1) They could be lost in the beer mainstream insights “beer will make you guys, more charming, more fun, girls gonna like you….” Stella Artois, Corona…

2) Their previous positioning as the Fun beer, the mates one.The beer that every guys drink.I mean like every average guys.You and me actually.This positioning was illustrated by the famous fridge ads, that you certainly watched a lot of time.Yes, remember! Ok let’s watch it again.

And it was pretty brilliant because every mates are recognising himself in these guys.Humour is very powerful for this kind of brands which are targeting mostly young males.
Same with the famous “Men with talents” which use the codes of friendly party with guys for who the beer is the key element of their private meetings in challenging with the girls stuffs.

Humour is one of the best tools for the viral Marketing. To buzz, organize contest on Facebook, online gaming in the “men with talent” spirit or PR.Everybody shared the “fridge” ads on Facebook or twitter…
For example, this is below an operation that Heineken organized to thank all their fans which were one million to like the brand page on Facebook.
The brewery sent a group or very hot girls in tiny branded tee shirt to hug all the Heineken drinkers in some Bars.This average guys were more than happy for one night…

So, of course we can bet that Heineken will keep some events and digital actions like before using humours to promote the brand and finally in early 2012 all beer brands will communicate on sport values for the Olympic games, but to my mind this new campaign is anyway something strange for the Brand…

And by the way, did someone see the guy drink the beer in the entrance film?!

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And at the same time, Foursquare is launching an app, Fearsquare which allows Foursquare users in the UK to easily see the official crime statistics for the places where you ‘check-in. Weird..

How a famous escort girl can make you discover some talented photographers

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You probably don’t know like we (french people) we know Zahia Dehar.This young girl made the buzz last summer to be known as the “french football team prostitute” or we gonna say “escort girl”.Franck Ribery, Karim Benzema and Sidney Govou were named in this case.(yes because the girl were under 18 during the fact.
Anyway, that’s not the point of my poste.Recently on Facebook, and only because we are all curious, we watched this video “Nick&Chloé to Sublimate Zahia striptease“.

I saw the video which was ok, but I was interested by the work of these two french photographers who are famous for working with great brands like Nike, Kenzo, Levis… Or with Artist like Kanye West.

Even if some people could say it’s very “mainstream” or flat or without soul.I think it very well realised, of course they are mostly advert photographer but the job is done very well.
The light, the models and the atmosphere are making some quality prints, which is not every time the case in the everyday print campaigns.

For those who want to see more of the Nick&Chloé work, their  website

For those who just stopped on the “Zahia” words since the beginning, here is it the Alice in Wonderland from Nick&Chloé:

And at the same time Fernando Torres had still not scored any goal…

How starting hands are not that important

Today, it’s an international review I’m going to do. Not that far.France.No it’s not because I’m French. No, it’s not because I have a couple of friends currently working for this French agency in Paris.Ok, maybe…

Anyway, I would like to introduce this new campaign film for the Poker and Games website Winamax, which is developing an original and clever insight since the opening of the French money games online market.
Indeed, this market is very competitive with a lot of actors and get a sit in sun is very difficult. Where the majority decided to communicate about their services, their prices, their welcome bonuses or about their sponsored celebrities, Winamax developed the key insight: In poker, no matter the cards you get, is what you do with which is really important.

A few films dealing with this insight were created like this one, 6 months ago:

The last one, still by DDB Paris, is about the prehistoric area, with a lot of very powerful predators and one a few less.
I let you discover the end… Brillant.

For those who are not Fluent in French: “The most important in Poker isn’t the Cards.It’s what you do with“
And then the actual human doing BBQ: “Here we go“

In the same time, in the nobody cares war, the Republican forces of Allassane Ouattara are next to Abidjan.