Buggy Ad Campaign Uses Building Cracks as Cockroach Dioramas

Doom Fogger - Roachville

Johannesburg, South Africa agency TBWA Hunt Lascaris had been tasked with coming up with an out-of-home campaign illustrating how the DOOM Fogger gets into every nook and cranny to kill bugs.

As an alternative to more traditional outdoor media, the agency took the challenge literally and created advertising spaces out of the cracks and holes in the walls of buildings. They created Roachville; cockroach dioramas showing the insects posed in living room, bedroom and cafe scenes. Large colourful highlights pointed toward the tiny scenes with the headline “Gets to Where They Live”.

via Ads of the World

South Africa

Banco Sabadell Celebrates 130th anniversary with Orchestral Flashmob

Som Sabodell Orchestra Flashmob

On May 19, people enjoying a quiet evening out at Placa de Roc in Sabadell, Spain were in for a wondrously noisy surprise.

What appears to be a single street performer playing the opening notes of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony quickly expands to include more and more musicians. The group eventually includes over 100 people from the Orchestra Simfònica del Vallès and singers from the Amics de l’Òpera de Sabadell, Coral Belles Arts and Cor Lieder Camera.

The flashmob was assembled to celebrate it’s 130th anniversary of Banco Sabadell.

The creative agency for the flashmob was Remake and the film was shot by Onidea.

Spain

Real Estate Company Uses Facebook Profiles to Create ‘Social Home Tour’

Carvalho Hosken - Social Home Tour

Anyone who’s spent any time watching TV shows about real estate, and house flipping have seen the extra work that sellers do to ‘stage’ the home. Some fresh paint, new landscaping, rented furniture and a plate full of fresh cookies in the kitchen presents the home in it’s best light.

Brazilian real estate company Carvalho Hosken had decided to launch a new condominium in an affluent area of Rio de Janeiro. Their challenge was to market the condos as tailor-made without sounding like a bad real estate ad cliche.

The company prepared a decorated unit complete with digital frames that pulled in and displayed photos from the customer’s Facebook photo albums (the customers had been asked to reserve a showing using their Facebook profile). Using the work address from their profile, the best route was plotted onto a map.

Creepy or smart?

Did it work? According to the video 28% of visits were converted into sales (three times the normal success rate).

The Social Home Tour was created by Brazilian agency Artplan.

Brazil

Australian Bank Rewards Honest Shoppers with an Instant Thank You Campaign

NAB Honesty Shouldn't Go Unrewarded

To promote their new ‘Honesty’ credit card the National Australian Bank rewarded shoppers for turning in lost items.

While the unsuspecting shoppers waited at the specially constructed lost and found counter. their name and picture was taken and distributed to other teams located in the mall. As the shoppers continued on their way they began to notice their face displayed on digital signage throughout the mall. I love the final scene where ‘Han’ sees his name spelled wrong.

The stunt was created by Clemenger BBDO, Melbourne.

Australia

BBVA Foundation Raises Literacy Awareness with The Little Guy Inside the ATM

BBVA Foundation - The Little Man Inside the ATM

To highlight the issue of reading comprehension in Peru (it’s reported that 7 out of 10 children don’t understand what they are reading), the BBVA Foundation and their agency Volver d6 came up with an experience that touched it’s customers during a familiar everyday interaction with the bank’s ATM.

Instead of a basic video ad, they created a video illusion that a man had been placed inside the ATM. When a customer stepped up to the ATM, they were presented with an unreadable instruction screen. After a few seconds the video experience took over and the instruction screen appeared to be removed from the inside of the ATM. The man inside the ATM explained the issue of literacy to the customer and then provides instructions to how a donation can be made to the bank’s ‘Reading is Being Ahead’ right then and there during the transaction.

The case video reports that every week they reached 42,000 people with the campaign.

Peru

Driver Sets Parallel Parking Record at Mini ‘Chinese Job’ Launch

Mini 'Chinese Job' Parking RecordOne of the most challenging parts of my student driving driving was practicing the fine art of parallel parking. We actually had to drive 15 minutes into the local town to actually find parking spaces to practice in. I was not a natural parking savant, so trying to get the car correctly backed into a tight parking spot without banging into the car in front or behind took a lot of awkward attempts.

Just a few weeks ago in Beijing, Chinese driver Han Yue managed to slide his Mini into a space just 15 cm (5.91 inches) longer than his vehicle. While Han’s skill at parking is incredible, I’d really like to see him get the car out of the space just as easily.

The folks from the Guiness Book of World Records were there to certify the record, beating the previous record of 22cm set by Patrick Folco ‘Lo Show dei Record’ in Rome, Italy, on 17 April 2012.

The event was held by Mini to promote the launch of the ‘Chinese Job’ special edition, based on the Mini Cooper S and Clubman.

China

Your Rock & Roll Dream Is Just a Pee Away with the Urinal Guitar

Billboard Brazil Guitar Pee

It seems that lately men’s washrooms around the world are becoming gaming destinations. All it takes to play is a full bladder and a little bit of aim. In just the past few months I’ve posted examples such from the Amsterdam, Vancouver and São Paulo, Brazil.

In fact, the city of São Paulo is where the latest example of this trend has been rolled out. Guitar Pee (I would have called it ‘Urinal Hero’) is a promotion for the Brazilian edition of Billboard Magazine, the long-running industry publication of the music and entertainment industry.

The stunt is part of Billboard’s ‘Music. We Know it Comes from Everywhere’ campaign, and in this case the music is coming from a urinal that has been fitted-out with sensors that play a variety of guitar sounds when they are, well… peed on.

When a participant has completed their solo, a code appears on the digital display that corresponds to an MPee3 file (yes, they went there) posted at guitarpee.com. To listen to the recorded solos use your mobile phone or tablet.

The ‘Guitar Pee’ campaign was created by AlmapBBDO, São Paulo.

Via DeathandTaxesMag.com

Brazil

Samsung Turns Shoppers Into Superstars With Fake Paparazzi

Samsung - Would You Be a SuperstarWhen I saw this campaign I was reminded of ‘Idiot Paparazzi‘, one of the funniest features on ‘Talkshow with Spike Feresten’. In that skit a group of photographers ambushed normal folks who had a vague resemblance to Hollywood stars.

To help create buzz about the new Samsung NX 200 camera among the trend-conscious Korean youngsters, Samsung launched the ‘Would You Be a Superstar’ campaign. A group of photographers was hired (outfitted with the Samsung NX 200 of course) to act as paparazzi in Sinsa-dong, one of the hottest and fashionable areas of Seoul. After snapping off a series of photographs on the surprised shopper, they slapped a QR code sticker on them and ran off as quickly as they showed up.

When the user scanned the QR code they were directed to a mobile site, where they saw their photograph looking like a magazine cover. The photos were also uploaded to the Samsung Facebook page where an online poll was created to select the most popular photo.

The campaign was created by the Soeul offices of Cheil Worldwide.

via Best Media Info

South Korea

Holographic Lingerie Model Struts Stuff in Paris Shop Window

Empriente lingerieAt Empreinte l’Atelier lingerie, curious passerby are being stopped in their tracks by what appears to be a lingerie model in the shop window. The masked model appears in the Paris store window in a burst of stars, strikes a pose or two and then disappears again.

The technology used is likely very similar to that used to create the illusion that the late rapper Tupac Shakur was performing onstage with Snoop Dogg at Coachella. It that case, animation created by Hollywood special effects studio Digital Domain, was projected onto an angled sheet of mylar foil, known as Musion Eyeliner. These experiences are best described as a ‘holographic illusion’ rather than a hologram.

These illusions are actually an updated adaption of a 19th century magician’s trick known as ‘Pepper’s Ghost‘, which used hidden rooms, reflections and special lighting to achieve it’s effect.

Fans (Literally) Download Band to the Stage at Coca-Cola Sponsored Rock Show

Coke FM Download ConcertHow many times have you gone to a rock concert and thought the band playing up on stage was high. In the case of this concert in Bogata, Colombia sponsored by Coca Cola to promote its online radio station , the band was indeed high, 50 metres high to be exact. (I know, bad joke… and just say no to drugs)

The band began their performance on a small platform 50 metres above the stage. The only way the audience could get the band lowered to stage level was to ‘download’ their songs. Each time the audience downloaded a song, the band played it and they were lowered 10 metres until they eventually reached the stage level.

50,000 songs were downloaded from the website in just an hour, which saw 337% more visitors than usual.

The stunt was created by Ogilvy & Mather Bogata and was so successful that similar concerts are now planned for Quito (Ecadour), São Paulo and Mexico City.