In 2010 American Express created Small Business Saturday, a huge new shopping day right after Black Friday. But 2011 would be the real test. Would SBS be just a one-off? To help it become an ongoing tradition, American Express brought together business owners, consumers, government officials, even big corporations to rally behind a day for small business. AmEx also created tools to help business owners reach more customers, and help customers find more small businesses to shop at. Ultimately, over 100 million Americans shopped small, and Small Business Saturday cemented its place as a part of the holiday shopping season.
This was the hub for both consumers and small business owners. For small business owners, the facebook page became the toolkit. A way for them to promote their business, create offers and rally customers around a cohesive, Small Business Saturday branded message.
For consumers, we invited them to "pledge to shop small." This was important because we had a base of several million people who had already liked the page. This allowed us another avenue to reach out and for their action to be shared.
We reached out to celebrities to help support the day. We then displayed their tweets pledging to "Shop Small" in page take-overs, also inviting others to tweet where they planned to shop on Small Business Saturday as well.
It never hurts when the leader of the free world gets on board to help spread your message.
The Dexter alternate reality game was a transmedia experience that entailed Dexter fans joining a crowdsourced investigation team led by the "Serial Huntress," to hunt a Serial Killer in the real world —“The Infinity Killer.”
For 8 weeks players across the world collaborated to discover online and real-world clues, and to solve the Infinity Killer’s dark puzzles. The game led them through all kinds of plot twists and turns, but ultimately players achieved their goal: Justice.
We launched the Dexter ARG at the San Diego Comic-Con convention. Players lined the streets to investigate the blood-smeared crime scene. Inside this Kill Room they were invited to join the Serial Huntress’s crowdsourced crime solving team, and they discovered initial clues that jolted them into the Alternate Reality Game.
Each week the Serial Huntress (the game's protagonist) would post a briefing video to inform players of new evidence, and to give them specific tasks. As the ARG unfolded in real-time she would often react to the events of the game and even speak directly to specific players.
Every week the Infinity Killer would communicate with players by posting a video into a sleep therapy site. Through these videos he’d disseminate encrypted clues that would ultimately lead to audio recordings of his kills. In this video you can see a clue in the reflection of his glasses.
Upon discovery of this site players were prompted to enter their birth dates. This revealed a star map. Players then quickly discovered that they were faced with the daunting task of having to click through literally thousands of stars to find hidden letters. But there was another catch. The letters visible to any given player were determined by their birthdays, so no single player could discover the entire message. This made collaboration necessary.
Encrypted geographic coordinates in a fake recipes website (planted by the killer) required players to map out a real-world location. They found an abandoned hospital in Los Angeles. When a local player went there, she had to check-in on Foursquare to find a phone number in the tips section. Calling it activated a pager that was hidden in the bushes, and thus revealed the location of more clues.
A live web experience required players to search for out-of-the-ordinary clues – two giant eyeballs, a three-legged dog, a ballerina with seven balloons, and more. Each of these random events denoted one numeric digit of a phone number. Calling it got a homeless man in the video to answer, and led players to the next clue. Lasting 22 hours, this was the ultimate testament of player dedication.
A series of clues led players to a random 12-digit number. When they Googled this, they realized it was an eBay listing number for an $8.00 watch. The discovery sparked a bidding war among the players that hiked the price to $300. The player who ultimately received it found a new clue hidden inside the watch.
In their hunt for an unidentified victim, players discovered a name. This led to a Facebook profile featuring a firefighter doll and status update “Who should I visit?” (The killer created this). After a high volume of requests, one lucky player got a real visit from a man who delivered clues via a singing telegram. He also gave the player a real urn full of ashes and a ring confirming the victim’s identity.
In the end the Infinity Killer hacked the Serial Huntress’s website, converting it into the platform where players experienced the long-awaited confrontation between the two characters, but there was a twist. To their surprise, players discovered that they could determine the game’s outcome. A voting mechanism empowered them to trigger one of two automatic weapons and kill one of the characters. They chose to "kill" the Infinity Killer.
How do you prove to skeptical consumers that a diet soda actually tastes like real Coke? You have Coca-Cola sue Coke Zero, a branch of the same company, for “Taste Infringement.”
Actors posing as Coca-Cola executives proposed this ridiculous lawsuit to real lawyers, and we captured their shocked reactions via hidden cameras for TV commercials. We then continued with this theme by having these same actors punk Coke Zero’s Nascar drivers, and by creating a fictitious law firm to spearhead a class-action lawsuit against the Coca-Cola company for “Taste Confusion.”
We had our actors from the "Taste Infringement" campaign punk real NASCAR drivers at the Lowes Motor Speedway.
If Coke Zero tastes like Coke, consumers might get the two confused. Enter “Covet & Yourminy,” a fictitious law firm created to spearhead a class-action lawsuit against the Coca-Cola company for “Taste Confusion.” Mimicking the modest media budget of a small law firm, we ran bus shelter ads, truck wraps, and fractional print ads, all of which drove consumers to a Covet & Yourminy 800 number. This resulted in thousands of real messages from confused victims.
Web banners would drive people to a Covet & Yourminy website where “Taste Confusion” victims could file a claim with the fictitious law firm. This resulted in tens of thousands of entertaining claims against the Coca-Cola company.
This is an example of a real "Taste Confusion" claim.
Those who did file a claim would receive a “Taste Confusion Kit” in the mail. It came equipped with a koozie, a letter, and a coupon for a free Coca-Cola and Coke Zero—just to make sure customers were adequately confused.
This spot was poking fun at a real, and somewhat embarrassing, press conference that Drew Rosenhause gave on Terrell Owens' behalf.
There was a time when our culture embraced common sense monetary values, but we lost our way. People got infatuated with the idea of having more stuff, but didn’t put much thought into how to pay for it. And banks played along by getting loan-happy. But in the midst of this flawed paradigm, BBVA Compass upheld a commonsensical approach to banking, so when they put their account up for review we immediately saw a huge opportunity to make them relevant. We configured a strategy, summed up by the line “Bank Wisely,” and created work that challenged the contemporary economic dogma. By going head on against the tide we would become part of the cultural conversation. BBVA Compass agreed. We were awarded the account.
Contextual OOH
Contextual OOH
Contextual Newspaper Placement
Contextual Newspaper Placement
As a way to engage a largely male audience, and to make a splash during football season, we created “Coke Zero Fantasy Football Fever,” a microsite that housed a series of games and other fun and shareable activities. Fans spent thousands of hours killing productivity via this site.
Headline: They come for our air.
Tagline: The Giro IONOS. Ventilated like no other helmet in this world.
Headline: They come for our air.
Tagline: The Giro IONOS. Ventilated like no other helmet in this world.
Headline: They come for our air.
Tagline: The Giro IONOS. Ventilated like no other helmet in this world.
Nike iD is the best shoe customization site in the world, but when Nike does something it shouldn’t just be the best. It should be game changing. Other sites also afforded kids the opportunity to design their own shoes, but no one was offering them the chance to become partners. That’s why we proposed that NikeiD become a place where kids not only come to buy custom shoes, but design and market them to their peers, even get a cut of the profits. We called this NikeiD Custom Franchise, and while we would assist kids with some tools and marketing know-how, ultimately the success of their franchise would be determined by their creativity and resourcefulness.
An entire section of the NIKEiD Custom Franchise site would be dedicated to helping franchise owners market their pimped-out shoe designs. But it wouldn’t offer a bunch of boring formulaic advice. Instead we’d respect the creativity of the kids themselves, and their ability to leverage free media.
We’d suggest that they incorporate their shoes into free social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, etc. We’d recommend they use YouTube and become web celebrities to flaunt their designer styles. We’d even propose that they resort to classifieds sites.
And to help the franchise owners stay on top of their sales, we’d give them the tools to manage their accounts.
In the end, with a little bit of luck, worthy designs, and some astute promotional thinking, Custom Franchise owners would get their cut in the form of a personal check issued by Nike.
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