The Salvation Army… this campaign costs nothing

Advertising Agency: VIA, Portland, USA
Creative Director: Greg Smith
Art Director: Chris Avantaggio
Copywriter: Mike Irvine
Illustrator: Lirra Schiebler
Photographer: JoElle Stoecklein

Volkswagen is Advertiser of the Year Award – Cannes Lions

The Organisers of the 56th Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival are pleased to announce that this year’s prestigious Advertiser of the Year award will be awarded to Volkswagen.

This important award is presented to advertisers who have distinguished themselves for inspiring innovative marketing of their products and who embrace and encourage the creative work produced by their agencies.

After winning their first Cannes Lion back in 1961, Volkswagen ads have gone on to win nearly 150 Lions across all disciplines, including 2 Film Grand Prix, the first in the cinema category back in 1970 followed by the Launch II commercial in 1988; 2 Press Grand Prix, one in 1998 for a Beetle campaign and the other in 2004 for the Polo Cops ad; a Promo Grand Prix in 2006 and a Cyber Grand Prix, in the interactive category, also in 2006 for the GTI campaign.

“We are delighted to honour a brand that has loyally supported, and that continues to embrace the creative marketing of its cars throughout the decades allowing its agencies to produce numerous powerful and award winning ads over the years,” said Terry Savage, Festival Chairman. “Volkswagen are a role model to other brands and worthy of this prestigious honour,” continued Savage.

Jochen Sengpiehl, Senior Vice President Volkswagen Marketing, who is responsible for the global brand management, worldwide positioning and strategy of the brand as well as all marketing communications and global media buying said, “It’s our aim to become the leading car manufacturer in the world based on our strategic brand framework and clear brand guidelines including our claim “Das Auto”. Creative and innovative marketing solutions are part of our DNA and advertising is the key since many years. Continuous and trustful agency relationships like DDB worldwide, BBDO Almap and others are important to realise outstanding work in difficult times.”

Founded in 1937 in Wolfsburg, Germany, Volkswagen is today one of the world’s leading automobile manufacturers and the largest carmaker in Europe. Volkswagen continues to p roduce much loved models that have stood the test of time, such as the Beetle and the Golf.

The Advertiser of the Year trophy will be presented to Jochen Sengpiehl in Cannes during the Film, Titanium and Integrated Lions Awards Ceremony on Saturday 27 June 2009.

Why So Serious? How Dark Knight Movie came to life before its release

As I was trying to catch up with some of the presentations and workshops at the Dubai Lynx 2009, I managed to attend most of Alex Lieu’s presentation about the interactive viral campaign created and managed by 42 Entertainment for the Dark Knight movie.

The movie was brought to life way before it was released without the use of traditional media, the campaign was based on the concept of Alternate Reality Game, which utilizes the real world as a platform that engages the target audience with the product. The agency focused on each character to bring the most out of it, and as I saw the results were brilliant, of course we all know that the movie gained a huge success around the world.

According to the above movie, Why So Serious? attracted more than 10 million players.

Just watch how brilliant it is!

The idea is to benefit from the presidential elections fever in the US to promote the movie.

Still wondering why Dark Knight scored an enormous success? Anyway, take a look at the website of Why So Serious?

Google Me Business Cards… to be Googled or not to be Googled

To be Googled or not be Googled, that’s the question… this is a very interesting idea for a business card, developed by designer Ji Lee, as you can see the card doesn’t feature any information, just the name of the person and Google’s web interface… very creative, don’t you think?

via

Melody Entertainment Receives the 1st Dubai Lynx Advertiser of the Year award

The Dubai Lynx Advertising Festival is adding two more categories to its list of awards; Advertiser of the Year and Media Agency of the Year.

According to their press release, the 1st Dubai Lynx Advertiser of the Year Award will go to Melody Entertainment Ltd, winners of the 2007 and 2008 Dubai Lynx TV/Cinema Grand Prix, well they are really brilliant and their TVCs are the best!

The Media Agency of the Year will be presented to the agency that obtains the highest score for entries in the Media section, the calculation will be based on all of the awards won by an agency, but will include a maximum of 10 points for shortlisted entries.

The scores for Media Agency of the Year will be calculated as follows:
Grand Prix: 10 points
Gold: 7 points
Silver: 5 points
Bronze: 3 points
Shortlist: 1 point (maximum of 10 points)

Speculations surround Jordan’s biggest advertising account… Zain

Ever since Fastlink rebranded to Zain, rumors and speculations about this huge account started to fill the air, which agency will be lucky enough to handle Jordan’s biggest media spender?

Now the heroes of these rumors are Saatchi & Saatchi, MindShare, and some unknown Tunisian agency, in addition to Publicis Graphics & ZenthOptimedia – Zain’s current Advertising agency & Media-Buying-Unit in Jordan.

Publicis Graphics and Saatchi & Saatchi are part of the Publicis Group worldwide, but in the Middle East I guess owners are not the same, however in Jordan their media operations run through a joint company – ZenithOptimedia.

Saatchi & Saatchi handles this account across the region, which made the movement of Zain Jordan to their office in Amman a bit natural, and that’s what we have been hearing since the rebranding process that was carried out by Publicis Graphics, the agency that has been handling the creative work of Fastlink/Zain for the past couple of years.

In mid 2008, a new rumor found its way claiming that Saatchi & Saatchi is setting up its own MBU to split its media operations from ZenithOptimedia, the rumor also claimed that Zain has terminated its contract with Publicis Graphics and is heading to Saatchi, but nothing really happened.

Then I heard a bizarre rumor about a Tunisian ad agency that figured out a meaningful rationale for Zain’s slogan, a wonderful world, and so it is going to nail the account. Some people said that agency was in Algeria, but nothing changed.

Surprisingly MindShare appeared out of no where, and apparently has already won the account, they are going to handle the media buying/planning work for Zain, but still few people are so positive that Zain is moving to Saatchi next month, at least for the creative work.

Losing Zain might not be that bad to Publicis Graphics, it could leave the door wide open for them to win Orange, which is a Publicis client in France. So these rumors could shape the future of advertising in Jordan.

For Y&R, losing Orange means losing the first spot, while for Publicis, losing Zain without winning Orange means a disaster, while winning Zain will boost either Saatchi & Saatchi, or MindShare.

Earlier this year, almost 30 people lost their jobs in Publicis Graphics Amman, UPDATE (the number is not correct according to a comment below) we heard about such layoffs in few big agencies in the region as part of credit crunch effect, but will it stop there?