Archive for the ‘Advertising’ Category

Give me wine, a little music…

Friday, November 2nd, 2012

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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Texting in Canada

Tuesday, October 30th, 2012

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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Gold at Digital Marketing Awards

Thursday, November 3rd, 2011

Last night we won Gold at the Digital Marketing awards for our Accessible Media documentary “Jeff’s Day” in the Online Video category. A great award for great work!

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Facebook Agency Olympics

Thursday, October 27th, 2011

Wednesday Oct 26, 2011

Well, it was that time of year again. Facebook held Canada’s second annual Agency Olympics at the Hoxton this year. Agencies competed against each other in games of skill…well, er, skills in drinking. Kevin Cornista was nominated captain which meant Kevin got to rally the team together and decide on a team uniform. And so, the black turtleneck became the uniform of choice. I heard that TBWA\Toronto did quite well until it was time to actually play other teams. Here are some pictures that sum up the night quite well.




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Ad Buzz Interviews PepsiCo’s Marketing Director

Monday, November 22nd, 2010

Tom Ritchie of Ad Buzz met with TBWA\TORONTO client, Julie Raheja-Perera, PepsiCo’s Director of Marketing – Hydration, to discuss agency / client partnerships, collaboration and understanding the consumer and the brand.

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Some unique companies…

Thursday, November 18th, 2010

The Eiffel Tower looking up from below - an alternative view.

“You lack Canadian experience…” is a phrase I was used to hearing from employers looking to hire people for their so called “open-minded” and “culturally diversified” corporations.

Fortunately that didn’t stop me as a newcomer to Canada from being persistent in searching for the right place to work. Sending resumes to a whole bunch of companies, calling to follow up, spending hours on LinkedIn, going to networking events… Unfortunately, every email reply, every phone call, every interview ended with the famous phrase: “…But you don’t have Canadian experience.”

For someone who has been in the marketing communications industry and who has worked for multi-national corporations for almost 10 years, I felt there was something wrong with the answer I kept getting. But I couldn’t figure out what it was until one day while being interviewed by a company, the interviewer expressed interest in my profile because he said I had international experience, he also said,

“We always look for interestED and interestING people who not only are eager to work with us but who are also excited about bringing something new to the table…”

As much as I was pleased to hear that, I was also surprised that there really are companies open to other cultures and different ways of thinking. An attitude that sets them far ahead of other companies afraid to take chances and explore alternative ways of doing things.

My two cents for all internationally experienced professionals who are new to Canada, and who have a great passion and a strong drive to succeed: Whoever doesn’t hire you because you don’t have Canadian experience, you wouldn’t want to be working for them anyway. Instead, search for those companies that have a culture that embraces new and different people, and yes, there are still a few out there.

It’s worth mentioning that the interview I’m talking about was with TBWA\TORONTO, known to many as an advertising agency, but in reality it’s a true Disruption & Media Arts Company.

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Energizer – Don’t Die Too Soon

Friday, November 12th, 2010

The Energizer “Don’t Die Too Soon” campaign starring Clickity Camera, Flickity Flashlight, Kenny Controller and Ricky Remote recently launched on the Energizerca YouTube channel to educate consumers about “the right battery for the right device”. Building on the fact that the there’s nothing worse than a device dying on you during its big moment and inspired by 70’s and 80’s animation, the TBWA\TORONTO team created these four fun spots.

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TBWA Shines at ADCC Awards

Monday, November 8th, 2010
TBWA\Toronto and TBWA\Vancouver combined to win three Golds and four Silvers at the 2010 Advertising and Design Club of Canada Awards in Toronto. It’s Canada’s most prestigious awards competition and the only one to use an entirely international jury.
Toronto scooped Gold for TV Public Service for the Stayin’ on the Road campaign for MADD. Kudos to James Ansley, Denise Cole and Nadya MacNeil.
Toronto also tallied two Silvers: one for the Nissan Sentra SE-R “Drift” multimedia advertising campaign. A tip of the Trilby to Allen Oke, Mark Mason, James Ansley, Nadya MacNeil and Lindsay Hutchison. The other Silver was for our Petro Canada Olympic Wave special event. Congratulations to Vanessa Birze and Scott Patton.
Thanks also must go to the amazing account management and planning teams who helped to make this smart work and to our clients who are confident in taking the creative leap.
Our friends at TBWA\Vancouver shone, too: two Golds (Okanagan Springs radio campaign and BC Lottery), and two Silvers (Okanagan Springs and Tourism Yukon).
Additionally, TBWA was the only agency to get hardware for different clients in every media category from digital to radio. Which is nice given our Media Arts philosophy that requires a deep understanding of how audiences digest media and the various crafts we can use to tell brand stories.
Congratulations to all.
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Tasha Talks Digital

Monday, November 8th, 2010

TBWA\TORONTO’s Director of Digital Media, Tasha Dean, discusses all that’s great about working in digital.

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Ad Buzz Tours TBWA\TORONTO

Friday, November 5th, 2010

The lovely and talented Tasha Dean, Director of Digital Media Arts, shows off our office while discussing what’s great about TBWA\TORONTO.

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