Blogbook
Great Autism PSA by BBDO New York for Autism Speaks imagines the real life story of Jacob for autism awareness. According to Autism Speaks:
Approximately 1 in 68 children is on the autism spectrum—an increase in prevalence of more than 100 percent in a single decade, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Yet research shows many parents have little knowledge about the signs of the disorder and are not seeking help early enough.
More here. And the behind the scenes video:
About the behind the scenes video:
The animated scenes communicate the signs of autism through metaphors, including lack of eye contact, sensitivity to light, repetitive behavior and delayed speech. The world featured in the campaign was built from scratch, in partnership with Lobo Production, and inspired by elements of the interviews with Jacob. Some of the creatures, for example, are reflections of Jacob’s real toys.
For the first time in the campaign’s history, the new PSAs feature an imaginative world, created using 3D and stop-motion animation, inspired by stories of real children with autism and told from the perspective of a child with autism. The PSAs are an extension of the award-winning “Learn the Signs” campaign, created by BBDO, which has helped significantly increase the percentage of parents who recognize the early warning signs of autism.
In case you missed it – Amazon opened its first brick-and-mortar store in downtown Seattle. Typical online reviews ranged from:
I entered Amazon’s first brick-and-mortar store completely convinced it was a terrible idea. I already had a snarky headline ready in my head: “I went to the Amazon store in Seattle. It was just as dumb as you think.”
Except … it wasn’t. I spent about an hour in Amazon’s downtown Seattle bookstore, which opened on Tuesday. And it actually made me think the store wasn’t that dumb. It might even be a good idea, a thought that still gives me cognitive dissonance. I went into the store expecting to write a takedown. I ended up buying a book and a pair of headphones.
(via Vox)
to jokes:
Amazon just convinced us to divorce our wife and then married her. #AmazonBooks
— Michael (@dynamike_b) November 3, 2015
One frustrating element in the store: the items sold in it have no prices – as it has to match the online pricing. But as a showcase for what Amazon is, as a pickup point for purchases, and to showcase its Kindle and other devices: it seems to be working well. After all, other brands like Samsung and Apple have big showcase stores. Why not Amazon?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7X2m2WueNcU
Coca-Cola has gone back to the hand-drawn look with this adorable spot, ‘Man & Dog’. Created by W+K Portland with production company Psyop, the short film is about a depressed human and his excitable pet. Via the Inspiration Room:
“Sure, occasionally one dials 911 or wins America’s Got Talent, but for the most part, dogs are idiots. That’s why we love them,” animation director Todd Mueller told The Inspiration Room. “Dogs don’t see a heap of two-week old laundry; they see a castle ready to be defended, then napped in.”
“To truly appreciate the unique feeling of looking at the world through a dog’s eyes, we had to make sure that his moments really set themselves apart from the rest of the spot,” added animation director Kylie Matulick. “To achieve this, we did as much as we could to shift the feeling of the moment, from unique camera moves, the look and sound of the action. Things become brighter, more fanciful, and it’s clear that you’re seeing things in a new way.”
The hand drawn style was used in order to evoke emotions and perspectives in a way that would be difficult to achieve with common computer-created animation, as the view switches between the man and the dog.
Blizzcon took place last week. What was it, and why should you care?
It’s a convention hosted by Blizzard – one of the world’s major brands – but one that you might not have heard of: unless you’re a gamer.
Blizzard, also known as Blizzard Entertainment, is one of the world’s most successful computer games companies. One of his key title games, Starcraft, has been a huge part of South Korean culture. Its games are often runaway successes, and one of its franchises, World of Warcraft, is the highest grossing video game of all time, having as at 2012 earned through over 10 billion dollars, with over 100 million accounts created over the game’s lifetime to date. Despite coming out in 2004, it is still currently the world’s most subscribed MMORPG. It counts celebrities among its fans, including Henry Cavill (who was reportedly playing it when he got the call that he had been selected to play Superman) and Vin Diesel.
Blizzard has also decided to release its own movie (above). Rather than bother with game expos like other game franchises, Blizzard is probably the only game company that holds its own, a two-day event that attracted 25,000 fans this year at a cost of $199 per ticket.
During its event, Blizzard typically launches cinematics for its upcoming games, like the latest World of Warcraft expansion:
and for its latest Starcraft 2 game, out this week:
Why are Blizzard games so successful? Aside from the amazing cinematics, the great gameplay and storylines is the use of data-driven design:
Blizzard probably has more data about what players actually do in their game than any other developer on earth (with the possible, but arguable, exception of Zynga). As developers have come to grips with the idea of using that data to drive design, the general idea I’ve heard expressed is one of continual and gradual refinement – the concept being that there’s one “best” way of doing things, and you’re using the data fed back from your players to gradually hone and refine the game so that it gets closer and closer to that ideal system […] Blizzard uses that data to suggest and implement entirely new approaches, allowing it to keep the game experience fresh and challenging – preventing single, over-optimised approaches to play from emerging and players from getting bored.
It’s also made a game for the masses – even willing to cater for them over so-called ‘hardcore’ players. Data-driven design, and using data to create design to optimise for the best target audience: these are two key things that have made Blizzard games so wildly successful. It’s something worth thinking about.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZKtL77D7JA
Hallmark has gone for amusing rather than for the heartstrings in its Christmas ads these year. More curiously:
It’s the first time Hallmark has taken an all-digital approach for Keepsake during this high-stakes time of year for sales. But the brand is betting big with its shift away from traditional TV time, investing in not only the clever commercials but also a full-blown digital microsite highlighting the artists behind many of the 400 ornament designs available this year.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtHgquiZ698
Some of its spots came hilariously close to home. ‘Perfectionist Mom’ pretty much happened to one of our designers during her childhood, more or less frame by frame…
Created by Chandler Creative for Hallmark and directed by Clay Weiner of Biscuit Filmworks, their #KeepSakeIt campaign redefines the ‘Hallmark Moment’ concept with a diverse cast and nicely restrained storytelling. Via the ABC:
Americus Reed, a professor of marketing at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, acknowledged that some people may be offended by the “tongue in cheek” tone, but the commercials illustrate that Hallmark is trying harder to reach a broader audience, he said. “The commercials will really piss off people who claim a moral high ground, but that’s a small minority,” Reed told ABC News. “The commercials are a playful spin on Christmas nostalgia and they’re pretty effective.”
Hallmark’s not the only company shedding its feel-good appeal, Reed noted.
“Companies are trying to be edgy and odd and border-line offensive these days to stand out,” he said.
Happy Monday! Have this gorgeous music video directed and animated by Hideki Inaba, titled ‘Slowly Rising’, the official music video for ‘BEATSOFREEN’. Via Hideki:
“‘Slowly Rising’ suggested to me the image of the sun. A seed was born beneath the sun, the source of all existence. The seed absorbed the light. It created more seeds like itself, gradually increasing in number.
“Time passed, but still their numbers slowly continued to rise, and before long they were quietly swallowed up by their own shadows. After everything that had lived had perished, nothing but an empty world remained. There, once again, an environment where the next living things could grow silently began to spread.”
Label: King Deluxe
Artist: Beatsofreen
Director: Hideki Inaba
Toolkit: Photoshop, After Effects
Who is Hideki Inaba?
Born in 1988, Hideki Inaba is a director and animator living in Tokyo, and is the curator of the “Daibutsu Animation Club”. His meticulously complex animations, like in ‘Slowly Rising’, are mesmerising to watch. It apparently took Hideki 6 months to complete ‘Slowly Rising’, using copied and looped cel animation produced in Photoshop and AfterEffects, which also combined his love of insects and nature. Beatsofreen and its record label King Deluxe apparently went through thousands of vimeo profiles while searching for an artist to collaborate with them on the music video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6C6TNisgCs
SapientNitro has debuted its 10 week paid pilot ‘Returnship’ program, for people looking to return to adland after leaves of absences for family/other careers/breaks and so on, to help people like Sue Vering:
Sue Vering was an associate creative director at DDB Chicago when she left in 1998, ultimately taking seven years off from the ad business to raise her daughter, get involved in community activities and write freelance features for the Chicago Tribune. By 2005, when circumstances dictated a return to agency life, she found herself at FCB Chicago, on the KFC account, and struggling to fit into a world that had grown unfamiliar during her absence. Many nuances of the business—from technology and workflow to the office jargon—seemed strange. “It was a lot more difficult than I thought it was going to be,” said Vering. “Even coming physically to an office every day was disconcerting and disorientating. You put up this front that it’s seamless. It’s not.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cfmemz0d5c8
The program is part of the 3% Conference. The concept of a ‘Returnship’ was originally coined by Goldman Sachs in 2008, to ease the transition of ‘high potential’ people who had left the job market for some reason or other (such as for maternity care) back into the industry.
Read more at invisible careers.
The North Face is back with another cool, immersive shopping experience, again with their ad agency Innored. Innored created an immersive ‘outdoor’ experience for shoppers within a mall in South Korea, using VR, to promote the North Face Korea. Opening a pop-up store, Innored recreated a South Pole camp where customers could try on McMurdo jackets and feel as though they were actually in the South Pole on a dogsled. The dogsled was then hitched on to a real dogsled, where the customers would crash through a fake wall at speed and shoot through the mall, combining VR and reality, with a chance to grab a McMurdo jacket at the very end. As a piece of experiential marketing, it encapsulated the spirit and excitement of the brand, and consumers have responded well to it online, pushing the video views quickly past 12 million.
As a result of its North Face campaigns, Innored have been finalists at the world’s Top international advertising awards such as Cannes Lions Festivals, New York Festivals, and CLIO(Sports) Awards.
Previously with the North Face and Innored
In 2014 Innored made a disappearing floor prank experience titled “Never Stop Exploring”, where the floor literally disappeared out from under the feet of unsuspecting customers:
So we went to PAX2015 over the weekend…! For those who aren’t aware, PAX is one of the biggest gaming events in Australia. PAX was started by the people behind the immensely popular web comic Penny Arcade in 2004, when they decided that they wanted an exclusive gaming show. From a small 4,500 person event in Bellevue, Washington, it’s expanded to an international event that typically attracts tens of thousands of people. In 2013 it came to Australia, where it’s been in Melbourne yearly since. Not just about computer gaming, it’s also about tabletop, card games and more.
For the new and uninitiated, PAX can be overwhelming. In Melbourne, for example, the event books out the entirety of MCEC – both buildings, running panels, display sections, shops, tabletop gaming areas and more. It often draws in top end gaming studios: this year, CD Projekt Red had a quest design panel for their blockbuster Witcher 3 game, and Naughty Dog launched Uncharted 4. With profits from the video game industry fast outstripping films – Metal Gear Solid 5: Phantom Pain for example, made more money on its launch day than Jurassic World – it’s unsurprising that game events like PAX can be so lavish.
PAX2015 Australia was a 3 day event (Friday to Sunday), where Saturday often runs to quite late, with concerts and parties into the night.
Still a 100% gaming event, it’s a showcase both for upcoming or newly released blockbuster games, indie games, tech companies like Logitech and more.
The indie game corner (to the right) is a cool showcase for small developers.
Big budget games like Fallout often go all out creating elaborate branded sections. Here, Bethesda has created a vault to help drum up excitement for its upcoming November 11 release, complete with giveaways for an immersive experience.
And of course there’s the cosplay! Here’s the Final Fantasy X group.
… and Dragon Age.
Some people, like this Morrigan cosplayer, go to great professional lengths on their costumes, just for events like these.
It still feels amazing that a webcomic somehow leveraged itself into an international branded experience that attracts huge gatherings of fans. Events like PAX remain some of the best ways that some brands have to reach out and interact with their consumers. PAX has also tried to balance its various communities, growing more inclusive to different gamers: the storytelling panels on Saturday (all male) and Sunday (all female) were markedly different in terms of content and topics. For those uninterested in panels, there are also other events exclusive to PAX – people can acquire pins and other PAX collectibles in little events that make being at PAX more immersive. As a branded experience, PAX definitely has a lot to teach others.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YL9RetC0ook
Over the past few weeks we’ve seen Southern Cross Station blanketed in YouTube ads, which contained nothing more than the logo, a picture of a YouTube star and his/her number of followers. It was for us a puzzling ad spend: isn’t YouTube pretty much ubiquitous? You might as well advertise Facebook… but now that YouTube Red has launched, the ad spend begins to look more like step one in a campaign. YouTube Red is YouTube’s subscription service: ad free, going live on Oct 28, costing $9.99 per month. The free version of YouTube will still be there, and the ad spend in YouTube from advertisers is still going strong.
YouTube has also engaged some of its most popular creators, such as PewDiePie, will create scripted series for YouTube Red, slated to roll out next year. Apparently 98% of YouTube’s creators have signed on for Red. How it compares to other services:
Netflix: $8.99
Hulu: $7.99, or $11.99 for the ad-free option
Amazon Prime: $99 per year (about $8.25 per month)
HBO Now: $14.99
Showtime: $10.99