Give me wine, a little music…

November 2nd, 2012 by solo.gritskiv

Hundreds of Canadians banded together - ok we couldn’t help ourselves with “banded” – to create a digital musical mosaic that is not only fun to play with, it actually helped Canadian musicians keep on playing.

‘Play’ is a great word to add to the brand persona of the client we did this for – [yellow tail] wine leaves the snobbery to others and instead has chosen the path of being the accessible beverage for the spontaneous good times of your life. The disruption that has created a whole new space for [yellow tail] is in recognizing that really, most of us just want to enjoy a good glass of wine and to share it with our friends. Wine culture makes a lot of us edgy, and takes some of the fun out it – so [yellow tail] focused on that unpretentious side and is the easygoing, social brand that you can enjoy on your terms, your way.

It’s a great persona to work with – so we came up with an idea that would hit all the notes (sorry!) that say “[yellow tail]”: Our idea was social; fun; share-able as a great bottle of wine; and a bit silly yet also exactly the kind of thing we do when we’re happy.

We created the [yellow tail] Wine Orchestra. We called on Canadians to upload on to wineorchestra.com a webcam video of themselves clinking, dinging, tapping and rubbing their wine glasses and [yellow tail] bottles to create a rhythm, a sound, a bit of music all their own. Each entry within the Orchestra is added as a tile on a virtual wall of sound – no mean feat technically, but loads of fun to play with – and then we made sure that by highlighting the tiles and moving them around you can blend sounds and beats to create a sort of a symphony. You can take a break in your otherwise hectic and tune-free day to become an ubercool DJ, or conductor, or creator of your own special sound track.

We were inspired by the music of the street, when you see a guy start to drum on a couple of buckets and suddenly a crowd appears spontaneously, all caught in the unavoidable impulse to stop and enjoy the moment. That celebration is exactly what [yellow tail] is all about.

We took the Wine Orchestra a step further. We gave all that sound to composer Kutiman to use as raw material, and he has created an orchestral piece entitled The Wine Orchestra Players — where he sampled from those hundreds of video uploads of Canadians having fun with their favourite [yellow tail] bottle or wine glass as instruments.

For anyone who doesn’t know him, Kutiman is the Israel-born musician is known for his innovative 2009 release ThruYOU, an online music video project mixed from samples of YouTube videos. ThruYOU received more than 10 million views in the first weeks of launch and was named one of the best inventions of the year by TIME magazine.

The Kutiman-created holiday composition and video will be released on wineorchestra.com this week, supported by a multi-media campaign including outdoor boards, rich media online banners, print advertising and point of sale material.

Kutiman’s piece is a great gift from [yellow tail] to you, just in time for the holiday season.

The generosity runs a little deeper, too. For each submission from the May launch until September 30, [yellow tail] donated $1 to the Unison Benevolent Fund which helps musicians keep playing by offering financial assistance to anyone in the industry facing hard times.  Great Big Sea front man Alan Doyle joined the campaign to help support other Canadian musicians through Unison, and his own video is included among those created by [yellow tail] fans. Both Doyle and [yellow tail] were united in the desire to help musicians continue to colour our lives.

So go colour yours! Check out wineorchestra.com and put some ‘play’ in your day.

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Nissan Canada Mobile Virtual YouTube Showroom Now Available

October 30th, 2012 by Troy Forster

Nissan Altima in 360 degree view on Nissan Canada Mobile Virtual YouTube Showroom

I am so proud of our integrated team at TBWA\Toronto\DAN. After a lot of extremely hard work the efforts have paid off and I can talk openly about the amazing Nissan Canada Mobile Virtual YouTube Showroom. Google has now made it possible to host custom gadgets on YouTube’s mobile site and we have launched one of the first and definitely most comprehensive experiences.

By building on the deliberate modular architecture of the Nissan Showroom – already available on the non-mobile YouTube site and Facebook – we were able to deliver a similar experience tailored for mobile users. Like its desktop big brother the YouTube Mobile Showroom is 100% pure web using HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript. Because the Mobile Showroom does not use Flash or any other proprietary plugins it runs extremely well on iOS devices including both iPhone and iPad. It also runs very well on Android, YouTube’s other supported platform for mobile channels.

Achieving this was no simple task as mobile devices always present technical challenges due to their slower CPUs and lower memory compared to their laptop and desktop brethren. A non-trivial effort was expended to ensure performance on smartphones and tablets exceeded everyone’s expectations.

One of the biggest obstacles we had to overcome was delivering 360 degree views of 8 cars in 8 colours each. That’s a lot of data to send to a little phone and it exceeds the small cache size of many devices which eliminated pre-loading as a strategy. Numerous other creative solution approaches did not meet our performance requirements:

  • sending individual PNG frames required so many HTTP connections that the device all but imploded
  • creating one 360 per car and colourizing at runtime with canvas did not produce realistic enough results
  • placing all frames into a CSS sprite reduced the HTTP connections but the sprite itself was too big to load
  • loading the 360 as an MP4 video wouldn’t have worked since iPhone insists on running videos full screen in the built-in QuickTime player
  • reducing the number of frames was too choppy
  • converting to lossy and lower-quality JPG was not satisfactory for our discerning creative directors
  • WebGL support wasn’t strong enough
  • web workers didn’t have access to the DOM
  • data URIs were even larger than the compressed PNGs.

Our solution was actually quite simple in the end blending CSS sprites and animated PNGs. We found that optimal performance was achieved by creating 4 individual sprites each with enough frames to render 90 degrees of view. The number of HTTP connections was significantly reduced without creating any single image whose size choked at download.

There were numerous other technical challenges to overcome and they included: Simulating a native-like experience in multiple levels of iframes across domains inside YouTube while preserving multi-directional gestures and events; Scrolling the parent frame into view while simultaneously having no access or control of the parent frame.

Jake Edur, our lead software engineer on this project, had to dig deep into his bag of tricks as well as invent some new ones to achieve what many experts said couldn’t be done. Some of the technical highlights include:

  • Building a reusable, modular and event driven architecture (this means that the Mobile Showroom isn’t limited to living on just YouTube)
  • Creating a hybrid CSS sprite/PNG sequence animation framework that plays frames out of multiple sequential sprites
  • Using hardware accelerated 3D CSS
  • Custom gestures and events to work around nested cross-domain iframes

The Nissan YouTube Mobile Showroom is live. To view it simply navigate to http://www.youtube.com/nissancanada from your iOS or Android device.

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Texting in Canada

October 30th, 2012 by trevor.thomas

Sitting next to her wood burning stove on a cool fall evening, Jennifer carefully dipped her plume into the inkwell, gently blotting out the excess ink. She pondered her feelings before applying the ink to the page. After completing her message, she blew the ink dry and then tucked the paper into an envelope and addressed it, ensuring she had all the correct details. The next morning she would hurry to the post office and post the letter to her good friend, Amanda.

Weeks later, while tending to the washing, Amanda saw the postman coming up the drive. She hurried to meet him and was excited to find that he had a letter for her. The return address showed that it had come from her very best friend, Jennifer. She opened it carefully as she walked back up the drive, excited to hear the news from Jennifer. Unfolding the paper, she examined the beautifully written words:

“Hey! How’s life? We tots gotta hang soon! luv J ;) ”

The history of messages between friends has a long and storied past. And while the above exchange probably never actually happened, you can imagine just how difficult – and pointless – it would have been in days of yore to take the time to send but 140 characters in a correspondence.

Fast-forward to 2012, and see how much easier it is for Jennifer and Amanda to make plans!

What does this mean for marketing? There are two things to keep in mind: 1) SMS offers the largest possible reach in mobile marketing, and 2) SMS is extremely personal. There is, of course, a glaring contradiction in these two statements. And that is that mass communications and niche communications rarely if ever play nicely together. In this case, though, there is an important intersection.

Because SMS is available to such a huge segment of the Canadian population, the chances of your target being accessible by SMS is very good. So, the key to them being accepting of a text message from you is a strong bond with your brand. Essentially, they need to love you. If not, they may sign up for a contest, but then remove themselves as soon as the promotion ends. For an ongoing conversation, they need to see you as a friend. If you have this status as a brand, then a text message now and then will be welcomed by your audience.

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The 21st-Century Dad

October 26th, 2012 by trevor.thomas

Client: We’ve got a hot, new product that’s going to change life for families all across Canada by transforming housework from a chore to a joy!

Agency: Sounds exciting! Who are we targeting?

Client: We want to shout this far and wide, but make sure we focus specifically on our target: Dads.

Agency: Oh, you mean Moms.

When was the last time you briefed, or were briefed, on a product targeted at Dads? (Of course, we’ll need to omit to male mainstays of booze, cars and sports.)

Even in this age of modern-families and extreme-equality, we still follow the traditional marketing laws of women as caregiving, shopping, household managers and men as bread-winning, TV-watching, groundskeepers. While there’s no question that these stereotypes still exist, the rise of the modern woman and mother has also opened the door to the modern dad.

Who They Are

There are two key groups within this new set of dads: the Modern Married Dad, and the State-of-the-Art Single Dad, and each will force marketers to re-visit their communications strategies.

1) The Modern Married Dad: This group of dads is one that has evolved over time. As the role of women has shifted over time, these dads have adjusted their roles to take on more child-rearing and household responsibilities.

Typically younger (30-39), and urban, they are University educated and tend to work in management positions. These dads were raised by working mothers and expect that from their wives. That expectation is coupled with their acceptance of their role of a partner in the raising of their children and of household duties. More than any other group of Canadian men, these dads share the shopping responsibilities with their partners. They may still defer to mom in certain household decisions, but as the primary end-user of key products, they now have stronger opinions and influence over buying decisions.

2) The State-of-the-Art Single Dad: If the Modern Married Dad is an evolution in fatherhood, then this new single dad is a revolution. This dad is on his own and is the primary decision maker in the household. And the number of them continues to increase. From 2001 to 2006, there was a 14% increase in the number of single father households in Canada, up to 280,000. That number increased by 16.4% in 2011, bringing the number to 305,000.

Single dads are typically between the ages of 40-49 and have one child. He is likely to hold a trade certificate or diploma and work in a trade. They were very likely to be Modern Married Dads while still in their marriages, and they carry over those traits into single-fatherhood. But now, as the sole caregiver, they are responsible for all product research and shopping.

Where They Are

Acknowledging the existence of these two types of dads is a great first step, but now we must determine where they are and how best to communicate with them. While there are some similarities between the two groups, their relationship status creates some key differences that need to be recognized.

1) The Modern Married Dad: Like most young, urban men, these dads are constantly plugged in. They have multiple devices (PC, tablet, smartphone) and one, or more, is never far from reach. Like their partners, they are active social media users. There are 3.6 million Canadian men, between the ages of 30-39 on Facebook, over 394,000 of them are fathers and in a relationship. Unlike their partners, though, they use social media to observe. They will follow brands that they truly love, but are not the type to engage in contests or promotions.

2) The State-of-the-Art Single Dad: Slightly older than the Modern Married Dads, these dads also have a very different set of responsibilities. They have less time than the other group of dads, so spend less time online and on social for personal reasons, but still use multiple devices for news, shopping, information and business. They are also heavy TV watchers, and favour sports and news.

Regardless of who, or where, they are, a key similarity between these two types of dads is their growing resentment of mom-centric marketing. This was evidenced by the response to two recent ad campaigns by two CPG giants. The first, from Procter & Gamble, was entitled “Thank You, Mom”. It was developed for the 2012 Olympics and focused on all the hard work that moms put in to help raise Olympic athletes. Because of the campaign’s positive tone, it was successful, but that didn’t stop dads from around the world flooding message boards and comment sections with their disappointment of being portrayed as second-class. The second, from Huggies, took a far more negative tone in presenting the “Dad Test”, which left dads alone for five days while mom went off to be pampered. The premise was to see just how poorly the dads would fair when left to their own resources. A tidal wave of online petitions, Facebook comments and Twitter Posts forced Huggies to pull the campaign and issue an apology to dads everywhere.

The message is clear: these new dads exist and they are ready to be recognized. This may require some changes to your communications strategy, but faster you bring them into the fold, the larger the lead you’ll have on your competition.

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Perception, reality, and the space in between

October 11th, 2012 by Laura

Forgive me for relaying a story that has probably been forwarded to you several times by well-meaning friends and supporters, and those who take Oprah aphorisms very seriously. The story is a worthy one because it is true despite the way it might come across, and it speaks to something significant in our world. A brand’s message needs to be told in a way that the audience can see it, hear it, experience it, in order to resonate. A disconnect between the message and the audience — or, if the medium and message fail to align — results in precisely nothing. Simple enough in theory of course, but a harsh reality for paying clients.

Let this story be your cautionary tale.

A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousands of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.

Three minutes went by and a middle-aged man noticed there was musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried up to meet his schedule.

A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the till and without stopping continued to walk.

A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work.

The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy. His mother tagged him along, hurried but the kid stopped to look at the violinist.

Finally the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.

In the 45 minutes the musician played, only six people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.

No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the top musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars.

Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston and the seats averaged $100.

This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post in 2007 as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and priorities of people. The outlines of this particular experiment were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour: Do we perceive beauty?

Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context?

One of the possible conclusions from this experience could be: If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing?

Another conclusion would be that media artists must ensure the medium and message align in order to reach our audience, or they will simply walk on by and get on with their day without us.

By Tracy Nesdoly

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What Is The Difference Between Native and Web Apps On Mobile?

July 9th, 2012 by Troy Forster

Are you confused by all the talk of native this and web that when it comes to mobile apps? Don’t fret, you’re not the only one.

What makes native applications different from web applications?

The first differentiator between native and web applications is how they are programmed. Web apps are programmed using the same technologies as regular websites – HTML, CSS and JavaScript – and are thus device agnostic requiring just a contemporary browser. A single web app can be run on iPhones, Androids, Blackberries, Windows Mobile devices as well as Kindle Fires and some other esoteric devices.

A native application on the other hand is completely platform specific. Writing a native application to run on iPhone, Android and Blackberry would require three separate and specialized programming skill-sets.

If native application development costs so much why does anyone do it?

The second difference separating native and web apps is that of performance. An application that manipulates very large datasets or is graphically intensive such as a first person shooter game will benefit from the tighter integration with the CPU that native provides.

How are applications submitted and registered?

Native applications are downloaded and installed from the device’s app store and getting them into the stores often requires pre-registration as a developer, for a fee, followed by submitting the application for approval. The approval process takes time and if the application is rejected it will need to be re-programmed and resubmitted incurring big delays in getting to market. Web apps differ in that they are addressable with a simple URL just like a normal web page – no submission, approval or fee is required.

Having a native application in an app store can be highly beneficial. If an application is lucky enough to be featured it has the potential to become extremely popular generating a lot of notoriety and revenue (if it is not a free download). However, when competing with hundreds of thousands of other applications the chance of being featured is low and many applications get very little exposure as a result.

Web applications are not as easily monetized as native applications and require custom integration with payment gateways. This can take extra time during the development phase to implement. Often the additional cost is negated when compared to the 30% revenue share that some application stores require. Web applications also be made more discoverable by using good SEO practices to increase visibility in search engines, something that cannot be applied to native.

What about hardware access?

Surprisingly most of the hardware features found in mobile devices are accessible via web apps just as they are with native. Creating a web app that uses a phone’s GPS for positioning and it’s accelerometer to detect changes in orientation is very easy. And because web apps follow standards this code works across all platforms.

Not so surprisingly some hardware features are explicitly denied access from web applications. On some platforms access to the camera and file uploading is not available.  If you wish to create an application that requires access to the camera then you will need to develop it natively or use a 3rd party helper program such as Picup.

So which is the better model to develop my application?

Ultimately, the answer to that question must be determined on a case-by-case basis. The digital team at TBWA\ can help evaluate customize a solution best suited to your needs.


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Nissan Canada lights up the sky.

July 5th, 2012 by Laura

TBWA\ and Nissan Canada celebrated our Nation’s 145th birthday by adding a 3D holographic water show to fireworks displays in Toronto, Halifax, Ottawa and Vancouver.

Thousands of spectators were delighted by the innovative spectacle that showcased the all-new 2013 Nissan Altima!

The 3D water screen projection uses a submerged nozzle which sprays a thin fan of water 120-feet-wide and 60-feet-high, which acts as a screen and diffuses light, projecting images toward the audience taking in the show.

The 2013 Altima targets consumers aged 35 to 59, the prime group attending firework shows across the county with their families, says Judy Wheeler, Director of Marketing at Nissan Canada. Supporting components of the launch campaign include a new TV spot and a Postmedia takeover last week which used AR Layar technology similar to an Employee Pricing promotion earlier this month

View the 3D projection.

Read more from Strategy Magazine.

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Toronto named hub in TBWA’s new digital network

July 3rd, 2012 by Laura

As seen in Strategy Magazine.

TBWA Worldwide has tapped 700 of its specialists around the world to form a network of 19 offices – including Toronto – to unite their digital offerings.

The Digital Arts Network (DAN) will focus on digital initiatives such as e-commerce, social media, analytics and audience behaviour. The idea behind the new organizational structure is for clients to gain access to the best of both global and local digital talent.

“Say we need Java expertise, or a specific CMS tool. We don’t need to have it in-house because we can just reach out to Germany because Germany is doing CMS,” said Tasha Dean, head of production and digital director at TBWA\Toronto.

In Toronto, the DAN team will focus on social media and analytics. Some of the brands it works with include Gatorade, Nissan Infinity, KPMG and Yellow Tail.

In most cases, existing digital departments within TBWA offices will be rebranded as part of the Digital Arts Network and the DAN operations will operate as part of the local TBWA office.

Other markets to house DAN offices include Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, China, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, UAE, U.K. and the U.S.

Read more: http://strategyonline.ca/2012/06/22/toronto-named-hub-in-tbwas-new-digital-network/#ixzz1zZZltaXG

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A Wave of the Future: Gesture Based Banking

June 25th, 2012 by Laura
Etronika, a Lithuanian financial services app developer and consulting firm, has revealed an updated version of their gesture-based banking application. The app utilizes motion-sensor capabilities, allowing bank customers to use body gestures to complete online transactions. Instead of using passwords, biometrics such as as the user’s voice and face are used for login identification.
Using the 3D technologies from Kinect’s motion-sensing camera, the system tracks the depth and movement of customers as they interact with the screen. Etronika’s banking application also lets users speak commands as they swipe their arms to navigate through folders and select banking options. If a customer walks away from the Kinect sensor area, the session ends immediately. Cash transactions require the additional security measure of entering the PIN number via mobile device.
While the app is still in beta, Etronika ceo Kestutis Gardziulis says, “Theoretically our product is available now, but we still need a few months to finalize main building blocks of our solution. This includes security.”
View a demonstration of Etronika’s Banking App here.
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5 Ways Your Business Can Avoid a Twitter Faux Pas

June 25th, 2012 by Laura

Twitter can be a great tool for marketing your brand. Most companies are now using the social media platform to their advantage to drive deeper, more meaningful relationships with their customers.

While it may be a step in the right direction for your brand to invest in a Twitter account, the way in which that account is used must be carefully planned out.

We wanted to share the following tips to ensure your tweets don’t become more detrimental than helpful.

1. Keep It Short and Sweet

Try to keep posts as short and as relevant to your followers as possible.. When working with 140 characters or less, the idea is not to pitch your business but rather to genuinely engage with your customers.  This is where a strong social media content strategy can be of assistance. Ultimately, try to make the quality of your tweets exceptional. The better the tweet, the more it will engage your audience and be re-tweeted. In effect, there will be more exposure for your brand overall.

2. Know Who Your Brand Is

Its all about Brand behavior. As such, it is integral that the individuals responsible for running your Twitter feed understand your Brand. This includes tone and manner of who your brand is as well as who it isn’t.  Twitter is your brand’s opportunity to express your tone of voice for your brand and is representative in their own terms. Take advantage of this and make a Twitter profile sincere, and true to your Brand character.

3. Don’t Be Faceless

This tip goes hand in hand with knowing your Brand. Don’t supply robotic answers to questions, even if they have been asked multiple times and try not to post these same responses to all your followers every day. Also, remember Twitter is an engagement tool. In which case, try to avoid including posts with useless messages or mindless pitches for the company that have little value to your followers. Instead of engaging with customers this may lead users to un-following your account.

4. Be Helpful

Where possible, try to offer great customer service via Twitter by answering user questions and even dabbling in conversations that apply to your brand. For example, many tea connoisseurs will reach out to DavidsTea regarding new products and new store openings.  The brand does an excellent job with quick, engaging responses, for example:

By making connections between tweets a company can build credibility within the social media world.

5. Get Help From TBWA!

TBWA Pirates are experts in the world of social media and can further a business’ interests via platforms like Twitter. They are successful at fostering conversations between companies and their target audience.

Keep in mind, Twitter is a great way to get a company’s message across on a large scale, but make sure to keep your messages genuine to create a lasting relationship with potential customers.

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