Open Happiness

For those of you (us) too young to remember, the year was 1971 and for the first time in advertising history the world was confronted by a tv spot that did not fit into a nice 'advertising' box. Coca-Cola's "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing (In Perfect Harmony)" ad campaign completely distorted the line that previously existed between advertising and pop culture. People loved it, and not just Americans or British audiences, it was a global phenomenon (there's a great overview of the whole experience in the Library of Congress) .

So it may have come as no surprise to many that Coca-Cola would attempt the same feat again, however this time they have taken it a step further. "Open Happiness" is a massive collaborative project involving Gnarls Barkley's Cee-Lo Green, Panic! At the Disco's Brendon Urie, Patrick Stump of Fall Out Boy, Travis McCoy of Gym Class Heroes and Janelle Monae. A veritable Smörgåsbord of modern pop music. But how do the two concepts differ and how are they alike?

The following is the full 4min 25sec "Open Happiness" video, directed by Alan Ferguson. See if you can notice the single most significant thing about this video...



--Update--
The original 'full version' video for this, features a coke logo at the very end. That video was removed from YouTube and this is the only replacement I could find, unfortunately the logo has been edited out in this.

Did you get it? It's fairly obvious in those last 2 seconds. For 263 of 265 seconds of video, there is not a single Coca-Cola logo in sight. That is without doubt one of the most expensive pieces of "adver-tainment" that you will come across, and even though the logo only comes in at the end of the piece, you knew the whole way through exactly what it was for. The brand is more then a logo. The brand is a collective of all the work that has been put into it in every piece of advertising and marketing you have ever seen.

"Open Happiness" was produced by Polow Da Don and Butch Walker, writen by Cee-Lo Green (and co-written by Polow Da Don and Butch Walker), and directed by Alan Ferguson.

In a follow up to an earlier post of mine, you may enjoy the new extended version of the Calvin Harris 'Coke Creatures - Yeah Yeah Yeah La La La Dance Party'...

Kwik Fit Obama Viral

Barack Obama endorsing Kwik Fit!

Seriously?

Well, not quite. The most powerful man in the world isn't actually putting his name behind the chain of tyre and exhaust centres. According to Marketing Magazine Kwit Fit produced the film for the Kwik Fit annual general meeting. From there, the rest is history.

The viral is a mix of clips from speeches by Obama and was put together by DDB London.



hat tip to Nick for this one :)

Nike and Paul Rodriguez

I posted about Nike's new 'It Was A Good Day' ad last week and I had wanted to include a clip of an earlier ad that Paul Rodriguez did with Nike SB but I couldn't find the video anywhere. Thankful a friend pointed me in the right direction and it is just as good as I remember. Check this out...

Doritos iD3

You'd imagine that there isn't too much to an advertising campaign about a new flavour of crisps but you'd be extremely wrong. Doritos new iD3 campaign, invites users to guess the flavour of their mystery flavour by participating in a seriously slick online game. In a similar fashion to the recent Protocol viral, the game utilises Facebook Connect to pull in all the information necessary for you game profile and to personalise the game narrative and actually push the game out into Facebook.

The game runs as a three-part 'choose your own adventure' type game, where users go undercover against the London underworld to discover the secret flavour. The story revolves around a case of mistaken identity, in a blend of live action film with 3D interactions, sound recognition and interactive engagements. The whole thing is done through an extremely high quality production value giving an excellent cinematic feel to it.

In an interesting mechanic, users need to insert a promotional code from the inside of the new Dorito flavour to play the game. Each promo code gives six lives of game play.

Beyond this the most interesting part of the whole campaign has been the approach that has been taken to promoting the campaign. In what is now becoming an increasingly common tactic, the campaign was previewed and pushed through an exclusive blogger programme. Through this the campaign has seen a serious jump-start by gaining huge traction on blogs, forums, and Twitter, before it had even launched. In fact, event the campaign Facebook page already has 46,875 fans.

Don't think it's just a game though, by guessing the mystery flavour there's also £20,000 up for grabs to a lucky winner, and runners up prizes of Xbox 360's and gig tickets.

So without further delay, check out the trailer...



The campaign was produced by +REHABSTUDIO and Initials Marketing.

Digital Marketing School

Just over a week ago now (apologies for the delay folks) saw the launch of Ireland's first free, online marketing school. The Digital Marketing School, founded by Niall O’Driscoll and Andrew Jenkinson, has been set up through the vStream marketing company and is aimed at Irish SMEs and start-ups who are looking for an online consultancy resource.

While I would personally disagree with a number of points that are made in the new ventures press release, all in all I think this is a great idea and really well put together. The site already features 7 different tutorials, an interview and a case study, all provided as online videos by the two founders.

Andrew Jenkinson spoke about the reasoning behind the site, saying "From start-up companies to large multi-nationals there is a general lack of knowledge of this space. And it's also very hard to keep up to date, as last year's facebook is this year's twitter, and new technologies such as augmented reality are appearing all the time. It's hard for people to get grounding in this, as it can seem quite complex and confusing. That is why we decided to set up the Digital Marketing School and make it available for free. For Ireland to compete at an international level, digital marketing will be crucial."