2018 Ideas

bloodnormal | Essity | UK

The absence and shaming of periods in culture fuels the taboo. This campaign demonstrates that the visible and positive portrayal of periods and period blood in culture normalises them and therefore begins the process of ending the taboo.

The idea is – periods are normal, showing them should be too. Women should be able to discuss them in mixed company and men should feel comfortable buying pads.

This mainstream brand was brave enough to challenge a taboo that can be damaging to women’s mental and physical wellbeing. The campaign was launched in 4 countries but had an impact in over 32 with a PR reach of 4.5 billion.

Transmemories | Elle | Mexico

Transgender people can change their present, but not their past.

This campaign demonstrated that memorie,s which are an essential part of the human being, could be released and have the same gender with which they are identified at present.

With the use of Elle’s digital retouchers team childhood photos were modified to images more in line with the person they are now.

This idea recognises that sexual orientation is a preference with which people by nature have a body that does not correspond to their way of thinking or natural disposition.

The Talk | Proctor & Gamble | USA

This idea highlighted that whilst many things have progressed in the world, “The Talk” has remained a necessary rite of passage for black Americans for too many generations. The film portrays moments where parents prepare their sons and daughters for the difficulties and dangers of growing up black in America.

The campaign was first launched online and via social media but quickly moved to broadcast and has garnered over 1.4 billion earned media impressions

The film has been viewed over 15 million times – and whilst brand and sales performance were not measured ,there was an 86% positive sentiment for the campaign.

World’s Most Successful Recruitment Video | New Zealand Police | New Zealand

The New Zealand Police set out with an aim to attract a greater diversity of police officers. To do this, they knew the public would need to hear from people they could identify with. They used over 70 diverse, real officers, along with a range of social influencers to deliver the message in an action packed on foot police chase.

Within 24 hours of the campaign launch the video was picked up by all the New Zealand news channels and had gained over $4 million worth of earned media

Most importantly there was a 615% increase in diverse profiles created and the largest intake of female recruits ever.

Evita, the equality bill | DDL&Co | Argentina

Argentina has two different 100 pesos bills – one portraying a man (Julia Roca) and the other a woman – Evita Perón. The latter is the only bill in Argentina history to feature a women. Amongst many things, Evita Perón is remembered for fighting the inequality between the sexes.

As Women’s Day approached, DDL&Co wanted to raise awareness of the gender pay gap and so decided to increase the value of the Evita Perón bills by 27% - the difference in the gender pay gap for the month of March.

The campaign doubled their media reach thanks to earned media and the brand trust value increased from 2.2 to 4.5. In March 86% of consumers paid with Evita bills

This Coke is a Fanta | Coca-Cola | Brazil

In support to international LGBT+ pride day, Coca-Cola launched a limited-edition can. A red Coke can with orange Fanta inside, featuring the message: “This Coke is a Fanta. So what?”. A special can that ignores labels, challenges prejudice and empowers people – showing that there’s nothing wrong about a Coke being a Fanta.

The cans took over social media and the streets and achieved 1 billion media impressions with $0 media spent and trended on twitter, contributing to the fight against homophobia.

#SheDrives | Nissan | Dubai

Nissan wanted to show real Saudi women that Nissan understood what the right to drive meant to them and set out to support and empower them now and beyond June 2018 – the month that The Royal Decree broke. The campaign gave the women the chance to drive while at the same time encouraging men to respect the decree.

In its first week, the content film generated 7.6m impressions and 2,064,300 views with a 9.4% engagement rate. Overall, people have spent 976,487 minutes watching the content, with 64% of the views coming from men in Saudi Arabia.

#DiversityWins | Diversity Lab | Italy

Diversity Lab wanted to demonstrate the value of inclusion in the labour market. To do so, they created a campaign that is itself the results of inclusion – by allowing workers to tell their own personal stories.

#DiversityWins has been the most influential campaign about diversity ever made in Italy. A few days after it launched, companies such as Google, Amazon, Airbnb, American Express, Diesel and many more wanted to join the conversation telling the stories of their co-workers. In just a few weeks, more than 140 global stories were written that generated more than 70 million impressions. The conversation about diversity inclusion became so high that the Diversity Lab decided to create the biggest event on diversity ever made in Italy – The Diversity Brand Summit.

Pride Buns | McDonald’s | Denmark

To convey a strong message and diversity and gender equality, McDonald’s launched ‘Pride Buns’ during Denmark’s biggest diverse human rights festival. Pride Buns changed the way burgers were built, using two top buns or two bottom buns for the budget – because two of the same kind are also a great match.

The night before the Pride festival, McDonald’s released a video on their main social channels communicating the new product. Launch videos reached more than 400,000 people – almost 10% of the Danish population. The story was picked up on many news media outlets, including the country’s two largest news channels who awards the initiative as the Best Pride Celebration in the country. Pride Buns helped break the record for McDonald’s Denmark trust score in 2017.

The Most German Supermarket | EDEKA | Germany

In 2017, German supermarket EDEKA decided to make a powerful statement for more diversity and banned more than 20,800 foreign products from their supermarket. Instead they opened the most German supermarket ever with products made in Germany only. Empty shelves showed customers what a lack of diversity really looks like.

More than 117 articles about the stunt were published worldwide. More than 10,000 posts were generated on social media, with an engagement of 328,000 users. Worldwide, the campaign reached more than 105 million people. After the stunt, EDEKA generated 18,000 new followers and achieved their aim in helping people realise that diversity is important for everyone. The campaign resulted in a worldwide discussion about diversity and xenophobia.

JFKunsilenced | The Times | UK and Ireland

The Times created a way for JFK to deliver his final speech – The Dallas Trade Mart Speech – 55 years after he was silenced. In a world first, they used an AI audio speech made completely out of data, connecting readers across the world by celebrating the legacy of one of the greatest orators of all time To create interest around the never before heard speech, The Times ran a number of promotional teasers and ads, directing people to hear the rest of it on their website.

The story was covered in 59 countries worldwide including rival news outlets which garnered a total editorial reach of 1 Billion and a total social reach of 26 million.

The Donald J. Trump Presidential Twitter Library | The Daily Show | USA

The Daily Show immortalised Donald Trump’s preferred platform for communicating with the public when they created The Donald J. Trump Presidential Twitter Library. A touring library which showcased and analysed a collection of Trump’s finest Tweets. After touring across the states, the library was then immortalised in the form of a keepsake book.

The Billion Point Giveaway | Velocity | Australia

Velocity Frequent Flyer (the loyalty program of Virgin Australia) makes money when people transfer reward points from their bank and converts them into Velocity Points to use on flights. Every year, they offer a 15% bonus on points transferred in May or November. Thanks to an intern’s spelling "mistake" the bonus as was renamed The Billion Point (supposed to be The Million Point) Giveaway. The campaign then documented the consequences of what happened inside Velocity

Every marketing dollar Velocity spent during May, generated $6.60 return on marketing investment. The Billion Point Giveaway headline: the biggest revenue month in Velocity’s 12-year history.

Autoads | Carsales | Australia

AutoAds is a platform where anyone trying to sell a second-hand car got a one-of-a-kind, expensive-feeling car ad for free. Carsales AutoAds is a cloud-based ad generating platform that uses car listing data to automatically create one-of-a-kind car ads. All the seller had to do was enter their information and the data would be used to create a unique TV ad. Sellers received an email with five personalised car ads. Each was based on a clichéd car commercial genre. Tough, City, Adventure, Family and Luxury. The AutoAds platform is capable of generating over 1.2 trillion possible combinations ensuring that no two ads will ever be the same.

A week into the campaign and over 435,215 AutoAds were generated, with over 5,000 AutoAds are still being generated every day. In a country where the population is just over 24 million, the campaign managed to reach 16.8 million people via earned and paid media.

Inequality Balls | ESPNW | Brazil

Women and sports platform espnW, in partnership with Penalty and Netshoes, launched a campaign which illustrated the inequality between men and women in sports.

The campaign kicked off with a launch film featuring female athletes who are icons in Brazilian sports, Called Inequality Balls the campaign includes exclusive balls that were be sold and distributed all over Brazil .

The campaign was based on a report in 2017 that analysed the salaries of 465 teams in 29 different leagues, in 16 countries for 9 different sports and highlighted the huge gender gap present in all sports.

To draw the attention to the matter and prompt effective change, the project uses two colours in basketballs, soccer balls, handballs, and volleyballs as a visual representation of the differences between female and male athletes.

Pride Jersey | AIG | Japan

United Black Fabric is an entirely new kind of fabric that appears black on the surface but revealed the colours of the rainbow when stretched. The fabric was developed for AIG Japan as a symbol of its DIVERSITY IS STRENGTH campaign to declare its stance against all forms of discrimination and prejudice.

The concept was based on the fact that mixing all the colours of the rainbow creates black.

A film was created starring players from the All Blacks and the Black Ferns, the New Zealand women’s national rugby team, to carry this important message about diversity and inclusion.

Dot Mini | Dot | Germany

The Dot Translation Engine can automatically convert any digital text into Grade 2 Braille. The 16 Cell Active Braille Display is built with the innovative Dot Technology, uniquely based on magnetism, which reduces size, weight, power consumption and price by up to ten times.

Feedback during the rollout of first 1000 units in Kenya and India confirm that Dot Mini is a life-changing device for the visually impaired. 200,000 books are already directly available through partnerships with big content platforms

40,000 units were pre-ordered for global launch in late 2018.

Project Revoice | The ALS Association | Australia

Project Revoice gave ALS sufferers their voice back. With only 2-3 hours of transcribed audio, this technology is able to create a complete digital voice clone that’s able to say anything in real-time via text input. This technology was made available to the wider ALS community by an online voice bank where sufferers can easily record the voice material necessary for their own voice clones.

This product changes how people live with ALS, allowing them to keep communicating as themselves, rather than through a proxy machine voice or a limited set of pre-recorded phrases.

Over 41 million people had posted, commented shared or mentioned the programme in the first 2 weeks of launch with the 680 articles written gained an approximate earned PR value of $9.8M

Over 500 patients joined the program in the first month alone.

Footballpen | Radio.de GMBH | Germany

During the 2018 World Cup, German people struggled to combine their two major dedications football and work. With the 2018 tournament taking place in Russian time zones, play times clashed with German working hours.

Radio.net found a way to bring work and football together. An undercover radio device inside a ball pen. Once it’s connected to a mobile via Bluetooth, people can bite on the end of the pen and thanks to bone conduction technology enjoy a private broadcast nobody else can hear.

The All-In Promo | Noblex | Argentina

The World Cup is the most watched TV event in Argentina, a country that breathes football. Noblex is an Argentine TV manufacturer competing with Samsung, Sony and LG.

Noblex launched the “All In Promo”, a limited-time promotion that offered those who bought their 4K TVs a full refund in case Argentina did not qualify for the World Cup. While most brands and sponsors panicked that Argentina would not qualify Noblex saw a unique opportunity for themselves. 

The campaign was launched on Twitter and a small placement circuit of OOH prior to the last three qualification matches. The online stock of 3000 TV sets sold out immediately. The promotion was extended to the final decisive match vs. Ecuador. An extra 2000 sets sold out in 6 hours.

Hahon Hohaho Hie | McDonalds | Japan

McDonalds in Japan re-named their classic Bacon Potato Pie to regain attention from their target audience who were not familiar with the product.

They changed its name to Hahon Hohaho Hie to emphasise how it is by mimicking the sound that people made when they bit into it. The new name featured on all marketing materials including menus and receipts

The news spread like wildfire quickly driving people to restaurants across Japan. The campaign’s results were impressive becoming the No1 trending topic on Twitter and the most tweeted product name in McDonald’s Japan’s history.

Fried Chicken Bath Bombs | KFC | Japan

KFC is synonymous with Christmas in Japan however there are many people who have to work during the holiday and are unable to spend time with their families. To help get the hardworking people of Japan into the festive spirit and relax after working on Christmas Day, KFC created a bath bomb with a difference. The chicken leg shaped bath bomb, when thrown into water looks like frying chicken and smelt like the 11 secret ingredients of the KFC recipe. Their Christmas gifts were given to every Santa on the street, along with their own employees

800 media articles covered the campaign and sales in KFC reached $55 million from the 23^rd-25^th of December.

FCK | KFC | UK

A deliberately provocative and human response to a crazy problem, backed up with understated, but equally heartfelt body copy that explained a bit more about the situation, and took the opportunity to apologise to both the public, and KFC employees who’d been left in the lurch. Unlike most empty corporate apologies, KFC spoke to people on a frank, real, human level.

KFC FCK first appeared on 23rd February, in two UK publications with a combined audience of just over 6 million. Since then, 733 articles have been written about KFC FCK, all carrying the branded image. This delivered an audience of 796,709,795. The commentary was almost uniformly positive, with KFC praised for both the tone and content of the apology. In social media, KFC FCK was shared to an audience of 219,138,216, not including posts without the branded FCK image. That makes the combined reach of KFC FCK by May 2018 1,015,848,011.

The FCK ad is so prolific on the internet, that a reverse image search lists it over 25 billion times.

Palau Pledge | Palau Legacy Project | Palau

The Palau Government passed a new law on December 6, 2017, directing immigration officials to use the Palau Pledge entry visa stamp. The agency worked with the client (the Palau Legacy Project, a sustainable tourism marketing body), the government, the tourism industry and citizens to implement the new policy.

Launched at the UN, the Pledge has garnered enormous coverage for Palau’s conservation efforts. Its social, cultural, and political impact is both local and global.

While Palau is a small nation, its efforts to mitigate mass tourism’s effects can be seen on a global scale. Already nations including New Zealand have expressed interest in creating their own visitor Pledge. By taking steps to sustainably manage its tourist population, Palau hopes other countries will take action to protect their environment.

The Trash Isles | Plastic Oceans/Ladbible | Trash Isles

In the North Pacific there is so much plastic, an area of trash the size of France has formed. Governments have simply ignored it. So Plastic Oceans and Ladbible found a way to ensure they couldn’t. On World Oceans Day, The Plastic Oceans Foundation and LadBible submitted an application to The United Nations to recognise The Trash Isles as an official country. Because if it is recognised as an official country, then other countries are obliged to help clean it up. They created an identity for the country and asked the public to support it by becoming citizens.

Over 220,000 people signed the change.org petition and became citizens and the campaign had 690,000 likes, shares and comments. In total The Trash Isles campaign had over 50 million video views. Fox News, CNN, National Geographic, Europe 1, IBT, Daily Mail, Reuters were just some of the major networks / papers that covered the campaign.

SelfieSTIX | Pedigree | New Zealand

To demonstrate the irresistibility of Pedigree DentaSTIX, Pedigree created SelfieSTIX. A specially designed phone accessory that attaches DentaSTIX to your phone, so you can capture the perfect dog selfie. The promotional item was supported by the SelfieSTIX app. Like Snapchat lenses, but for dogs, the Pedigree SelfieSTIX app converts people’s canine companions into a delightful cast of characters.

The clip, app and campaign elements encouraged the sharing of images and videos across all social platforms - letting dog owners participate in a rich social community of like-minded pet owners. SelfieSTIX and the accompanying app not only encouraged people to share their perfect doggy pics, it also encouraged repeat purchase of Pedigree DentaSTIX.

Across social platforms, the campaign had over 2.1 million interactions. The campaign achieved 3.5 million engagements, a 24% increase in sales and one quarter of the country’s dog owners redeemed SelfieSTIX.

Scary Clown Night | Burger King | Spain

The message was simple: "Come as a clown, eat like a king". During the night of Halloween celebrations, Burger King will give away a Whopper to everyone that comes dressed as a clown. The invitation came on October 24th in the form of a video full of horror movie references, powerful visuals and the presence of a familiar face. Was that Ronald McDonald? The character was had enough likeness to not leave any doubt. Following the video, other PR and digital #scaryclownnight executions came: a press release, posts and videos specially made for Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, posters and a special wrap for in-restaurant activation.

The operation involved 35 countries in a coordinated effort including major exposure in Spain, the UK, Russia, Brazil and the US. #Scaryclownnight was mentioned in more than 1100 articles in 40 countries reaching 2.1 billion of earned impressions and a total media value of USD 22.4 million.

The idea got to the cover of Daily Star in UK/Ireland and mentioned in some of the most watched news all over the world (including the Today Show, People magazine, USA Today and Fox News) and had a massive reverberation in advertising industry being mentioned as one of the best ads in 2017 by AdForum and top pick by Adweek.

Xbox Design Lab Originals: The Franchise Model | Microsoft | UK

After launching Design Lab and facing backlash from customers who didn’t want to spend more, Xbox decided to change their business model. It became community- If others buy that design, you’d earn money. It changed behaviour. With a vested interest, gamers started behaving like entrepreneurs, essentially selling our product for us.

As a result, Design Lab controller sales increased by 350%, 41% of site visitors claimed a design. The average amount earned was $95.24 with the top earner making $1,131.

It’s a Tide Ad Campaign | Tide/Procter & Gamble | USA

During the Super Bowl, over 103 million Americans expect to be entertained by the best advertising. Tide found something all ads have in common, something that we could point out while staying true to our brand: clean clothes. With this premise, they turned every ad into a Tide ad, without once showing a single stain - something Tide hasn’t done in its 70-year history.

The full campaign ran once during the Super Bowl on NBC with over 103 million people watching. Throughout the program, Tide also leveraged online video, social media and influencers to keep viewers engaged with #TideAd

Fight for Territory | Lion | New Zealand

The Fight for Territory campaign brought Lion to the very beginning of the rugby tour beer drinker’s customer journey. Lion bought every sign across both terminals, then told their rival, Guinness, the official sponsor of the Lions, that they could have the signs. But they had to fight for them.

Fans from either team could then take over the signs and blanket the airport for their team. All they had to do was approach the screen and stand their ground and the screen would change in front of their eyes.

Over the course of the campaign, 90,000 fans approached a sign to force a turn-over. That’s enough to fill the rugby stadium twice and both beers saw an increase in sales with Guinness up 18% and Steinlager, already the top selling beer in the country, up 5%.

MY LINE powered by Google | Ministry of Communications & Info| Colombia

Many people in different regions of Colombia still no access to Internet or Smartphones, due their remote geographical location. My Line brings the power of Google Assistant to anyone with access to a standard phone line. This inclusive technology makes search in artificial intelligence available to people without a smartphone or a computer.

For the first time in history, 99.3% of the population of the country have access to the information available in the Google Systems

Project 84 | Calm | UK

In the UK, suicide is the single-biggest killer of men under 45. Despite this, suicide remains a stigmatised, silent killer which is not talked about in the media. By creating 84 individual sculptures representing men who have lost their lives to suicide, and placing them atop the ITV Tower on London's Southbank, this campaign sought to break the silence around male suicide through channels that made the topic as real, human and visible as possible.

Execution

A week after launch, Calm had achieved more than 2.1 billion earned media reach. Furthermore, the campaign sparked conversation on social media with 170 million Twitter impressions, received 220,000 signatures on the Change.org petition to the Secretary of Health, and most importantly, they received a 34% increase in demand for the helpline and webchat support in the 2 weeks following the launch compared to the weekly average prior.