Massive Melrose Arch takeover for Tropika

Ever placed a drink in a subdued square with a sign saying “Take a sip” and simply waited to see what would happen? Neither have we!

So it was a first for everyone when bikini-clad dancers, fire-breathers and Kenyan acrobats took over Melrose Square on Thursday, 5 July 2012. The flash mob, which was for the launch of the hit local TV show Tropika Island of Treasure 5, dazzled onlookers, who had no idea what was about to happen on that quiet Thursday evening.

The square, which is central to some of the busiest restaurants at Melrose Arch, sat quiet while the surrounding restaurants bustled with diners. Just after 5.30pm, a formally dressed waiter strolled out onto the square and set a table, complete with a rose in a vase, and poured a glass of Tropika before putting up a sign next to it with the words, “Take a sip”. He only had to wait briefly for someone to heed the call. A man nearby walked up and took a sip of the Tropika – and boom! That was when the magic happened.

Roxana Bouwer, who witnessed the flash mob while enjoying dinner at a nearby eatery, was caught by surprise, “We had no idea what was going on at first but it was really fun. The music was great, the dancing was beautiful. It was happy chaos! There were smiles everywhere – Tropika made our night.”

The show was conceived by creative agency 7Dffrnt Knds of Smke and produced by Spiral Productions.

Ryan Gandalf van Jaarsveld, strategic director on the project said, “Everyone knows that the new media space is synonymous with choice, a place where content is social currency and the audience view/ share content because they want to, and not because they have to. This means that whatever you do has to stand out and be BIG. Often brands forget that the consumer watching the multi-million rand TV ad or driving past the mega-format building wrap is the same person searching for cool stuff on Youtube or mobile web. It is awesome working with a client who gets this and has the balls to push the limit. The risk on this campaign was big. There was no practicing in the square beforehand. It was performed once, live, no retakes. Respect to the client, Spiral Productions and our team for making this happen. Hopefully this inspires other brands – those you would expect to see doing this kind of stuff - to start pushing it as well.”

For 7Dffrnt Knds of Smke:

Neil Clarence - Creative Director

Ryan Gandalf van Jaarsveld - Strategic Director

Jonathan Corns – Art Director

Andy Bam - Copywriter

For Spiral Productions:

Josh Linberg - Director

Olga Grigorova – Producer

See exactly what went down that evening by watching the video below:

Nedbank gets personal with Facebook connect app

As they say in 1985’s Back to the Future, “Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.”
And we don’t need time machines either. 7Dffrnt Knds of Smke takes you on a journey of your future with their interactive Facebook application for Nedbank.

Nedbank wanted to show students on the brink of their university careers the possibility of a life where they have been smart about money, and can enjoy the rewards.

They already had a channel called “Sam”, a persona embodying a youth who is “Smart About Money”, with the message that within each and every young person, there is the potential to be this “Sam”. The next step was to deliver this message at Orientation Week at universities across the country.

7Dffrnt Knds of Smke was approached by Nedbank to come up with a solution for O Week with an interactive way to engage new students visiting the campus. The goal was not only to stand head and shoulders above the other banks at the banking mall, but to speak to students in their language. It was well received at O Week and increased Nedbank’s Facebook fans by 300 per cent.

Getting personal

7Dffrnt Knds of Smke devised an application which connected to Facebook. The idea was that students using the app would be posed the question, “Who is Sam?” and be taken on a journey to find out for themselves who exactly Sam is.

“Our objective was to make students realise that they could be smart about money, through a personal experience with Nedbank”, says Ryan Gandalf van Jaarsveld, MD 7Dffrnt Knds of Smke.

The application used, with the user’s permission, photos from their Facebook profile to put together a video that showed their future, a montage of graduation, weddings, first cars, first houses and more.  As each user watches the video, it becomes increasingly clear who Sam is, ending off with the line, “Do you recognise Sam?” and the user’s profile picture. Neil Clarence, Creative Director at 7Dffrnt Knds of Smke explains, “We’ve all seen hundreds of corporate videos or commercials that deal with banking products. What none of our target market had experienced was a video that they themselves starred in.”

For each user that watched the video, there was a unique variation of it, turning it into something truly personal and saying to students that they too can be Smart About Money with Nedbank. The real trick was the creative behind the video. “The script writing was critical,” explains Clarence, “It had to be generic enough to work with each photo pulled in by the app, but at the same time personal enough that it engaged the viewer. It was an intense writing job but I think we nailed it perfectly. The students’ responses only prove this.”

Once the user had watched the video, the application would post an update on their Facebook wall, sharing the link to the app and inviting others to try it out for themselves. It spread from one user to the next, but the real success came at the Orientation Week banking stalls, where Nedbank attracted a constant stream of curious students.

Ditch the DeLorean and find out for yourself how bright your future could be by visiting www.WhoIsSam.co.za

Mondays at 7DKS

So this was yesterday at 7DKS headquarters...

Tropika’s Easter video marries online and mobile

Over the Easter weekend, thousands of South Africans were treated to a surprise video sent to their phones, wishing them a happy holiday from Tropika. This charming and funny animated clip featured a play on the word “Easter”, and showed viewers a little peek at the Easter Island statues.

These famous head statues (known as ‘moai’) were given a breath of life as the stars of the video. They wake up after thousands of years of silence, and suddenly break into song, Acapello style. In walk a group of tourists and catch the statues in the act, and what ensues is a hilarious combination of bright camera flashes, a rabbit and a cameo from a very famous international playboy and his bunny-eared female companions. Neil Clarence, Creative Director at 7Dffrnt Knds of Smke (the ad agency responsible for this campaign), explains, “Tropika wanted to wish consumers a happy Easter, so with that in mind, we wanted to create something a bit different, with a play on the word ‘Easter’ and a tropical island look and feel.”

Not only was the video sent to consumers, but it was also uploaded to Youtube on a newly-launched and specially designed Tropika Easter Island Youtube channel.

Comments were endlessly positive, with viewers expressing their genuine love for the video and quoting the words from the song. Mobile and online met seamlessly to deliver a truly engaging campaign.

Ryan van Jaarsveld, Managing Director of 7Dffrnt Knds of Smke explains, “Since the first TV ad aired in 1955, brands have spent millions on producing their little piece of Hollywood and engaging audiences while glued to the box. A picture speaks a thousand words and it screams a thousand more when it moves. The Internet has changed the way consumers communicate, interact and share information forever. When print evolved into TV back in the 50s, brands had the opportunity to capture the imaginations of their target audience like never before. However, the cost of getting people to see the ad was and always will be expensive. There are over 5,000,000 Youtube users in South Africa. Everyone has a mobile phone. This gives brands the opportunity to engage a much wider audience for a fraction of the cost.”

7Dffrnt Knds of Smke recognised the value of Youtube and jumped on the opportunity to share this video with South Africans via this online medium. It was well received – not only with high views (it was awarded Youtube Honours for being one of the most viewed videos of the month in South Africa) but also by the consumers themselves. The proof is in the comments, such as “Addicted to this ad… lol good job guys.” The video was also pushed to specific targets using Youtube media. Ryan explains the process, “Youtube media was used to target consumers matching the Tropika demographic in South Africa. We targeted people based on their interests, what type of videos they watch and linked everything to the kinds of keywords one would expect users to enter (Easter, holidays, funny, rabbit, etc). We then set the maximum amount we were willing to pay per view and made sure that the Tropika video would be shown before other brands during the campaign. Anyone matching these targeting criteria would see the video.”

Not only were people commenting on the Youtube channel itself, but bloggers even embedded the video onto their websites. This is a huge honour: it means that these bloggers wanted to show their own audience the content. These bloggers had a lot of love for the video: “Listen to the lyrics carefully – they’ll have you in stitches!” 

Another blogger quoted the lyrics to the song in her blog post. The video was even found embedded on a blog from Korea. Ryan continues, “Online social networks like Youtube allow us to engage these audiences from wherever they are, whenever they go online and everything is integrated with platforms like Facebook, Twitter and mobile. A recent survey asked consumers between the age of 18 and 35 which item they could go without, their TV or mobile phone. 95 per cent said they would rather lose their TV than their phone. We were very pleased with the results. Within four days the Tropika Easter video became the 24^th most viewed video in South Africa with a total of 48, 519 views at an average of R2.06 cost per view.”

Figure 1: Youtube video views over Easter weekend

Not only did consumers get to see the ad online, but it was also placed into the palms of their hands with an MMS sent to them over the Easter holiday weekend.  This was a shortened and compressed version of the video, which ended with a link to the Youtube version. “The MMS was also a great success. 15 per cent of recipients clicked on the link and watched the full video on Youtube. The average industry click through rate from SMS or MMS is between one and 2.5 per cent,” says Ryan.

Users could also access the video using a QR code scanner on their phones. QR codes are square designs that contain certain bits of information. When scanned, they open that information, be it a link to a website or contact details. 7Dffrnt Knds of Smke created a sticker with a specially-designed QR code using the Tropika colours and logo. When scanned, it took the user straight to the mobile version of the Youtube video.

All these elements were combined to bring together a campaign for a video that was seen by thousands of people across South Africa. It was not only seen, but it was loved, cementing Tropika into the hearts and minds of the consumers. This is the perfect example of what happens when fantastic creative, as well as brilliant use of the technology available combine to deliver something that stands out amongst the rest.

Check out the video and the channel here http://www.youtube.com/tropikaeasterisland

We welcome 2 new Padawans to the 7s team

7DKS is always looking out for the most talented peeps to join our ranks. This week we welcomed Jono and Bam, our new Art Director and Copywriter respectively.

QR codes – the little blocks that are taking over

If you’re noticing more than usual that QR codes are popping up everywhere, it’s not your imagination. These little black and white (and sometimes other coloured) block designs are everywhere: on billboards; print ads and even on street art.

Some hugely successful QR code campaign have included MyToys, an online toy retailer in Germany, who made QR code billboards made entirely out of Lego blocks. The boards were colourful, 3D and of course, got people onto the MyToys website with their mobile phones. Each QR code board was unique, and once scanned it revealed some imaginative ideas about they could do with a Lego box.

The campaign inspired consumers to open their minds to the possibilities Lego offers as a toy, and got them buying Lego boxes from the MyToy website.

Turquoise Cottage, a popular bar and venue in New Delhi, India, created the Buddy Stamp, a QR code stamped onto patrons wrists when they entered the door. For one night only, the QR code led to time-sensitive content, with drink specials until 10pm, and then details for cab services from 10pm to 6am. The campaign was a huge success, and got patrons scanning the stamp on their wrists left right and centre.

These are some fantastic ways that companies overseas are implementing QR codes. Locally, they can be found in more and more places, including in restaurants, on menus, on billboards and there are some awesome custom-designed codes coming up in print advertising.

The trick with a QR code is that you’re not forcing someone to see the information behind it, but rather inviting them to find out more. It’s cool and mysterious, and in the instant the QR code is seen, a relationship is established between the viewer and the brand.

So locally, where to from here? If you haven’t got QR code scanner for your smartphone, download one by browsing the Android market, Apple App Store, Blackberry App World, or simply Google for it in your phone’s browser and download it from there. To create a QR code, you can use a URL shortener like Goo.gl or a QR code generator like this one.

Put a bird on it.

We're 7Dffrnt Knds of Smke, and we put birds on things!

It's amazing how much better stuff looks when you put a bird on it. Doors, phones, computers, even people, get a breath of fresh invigoration when a simple bird silhouette is added to its design.

We're 7 Dffrnt Knds of Smke, and we put birds on things!

On phones

On paintings

Project Glass

We're super excited about Google's Project Glass! Google's Android glasses are looking amazing, giving you an augmented reality in real time. See video calls in front of your eyes, get your emails, guide your way with Google maps and more.
Check out the video to see what it's all about.

The latest news from 7DKS

The past month has been a crazy one for 7Dffrnt Knds of Smke! Lots of changes have been happening at our HQ, including a move to a shiny new office as well as an addition to our team. Here's our latest news.

The big move

We went from our humble open-plan office to a new, top floor office over looking Greenside, complete with fake grass, comfy couches and amazing views.
You can now find the whole 7s team at office 202, Greenside Quarter, 10 Gleneagles Rd, Greenside.

Our studio before the 7s moved in with  our Superman posters, Batgirl figurines, and lightsabers.

Our street! 

How to end off a successful moving day? Cocktails at The Office, of course.

Welcome Jenna!

The 7s team welcomes a new addition to our team: Jenna Adkins! We hope Jenna will be very happy here. Jenna will be managing our projects and accounts for us. Today is Jenna's first day and we very much hope we got her coffee order right.

In other news...

- Mobyaffiliates added us to their list of top mobile ad agencies!
- Our very own Neil is in the February/March issue of The Journal of Marketing doing a rather impressive bicep curl with The Annual 2011/2012.

Neil in the Feb/March issue of The Journal of Marketing

- The folks at The Journal of Marketing interviewed Ryan this week. Thanks Sabrina!
- You can catch Ryan speaking at Mobile Marketing Africa which is happening from the 25 - 26 April 2012, at the Hilton Hotel in Sandton.

Whyyyyy???? The Tantrum

Brilliant video - when you work in advertising, you're obsessed with advertising

The birth of a Lego Millenium Falcon

Via Cnet: This realistic animated video shows a Millenium Falcon, from the Star Wars movies, being assembled using more than 5000 lego blocks.

Lego Millennium Falcon Stop Motion Assembly 3d from Francisco Prieto on Vimeo.

Our guru talks social networking on Wednesday

7Dffrnt Knds of Smke's very own Ryan Gandalf van Jaarsveld will be one of the speakers at this year's 8 Gurus Talk Social Networking on Wednesday in Cape Town.

The conference opens at 8.30am and Ryan will be speaking at 3.30pm on The Power of Viral.

Follow Ryan on Twitter here.
Follow 7DKS for more updates like these here.

For those asking where our name comes from...

Skip to 1:10!

Dubstep hipster cat!

stereo skifcha from xgabberx on Vimeo.

Five steps to achieving viral reach on mobile: Step Four

Step number four: Use video

By Ryan Gandalf van Jaarsveld, MD 7Dffrnt Knds of Smke

I love video, it’s such a simple media to share and it engages so many senses. I understand why ATL, and TV specifically, has been the Biff since the 40’s. The beautiful stories told by brands in 30 seconds – just look at some of the awesome work by Allan Gray and I really enjoyed Emoticon Boy last year - Velocity you are the business!

As mentioned in my first article in this series we started Seven because we wanted to change the game in this highly technical space by merging left and right brain thinking. We wanted to start the first mobile only advertising agency and deliver sick campaigns with the kind of viral reach that would make keyboard cat fall of his chair (if he was still alive today). In order for us to do that we would have to have video as part of our service offering.

Of course lots of mobile marketing agencies have been doing video on mobile for some time now though when I say do video, I am not talking about syndicated content that’s formatted for mobile and slapped onto a mobi site for download with some nasty branded wallpapers and a ringtone of a celebrity saying, “You’re freaky but I like you a lot”. No, I am talking about the kind of stuff you see on TV, but on your phone (and more suited for viral).

So when I chat to people they often ask the same questions about video. They are either struggling with the technical side of it or they are having problems compressing it or they don’t know where to go for the production. So I would like to use this article to share some of our learnings with you.

Let’s start with Production.

Masters and Savant. Their team is awesome and they have done some excellent, award winning work (they have great biltong too!). We got them to produce a video for a Tropika MMS we did for Christmas. 

We’re also working with them on some killa stuff for Cell C, when it’s up I will share the link.

Velocity. These guys are brilliant – we are working with them on some awesome stuff for Nedbank which is still due to go live so I can’t share a link, though their ability to tell a story and create amazing viral content is outstanding.

Pollen.  Great team, very diverse, with their fingers tightly on the pulse. They handle everything from animation, design, augmented reality and shooting. They put all the animation together for us on our latest campaign with Nedbank. www.WhoIsSam.co.za

Alight Productions. Great company for shoots. Alight have worked with us on a number of mobile campaigns. Really good with stuff for sport. 

What all these guys have in common is that they take the original idea and make it fly – they push the concept and make it work.

Once you have produced the epic piece it’s time to start making it work for mobile. This can be tricky as you need to adapt the content for different handsets. You are going to want to allow consumers to stream it from a mobi site and download it. For the mobi site side of things YouTube is a really awesome tool and provides a solid API. Link this in with the current technology you are using for content adaptation and you should be a winner. One thing you have to make sure of is that you cater for Flash, HTML5, RTSP and download. RTSP stands for Real Time Streaming Protocol which means playing the video using the phone’s native video player.

Before you start embedding the video onto your site you are going to have to compress everything. This is vital as you don’t want large files (buffering sucks!). For MMS don’t produce anything longer than 20 seconds and cater for a screen size of 176 x 144. Your FPS should be set to 15 and your bitrate should be 40KB/s. Use a 3GP codec when converting. With these settings you will be able to compress a video to 250kb with crystal clear quality. When it comes to download you can have a higher resolution. Fiddle with the FPS and bitrate until your file size is around 500kb – you can go higher though always think about the download costs for the consumer.

With streaming you can upload a video of around 10mb – YouTube will handle the compression on the fly.

The one thing I obviously can’t cover in this article is how you come up with the idea for your video. Follow the steps in the first article and make sure the person conceptualising the piece is not a techie or strategist otherwise you are going to end up with something most people will consider lame and probably see as spam.

For me the main objective of using video is to increase the value proposition for the consumer, the brand and the agency. If we do not focus on ways to make campaigns more engaging they will not become more viral and mobile will continue being the ugly step child.

Remember, a mobile phone is a viral channel – if a campaign does not achieve viral reach then it’s because the campaign was not engaging. The consumer is in control – give them something cool and they will pass it on.

Today! Star Wars Episode I in 3D

Put a bird on it!

Probably one of the funniest videos we've watched lately. Towards the end of 2011 we came across this clip from the TV series Portlandia and since then, we've just wanted to put birds on things. Put a bird on it!

What we're amped for this week

So we at 7DKS are a bunch of geeks. We're into everything from Star Wars to Superman and our HQ is proof of that.
So when the new Avengers trailer came out we gave a unified "squee" - like a bunch of fangirls.

Check out the trailer here!

Image: Blogworld.com

Who is Sam?

We recently worked on a Facebook connect app with Nedbank for their campaign aimed at the youth, Smart About Money (SAM).
The video takes the viewer on a journey through what their future could be: new car, a house, trips overseas and most of all, the financial freedom to have time to do the things they love.
The video connects to Facebook and uses (with their permission) the viewers Facebook photos.

So if you want to find out who Sam is, why not take the journey yourself at www.whoissam.co.za

Five steps to achieving viral reach on mobile: Step Three

Don’t play it safe

By Ryan Gandalf van Jaarsveld, MD 7Dffrnt Knds of Smke

When we receive a brief and the client wants to achieve viral reach we know that the one sure way to tell if we are doing our job is if the client has that look in their eyes that says they’re scared. It’s rare for the client to move ahead regardless. To put themselves aside and realise they aren’t necessarily their target market. As they say – no guts, no glory!

We all know the feeling we get when we pass something on via e-mail, SMS or word of mouth and the person/ people receiving it have a reaction similar to what we experienced when we first saw it.

For a moment we have been able to add value, change a perception, entertain or educate – ultimately have an impact on the recipient’s life, and get the credit for it.

What’s interesting is that we don’t only pass on funny stuff like

“Badger” http://youtu.be/EIyixC9NsLI or

“Baby laughing hysterically at ripping paper” http://youtu.be/RP4abiHdQpc

but also share serious matters like “I have something to tell you…” http://youtu.be/OkoPQwYL9ys or ridiculous, bordering on insane stuff like “Leave Britney alone” http://youtu.be/kHmvkRoEowc.

How many motivationals, Fails, remember the 80’s, clever inventions and presentations on 3D pavement art have you received and passed on via e-mail, how many times have you had someone Bluetooth a video or image to you or send you a link to something via SMS that you viewed immediately because it came from a trusty source?

And the numbers are mental – “Charlie bit my finger” is sitting at over 411 million views on YouTube! Die Antwoord’s “Enter the Ninja” - over 10 million views! Goldfish’s “We come together” – 1.4 million.

It seems that user generated content and music videos dominate though six days ago VW launched a video called “The bark side” – a brilliant piece of viral content that’s currently sitting on over 7 million views. Well done VW!

How are they doing it and why are so few brands in SA getting it right?

Mathew Bull once said “If you are scaring your client, then you are heading in the right direction.” And I think that’s the problem – when it comes to viral, agencies aren’t presenting work that scares the client enough. Everyone is playing it safe and the result is a boring, wasted attempt at engaging consumers and giving them an experience they can get anywhere else.

So instead of going with some awesomely produced viral content that entertains the audience we are left with branded wallpapers or a ringtone recorded in a celebrity’s voice that one could easily find on Google.

The crazy thing is that as much as the client insists on going this way the success of the campaign lies in the hands of the recipient. The result of your viral  campaign is a direct reflection on how engaging it was. You can’t force someone to like something or share it and people won’t risk their reputation by passing on something that should be left for movie day at the local old age home, where it doesn’t matter if the content is engaging because anything is better than watching grass grow while waiting for your next cup of tea.

I really applaud VW for their video – if you look at the comments you will notice that someone said “What does this have to do with a car” and that’s the point, it doesn’t have to have anything to do with a car. It can just be an awesome, entertaining, engaging piece brought to you by a company that is already renowned for manufacturing brilliant automobiles.

Next time you are pitching something to a client, or next time you are receiving a revert on your brief think of how serious you are about the mobile/ viral element achieving results. If you are giving the consumer an experience they can find elsewhere online then rather don’t bother. The budget could be better spent elsewhere.

If, however, you want to see mobile really deliver on its promise then push the limits – be scared but don’t let it stop you. Your target audience will be impressed with your brand’s ballsiness and forward thinking and they will feel rewarded for their support, time and loyalty.

When browsing the mobile web the consumer comes across thousands of ad banners – if they clicked on yours then something compelled them to do so, if they feel let down when they get to your site then you have failed them and your campaign ends there. Who knows how many people they would have shared their experience with.

And that’s the beautiful thing; if your campaign is viral you can turn a mobile media investment of X into 200% or 500% or 1000% X. Every hit you get above your spend is free.

So when you start preparing for your next campaign, put on your big person pants, toss an extra teaspoon of java in your cup, have a bowl of jungle oats and do something meaningful and memorable.

If you find yourself yawning after the first slide of the pitch send it back and if the client pulls back the reins on a crazy idea remind them of why you are there and what’s at stake.

If your brand doesn’t grab at every opportunity to be great then a competitor will and all that will remain will be another poor excuse for a campaign that could have been more, and we all know how much the boss loves underachievement.