Top 100 Brands list (Nielsen) has just been published by Checkout. A freshly printed copy arrived on my desk this morning. A massive well done to Coca-Cola who have held the number one position for the last five years. A superb achievement and a business we have been extremely proud to partner. And Tayto, rising from number 10 in 2008, to number 5 in 2010. A tremendous achievement too. Well done to DDFHB for boosting Brennan’s position from number 4 to number 3, to Irish International BBDO for their work in moving Avonmore’s position and to QMP Publicis for shooting Cadbury up the league from number 9 to number 6. I know it isn’t marketing alone that helps to boost these positions, but clearly it is a contributing factor.
Above: Coca-Cola ‘Open Happiness’ eBoy campaign by McCann Erickson Dublin. See original post here.
Above: Tayto autobiography of Mr. Tayto ‘The Man Inside the Jacket’ – The book concept was developed by McCann Erickson Dublin. The book has sold over 60,000 copies and was a Christmas number 1. See original post here.
Saturday night’s opening X-Factor saw massive viewership figures, the highest ever - with 730,000 people tuning into the show. This made TV3 the most watched channel for 15-44 year olds in Ireland for that time period. In Universal McCann, we always pride ourselves on the strength of our client’s programme access. The ‘Coca-Cola with Food’ campaign had prime position in the first centre break with ‘first-in-break’ access.
Certainly one of the highlights of the Saturday’s show was Shirlena Johnson with ‘Mercy’. This year’s X-Factor is set to be bigger and better than ever… tune in this Saturday at 19.30 and 20.45 for the Xtra-Factor!
The task was to bring this beautifully shot Coke TV advert to life in outdoor. This was a great chance to do something different and Coca-Cola were really excited with the idea of producing outdoor specials. With the help of our special builds hero Colin Doyle from Eclipse Lighting, we created 48 sheets where the characters from the TV ad are literally stealing the Coke bottles off the 48 sheet.
We created 3D models of our adorable yet mischievous bugs plus a huge 3D Coke bottle to maximize impact. When these elements were added to the vibrant spring look and feel of the TV ad, we were left with really colourful, eye catching and memorable outdoor ads that literally ‘steal’ your attention (no pun intended). A big thanks to everyone involved.
We’re delighted to learn that not only has our eboy Coca-Cola ‘Open Happiness’ campaign been featured in Computer Arts Magazine Issue 132 - ’A Decade of Design’, but the campaign has also been selected for inclusion in their ‘Book of Inspiration’ - a collection of the world’s foremost digital art, design and illustration.
‘The Book of Inspiration’ by Computer Arts.
There is still a high level of interest in the ‘Open Happiness’ campaign and an ongoing fascination with eboy’s illustration around the globe. You can read the Computer Arts interview with eboy here. View our original blog post on the Coca-Cola ‘Open Happiness’ campaign with eboy here, and watch our ‘Making of’ video here.
We stumbled upon a unique concept design this week by Dzmitry Samai - for 330ml Coca-Cola cans. The design uses a process called ‘impact extrusion’. You can read the full story here.
We also found some cool Coca-Cola ads from around the world, from various decades, and some ingenious special builds.
A fantastic review of brands that are performing in Ireland is covered by the Checkout Top 100 brands issue out this week. I grabbed a copy with the first thing I checked – how were the brands we work on, doing, in this latest round up. Coca-Cola continue to dominate and have held the number one position for the last five years. Having worked, as an agency, with Coca-Cola for the last fifteen years at McCann, I thought about what makes them this successful, and so consistently.
Aengus King, our Powerade client, talks about our current campaign:
If there is one thing that makes time move quickly it is working on a Never Give Up Powerade campaign. The structure of the campaign means we are always either planning a campaign, recruiting or interviewing candidates for it, or filming them for the next TV ad. This year we are following two lads and a girl as they train to complete a marathon in the Alps at altitude. That’s 26 miles at altitude… the first ten miles are uphill… the race is scheduled to take up to 10 hours to complete… jaysus!
We’ve been getting a great response to our Coca-Cola ‘Open Happiness’ eboy campaign with a lot of people curious as to how it was created, here’s a short video that shows the development from initial pencil sketch to final artwork which we hope you’ll enjoy!
Our Belfast and Dublin cities will also be featured in a book on illustration by publisher’s Laurence King, so watch this space!
We have just posted Coke’s ‘Open Happiness’ eboy outdoor campaign and we are more than happy about it!
Eboy Dublin outdoor ran last year and was loved by teens – in fact the response was so strong Coke posted hundreds of posters to die-hard Coke fans. Teens connected with the fact that their city was given such local relevance especially by a big global brand like Coca Cola; so with this in mind we commissioned eboy Galway, Cork and Belfast illustrations.
Fantastic news! Last Thursday night, McCann Erickson and Coca-Cola Ireland won the best Advertising Campaign of the year for 2008 at the Marketing Institute AIM awards.
That’s Aengus (our Sprite client) in the background picking up the award. That’s Jono (from our Media department) in the foreground giving the rarely seen ‘double thumbs-up’ sign.
This is our second win for CCI at the AIM awards in two years – some achievement.
Sprite ‘JD Quench’ beat competition from Premier Foods (Erin), Diageo (Guinness and Carlsberg) and Hibernian Aviva (Launch Campaign) to win the award for best Ad Campaign.
This has been such a fun project to work on from start to finish – beginning with the Thirst Never Wins Online / TV work last summer and now with this print campaign.
Creating an imaginary back catalogue for J.D. Quench just makes me laugh. I love the idea that this forgotten giant of D-Movies appears to have spent his entire career in a series of Sprite Film Productions with entirely similar plots.
‘Mouth of Fire’ takes J.D. to the Orient. In my mind the film was shot in Chinatown, L.A. in 1973; they never would have had the budget to travel. No doubt J.D. himself would have put in at least two days martial arts training in advance of filming (he was never a great believer in ‘method’ acting). The plot would have revolved around J.D. overcoming a nasty Chinese ‘T.H.I.R.S.T.’ gang with his specially adapted Sprite nunchuck - all accompanied by very, very loud; very, very badly synched sound effects.
‘The Elemonator’ would have been much maligned on release but then go on to be considered a hugely influential Sci-Fi classic when re-assessed years later. Here J.D. is sent back, from the future, to 1974 (conveniently!). His mission would have been to prevent an alternative global future where people would have been denied the thirst quenching qualities of Sprite forever: something just not worth thinking about.
I would guess there might have been some groundbreaking (read: really dodgy) special effects throughout.
Movie credits where they are due - these posters were illustrated by Bruce Emmett through the Folio Illustration Agency in London.
The idea behind the JD Quench campaign we recently created for Sprite, was born out of the global positioning of Sprite as “The Nemesis of Thirst”.
This seemed like a great starting point for a brand strong on thirst quenching and refreshment credentials. The challenge facing the McCann team, was how to make a brilliant brand story from it.
Armed with a simple but wide open idea, the creative team, closet fans of the world of 70’s Blaxploitation movies, imagined a world where a maverick cop (J D Quench) cleaned up the streets of 1970’s LA and took on the T.H.I.R.S.T gang with his trusty Sprite weapons.
The big leap they asked us all to take was that we had to imagine there was actually a movie shot in the 70’s based on this premise and that our entire campaign for Sprite would essentially be the film trailers for a movie that never existed.
Shot in LA by director Charley Stadler (who we actively encourage any of you to work with for his uniquely blend of German efficiency and chaos), the JD Quench campaign breaks every rule possible – Bad acting, bad camera work, awful direction, wooden casting, atrocious editing and a rubbish sound mix. It took some great work to make the finished product this bad.
But in the spirit of the idea it works and kudos to our clients Sharon Walsh and Aengus King who supported us all along the journey. The end product looks so dreadful that it’s something to be proud of.
Within a few months, the results are testament to a great effort by all involved.
Enjoyment scores for Sprite advertising jumped from 70% to 94%. “Makes the brand more appealing” indicators moved from 70% to 81%.*
61% of consumers felt that advertising made the brand more appealing (vs 51% norm).*
57% felt that it was a campaign you would talk about (vs 37% norm).*
The campaign has contributed to a 5.9% increase in Sprite growth by Q3 2008 compared to a 6% decline on the part of 7-Up.**
* Millward Brown ** AC Nielsen
And as if to prove effective work = creative glory, the JD Quench campaign was honoured with a Kinsale Shark award and three ICAD bells.
Top 100 Brands list (Nielsen) has just been published by Checkout. A freshly printed copy arrived on my desk this morning. A massive well done to Coca-Cola who have held the number one position for the last five years. A superb achievement and a business we have been extremely proud to partner. And Tayto, rising from number 10 in 2008, to number 5 in 2010. A tremendous achievement too. Well done to DDFHB for boosting Brennan’s position from number 4 to number 3, to Irish International BBDO for their work in moving Avonmore’s position and to QMP Publicis for shooting Cadbury up the league from number 9 to number 6. I know it isn’t marketing alone that helps to boost these positions, but clearly it is a contributing factor.
