Tag: twitter

Nike Football “My time is now”

In Puerta del Sol, Madrid’s epicenter, a huge Nike “static” banner behaves like a live scoreboard. As Euro 2012 conversations spike, the face on the banner changes. Each day, the Spanish player who dominates social chatter becomes the protagonist on the canvas. Two fan messages appear alongside him, selected from submissions flowing in through Nike’s Facebook experience.

The idea in one line

Turn real-time social conversation into real-world status. Then make “My Time Is Now” visible, in public, every day.

What Nike and DoubleYou build during Euro 2012

Nike works with DoubleYou on a real-time social media monitoring campaign focused on Spanish national-team players. The system tracks mentions and engagement across Facebook and Twitter, then turns that data into a live ranking.

Fans see the leaderboard through a custom Facebook app integrated into Nike Football Spain. The ranking updates continuously, creating a daily “who owns the moment” race that mirrors what is happening on the pitch.

How it works

Step 1. Capture the conversation in real time

The activation monitors references to players across Twitter and Facebook.

Step 2. Translate the conversation into a live ranking

Inside the Facebook experience, the campaign visualizes comments and produces an automatically updated ranking of who is generating the most conversation, refreshed minute by minute.

Step 3. Publish the result into the physical world

Each day, the player who “capitalizes” the most social conversations becomes the ambassador of Nike’s message “My Time Is Now” on the large-format placement in Puerta del Sol. A static billboard turns into an interactive billboard because it is connected to the live social pulse.

Step 4. Let fans write onto the execution

From the app, fans also submit messages linked to the player of the day. Nike selects two of those messages and publishes them next to the player on the banner.

Why this is more than “social listening”

This is not monitoring for reporting. It is monitoring as a publishing engine.

  • The social layer has consequence. The ranking determines who gets heroed publicly.
  • The physical layer gives the digital behavior weight. People do not just see a number in an app. They see a player crowned in the center of Madrid.
  • The loop is fast enough to feel like sport. The leaderboard updates continuously, so fans experience momentum, not a static end-of-day recap.

The line that makes the whole thing sticky

At the end, the leading player is set to bear Nike’s message of “My Time Is Now”.

And the player is…

A few fast answers before you act

What is the campaign in one sentence?

A real-time social monitoring system ranks Spanish players by conversation volume and makes the top player the daily face of a live billboard in Puerta del Sol.

Where do fans see the ranking?

In a custom Facebook app integrated into Nike Football Spain.

What makes this different from a normal “second screen” mechanic?

The data output is not just a dashboard. It changes a public, real-world media placement and publishes user messages alongside the hero player.

What is the repeatable pattern for brands?

If you can connect live signals to live publishing, you turn attention into status. That is how “real-time” becomes culturally meaningful.

TBWA Lisbon: Windows become Twitter billboard

TBWA was the last agency to move to Lisbon’s advertising district. With their top competitors already there, they decided to showcase their creativity by turning 19 windows of their office into a 36m long Twitter billboard.

The stunt is simple in concept and bold in execution. The office becomes the medium. Instead of hiding behind a reception desk and a logo, the agency uses its own facade as a live publishing surface for the public street.

Turning an address into a live channel

The mechanism is real-time social content made physical. Tweets appear across the windows, transforming an office building into a public conversation layer. It is not “social amplification” in the usual sense. It is a direct translation from a digital feed into a street-level display.

In dense urban environments, public-facing digital surfaces work best when they make participation visible, immediate, and shared by everyone on the street.

The video does not explain exactly how people were encouraged to send in their tweets, but it does show the breadth of what people shared. Tweets touch politics, taxes, Europe, Merkel’s visit, and more. That range matters because it signals that the billboard is not a branded script. It behaves like a live civic wall.

Why it lands in an ad district full of competitors

In a cluster of agencies, sameness is the enemy. This activation works because it creates a visible signature at the point of competition. People do not have to be invited inside to experience TBWA. The building itself is performing in public, and the audience can participate without crossing a threshold.

It also carries a little risk. Real-time public messages can be messy. That tension is part of the attention engine. It feels alive because it is not perfectly controlled.

The intent: differentiate through public participation

The business intent is positioning. TBWA is signalling modernity, openness, and confidence in real-time ideas. The agency is also using the street as a distribution channel to generate talk, foot traffic, and press interest.

And it worked. In the end, all the window tweeting created quite a stir in the local media.

What to steal from this window-billboard idea

  • Use your own real estate. If you have a facade, treat it as media, not architecture.
  • Make digital physical. The jump from screen to street creates instant novelty.
  • Design for participation. People engage more when they can see themselves appear in public space.
  • Accept a little mess. Real-time content feels credible because it is not overly polished.
  • Build for earned media. A visible public installation gives journalists something to film, not just to quote.

A few fast answers before you act

What is the TBWA Lisbon Twitter billboard?

It is a facade activation that turned 19 office windows into a 36m long display showing tweets in public, effectively making the building a live billboard.

Why does turning tweets into a window display work?

Because it makes online conversation visible in a shared physical space, which creates surprise, participation, and social proof.

How did it create attention beyond the street?

The visibility and real-time nature made it easy for people and local media to capture and share, turning a building into a story.

Is this more about branding or engagement?

Both. The engagement mechanic is participation, but the branding outcome is differentiation and positioning in a competitive district.

What is the key takeaway for agencies and brands?

If you want to stand out locally, build a public interface that lets people contribute and be seen. It creates talk faster than self-promotion.

Fiat 500 America TwitBid

Fiat unveiled an exclusive limited edition run of 500 cars inspired by U.S. style at the Geneva Motor Show. Then through a Twitter based auction they made it possible to win the “number one” car (distinguished by a badge on the external pillar bearing the serial number 1/500 and the winner’s Twitter nickname) starting from a bid of €1.

To win the Fiat, participants were directed to follow @fiatontheweb on Twitter and then place a bid at www.500America.fiat500.com using their Twitter account. As a result Fiat received 700 bids from 293 users, across 11 countries. A twitter follower with a bid of €15,165 was declared the winner of the limited edition Fiat 500 America.