TBWA 2 | SunMatrix Ramble

bpost Live Webshop: Every second cheaper

bpost is Belgium’s postal operator. To prove their ability to deliver, and to fend off new contenders in the delivery market, they open a pop-up store right in central Brussels that you can watch like a shop window.

A range of must-have items is put on display, from smartphones to designer coffee makers. The twist is that the only way to buy them is through a special online auction where the price of every product drops every second.

People have to act fast to catch an item before someone else does. Once sold, the item is picked up by a postman right in front of the webcam and delivered to the winning bidder, so everyone watching can see how quick and reliable the service is.

In European parcel and delivery markets, the hardest promise to prove is speed and reliability, so public demonstrations often land harder than product claims.

The real question is how you make a service promise visible enough that people trust it without having to take your word for it.

As a result, awareness of bpack, the delivery service being promoted, is reported as rising to 65%. In 6 days, 260,000 unique visitors are reported. For every hour the shop is online, bpost is reported as selling 8 products on average.

A webshop you can watch, not just click

The pop-up window makes the online mechanic tangible. People see the products in real life, then experience the purchase as a live moment, with delivery turning into the proof point rather than a line in the footer.

Why the “dropping price” mechanic creates urgency

A price that decreases every second builds a clear trade-off: wait for a better deal, or buy now before someone else does. Because the price is visibly falling, hesitation becomes a risk you can feel. That tension is the game. It keeps attention locked and makes the checkout decision feel like winning, not spending.

Extractable takeaway: Use a visible, fast-moving trade-off so waiting feels costly and acting feels like progress, not purchase.

What bpost is really selling with bpack

The service story is simple: “wherever you are, we deliver.” The activation turns that into something visible, with a postman dispatching the parcel immediately after purchase. The product is delivery confidence. Proof beats claims when reliability is the benefit.

Service-proof moves worth reusing

Make the benefit observable. If your promise is speed, show speed in public.
Use a mechanic that explains itself. A visible countdown beats a paragraph of copy.
Build in a live “receipt”. The moment of dispatch is the proof people remember.
Design for spectators. If watching is entertaining, the audience becomes the distribution layer.

A few fast answers before you act

What is the bpost Live Webshop?

It is a pop-up retail window in Brussels where products can only be bought via a live webshop auction, with prices dropping every second and delivery shown on camera to prove service speed.

How does the “price drops every second” auction work?

Each product starts at a set price and continuously decreases over time. The first person to click and buy wins the item at that moment’s price.

Why show a postman picking up the parcel live?

Because it turns a delivery claim into visible proof. The dispatch moment demonstrates reliability and speed better than messaging can.

What is bpack in this campaign?

bpack is positioned as the delivery service being promoted. The activation is designed to raise awareness and trust in that specific service.

What is the main lesson for brands selling services?

When trust is the barrier, do not just explain the promise. Stage it so people can watch the promise being kept.

Maes: A Barrel for Every Maes

Maes is described as Belgium’s second most popular beer, and “Maes” is also described as the country’s third most common surname. With the market leader said to be outselling Maes by roughly 4 to 1, the brand looks for leverage where it can actually own something. The name.

So Maes decides to rally the Maes families of Belgium by giving them a free barrel of beer, and turning that offer into a reason to gather, invite, and celebrate publicly.

The mechanism: a surname offer with a social booking loop

Eligible families sign up through a custom Facebook app to claim the barrel. The same flow lets them book a pub for a chosen date and invite friends, so the reward is designed to be shared rather than quietly consumed.

In Belgian FMCG marketing, turning a broad brand problem into a narrow community identity can create disproportionate participation and talk value.

Why this lands

This works because it converts a discount into status. You are not “getting a deal.” You are being singled out because of who you are, and the campaign immediately pushes you into a social moment where other people experience the brand alongside you. The pub booking is the smart part, because it transforms redemption into an event.

Extractable takeaway: If you need advocacy, attach the reward to an identity trigger and force the payoff into a shared setting, so the benefit becomes a gathering people naturally document and retell.

What the brand is really doing

The real question is how a challenger beer brand turns a shared surname into a social growth loop that scales beyond the free barrel itself.

Maes is using a surname as a distribution engine. The name creates a defined audience, the free barrel creates urgency, and the “book a pub and invite friends” flow turns each participant into a micro-host who does recruitment for you.

What to steal from the Maes mechanic

Exploit a unique ownership angle. If you can credibly “own” a name, place, ritual, or identifier, build the campaign around that.
Design the share into the redemption. Booking a pub and inviting friends is a built-in amplification mechanic.
Reward the group, not just the individual. Group rewards create social proof and higher perceived value.
Keep eligibility simple. One clear rule beats a complicated promo code maze.

A few fast answers before you act

What is “A barrel for every Maes”?

It’s a promotion that offers a free barrel of Maes beer to people with the surname “Maes,” turning surname identity into a social recruitment mechanic.

How do people redeem the offer?

By signing up through a custom Facebook app that also lets them book a pub date and invite friends.

Why is the pub booking part important?

It converts redemption into an event, which increases sharing, attendance, and the number of people who experience the brand in a social setting.

What problem is this trying to solve?

It’s designed to build advocacy and attention for a challenger brand by mobilising a defined community rather than competing only on mass advertising.

What is the key risk with identity-based offers?

If eligibility or verification feels unfair or confusing, it can backfire. The rule has to be clear, and the experience needs to feel welcoming rather than exclusionary.

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.