Tag: Creative Technology

Happy Holiday Videos 2013: Agency Stunts

Welcome back. Hope everyone had a great holiday season. Now for a great start to 2014.

Taking off from my last post, here are a series of holiday action videos created by agencies around the world in their lead up to Christmas 2013. By “holiday action videos” I mean greetings built around a single visible action or interaction, not a passive message.

Holiday greetings that behave like products

The mechanism across this set is simple. Use the “holiday card” moment as permission to ship a stunt, an installation, or an interactive video that people can experience rather than merely watch.

In global agency culture, holiday cards are a low-stakes sandbox for experimentation that teams can ship fast and share widely.

The real question is whether your greeting can demonstrate something people can experience, not just a sentiment you can post.

This format is worth copying because it turns a seasonal hello into proof of craft.

Why this format keeps working

These pieces earn attention because they trade greeting-card sentiment for an observable action. Put in a coin. Click a button. Gather people in front of a webcam. One clear trigger, one visible result.

Extractable takeaway: If you want something to travel during peak-season noise, design a one-step interaction that produces a visible payoff, and make the payoff easy for someone else to describe in a sentence.

Christmas Chocolate Coin Factory by W+K London

Wieden+Kennedy London turned their Hanbury Street office window into a Christmas installation. Passers-by who inserted a 1 pound coin into Dan & Dave’s Chocolate Coin Factory activated the machine on display which then dispensed a special gold Belgian chocolate coin at the other end. All the money collected from this coin factory was donated towards building a new playground for Millfields Community School in Hackney, East London.

Disrupted Christmas by Holler

Holler, an agency from Sydney, created a live interactive installation that gave the general public a chance to disrupt the agency as it worked throughout the day. Electric Muscle Stimulation (EMS) units were hacked and hooked up to the Internet via IP cameras. Then key members of the agency were connected to the EMS units, and the Internet via a live stream. The public could then watch the agency staff online and instantaneously zap them at will with the click of a button.

For each disruption the agency donated $1 to The Factory, a local community centre with a long history of supporting socially and economically disadvantaged local residents.

The More the Merrier by Publicis Groupe

The Publicis Groupe was back again with another Maurice Lévy holiday video. This time they worked with DigitasLBi to create a video that uses your webcam to detect how many faces are watching together, and then adapts the video based on the number of viewers.

The Epic Christmas Split by Delov Digital

Delov Digital from Hungary used Chuck Norris to top Jean-Claude Van Damme’s epic Volvo split with the help of some serious digital enhancement.

A repeatable structure for next year’s greeting

  • Give the audience one trigger. A single action that anyone can explain and repeat.
  • Make the payoff visible. Something that changes on-screen or in the real world, immediately.
  • Design for retellability. If the idea cannot be summarized in one sentence, it will not spread.
  • Let craft do the selling. Use the holiday excuse to demonstrate what you can build, not just what you can say.

A few fast answers before you act

What makes “holiday action videos” different from normal holiday ads?

They are built around a visible action or interaction. The greeting is the excuse. The experience is the asset that people talk about and share.

Why do agencies use holiday cards as a playground for experimentation?

The stakes are lower and the audience is receptive. That creates room to try unusual formats, technical tricks, and interactive mechanics that would be harder to justify in a client campaign.

What is the common mechanism across the best ones?

One clear trigger and one clear payoff. Insert a coin and get a coin back. Click a button and something happens. Add more people and the video changes.

How do you choose a mechanic that people will actually try?

Pick a one-step trigger that feels effortless, then make the payoff obvious within seconds. If someone cannot explain both in one sentence, the interaction will not travel.

How do you keep it from feeling like a gimmick?

Anchor the interaction in a simple human reward. Delight, togetherness, surprise, or a small act of good. Then keep the mechanic effortless so the idea does not collapse under friction.

Happy Holiday Videos 2012: Agency Stunts

Welcome back. Hope everyone had a great holiday season. Now for a great start to 2013.

Taking off from my last post, here are a series of holiday action videos created by ad agencies around the world in their lead up to Christmas 2012. By “holiday action videos,” I mean greetings built around a simple interaction or trigger with a visible payoff.

Holiday greetings that behave like products

The mechanism across this set is consistent. Use the “holiday card” moment as permission to ship something people can experience, not just watch. A hacked player, a tweet-triggered donation, a synchronized “orchestra,” a physical gag product.

In global agency culture, the holiday card is a low-risk moment to test interactive mechanics and craft that can later show up in bigger client work.

Why this format keeps working

These pieces earn attention because they trade greeting-card sentiment for an observable action. The real question is whether your greeting demonstrates a capability people can experience, not just a sentiment they can scroll past. You should treat the holiday card as a tiny product launch, not a branded message. The viewer is not only receiving wishes. They are triggering something, learning something, or being surprised by a mechanism that is simple enough to retell.

Extractable takeaway: If you want something to travel during peak-season noise, design a one-step interaction with a visible payoff, and make the payoff describable in a single sentence. That is retellability, meaning a friend can summarize it in one sentence.

Maurice Lévy’s Digital Wishes by Publicis Groupe

Maurice Lévy, the chairman and chief executive of Publicis Groupe, traditionally records a holiday greeting-card video. This year, through a special deal with YouTube, Publicis modified the function buttons of the video player and embed tricks into what seems like another long, boring address by an ad industry veteran.

TwinterWonderland by 360i

To celebrate the arrival of the holiday season and provide assistance to those affected by Hurricane Sandy, 360i wanted to do something big. For every #TwinterWonderland tweet they received, 360i donated $5 to an aid organization helping with the post-Sandy cleanup effort.

25th Anniversary Holiday CompuCard by TBWA\TORONTO

To celebrate their 25th anniversary, TBWA\TORONTO brought in their digital expert from 1988, who then, through an e-card, tried to capture the spirit of their past along with their digital future.

Buzzed Buzzer by Havas Worldwide Chicago

The first New Years Eve noise maker that only works when you’re drunk.

Christmas carol played on food by FullSIX Spain

To wish happy new year to customers and friends, FullSIX transformed typical Spanish Christmas food into a carol-playing piano.

Click here to watch video on the AdsSpot website.

The Snow Machine by Weapon7

Passers-by were invited to Tweet #snow to @thesnowmachine Twitter account. For every tweet received, the machine gave ten seconds of snow flurry. The event ran all day, was seen by thousands of people and generated over one thousand tweets.

Stealable patterns for next year’s greeting

  • Give the audience one trigger. One hashtag, one button, one simple mechanic.
  • Make the payoff visible. Something changes immediately, on-screen or in the real world.
  • Design for retellability. If the idea cannot be summarized in one sentence, it will not spread.
  • Let craft do the selling. Use the holiday excuse to demonstrate capability, not just sentiment.

A few fast answers before you act

What makes “holiday action videos” different from normal holiday ads?

They are built around a visible action or interaction. The greeting is the excuse. The mechanism is what people experience, talk about, and share.

Why do agencies use holiday cards as a playground for experimentation?

The stakes are lower and the audience is receptive, so it is easier to try unusual formats, technical tricks, and interactive mechanics that would be harder to justify elsewhere.

What is the common mechanism across the strongest examples?

One clear trigger and one clear payoff. A hacked player that surprises you, a tweet that causes a donation, a simple “instrument” that performs when activated.

How do you keep it from feeling like a gimmick?

Anchor the interaction in a human reward. Delight, generosity, togetherness, or a simple shared joke. Then keep friction low so the idea survives first contact.

How do you test retellability before you publish?

Ask someone outside the project to explain the idea back to you after a 10-second description. If they cannot say the trigger and payoff in one sentence, simplify the mechanic.

Google: Project Re:Brief

In 2011, Google partnered with four global brands in an advertising experiment. Their goal was simple. How can the ideas that defined the advertising industry in its infancy inspire a whole new generation of creatives and marketers?

So Google set out to re-imagine and remake some of the most iconic ad campaigns from the 1960s and 1970s with today’s technology, led by the same creative legends who made these campaigns.

Re-briefing classics with modern tools

The premise is a clean creative constraint. Here, a re-brief means keeping the original strategic promise while rewriting the assignment for today’s interfaces, devices, and distribution. Take an idea that became culturally famous in its original medium, then re-brief it as if you were building it for a digitally connected world. Not by “updating the look”, but by asking what the original strategy would do if it had today’s interfaces, devices, and distribution.

In global brand advertising, revisiting iconic work is a practical way to test which storytelling principles survive a major technology shift.

The four remakes

With that said, here are the results of the best of the old with the best of the new.

Re-imagining Coca-Cola’s “Hilltop”

Re-imagining Volvo’s “Drive it Like You Hate it”

Re-imagining Alka-Seltzer “I Can’t Believe I Ate That Whole Thing”

Re-imagining Avis “We Try Harder”

Why this format works for marketers

The real question is not whether old campaigns deserve a digital remake, but whether the original strategic idea still produces useful behavior in a connected medium. It forces discipline. You cannot hide behind novelty because the original idea is already known and already strong. That pushes the work to earn its keep through mechanics, not decoration. That works because a proven idea gives the technology a clear job to do, so the audience experiences the promise through behavior rather than explanation. When the core idea is clear, technology becomes an amplifier, not a replacement for strategy.

Extractable takeaway: If you want to explore new tech without producing gimmicks, start with an idea that already proved its emotional truth, then design one modern interaction that makes that truth more immediate.

How to borrow the approach without copying it

  • Pick one timeless promise. Strip it down until it fits in a single sentence.
  • Define one modern behavior. Sharing, scanning, tapping, responding, connecting. Build around one.
  • Make the mechanic do the explaining. The best remakes do not need a voiceover to justify the tech.
  • Keep a clear before and after. What stays from the original idea, and what changes because of the medium.

A few fast answers before you act

What is Project Re:Brief?

A Google-led experiment that re-imagines classic campaigns from the 1960s and 1970s using modern technology, guided by the original creative legends behind those ads.

Why remake old ads instead of creating new ones?

Because the originals provide a proven strategic baseline. You can see whether technology strengthens the core idea, or distracts from it.

What does “re-brief” actually mean in practice?

It means taking the original strategy and re-writing the assignment for a new media reality, then building a modern mechanic that expresses the same core promise.

What should a team learn from this kind of exercise?

That strong ideas travel across formats, and that the role of technology is to make the benefit more immediate, more personal, or more connected, not merely more complex.

How do you judge whether a modern remake is successful?

Look for clarity of the core idea, the usefulness of the interaction, and whether the mechanic creates behavior people would repeat or share, not just view.