Lighting was beautiful and the use of the architecture of a building is great. The sound wasn’t good on the other hand. Often, the volume was peaking, causing lots of distortion.

The crowd was a pretty fun bunch, despite the much smaller number compared to last year. I like the Kpop & Jrock fans mix, even though it can be a little awkward when one group stops jumping and the other starts. After all, I’d expect the kind of respect towards the performers on stage. But nevertheless, it was fun screaming with the Kpop fans and banging our heads with the Jrock fans!

Not counting the opening by Tenko Drums Group, the gig included only 4 acts – SuG, F.Cuz, After School & LMC. I’ve heard many said about being impressed by the J-rock band, despite having no clue about what J-rock is initially. And also, that the J-rock groups had done a great job heightening the atmosphere of the entire concert. I definitely agree that SuG & LMC had done a great job bringing the J-rock culture to Singapore! And in the future, I’d definitely like to see more J-rock groups, e.g. SID, and even J-pop artists too!

In contrast to the music-playing bands from Japan, the Korean representatives this year were all about dancing. After School, as we all know, is one of the best dancing female group in K-Pop. And their dance is definitely spiced up by those long slender legs they have (One of their members, Uee, is particularly known for her ‘honey thighs’ in Kpop). I was surprised to find F.Cuz pretty cute in real life, since I’ve honestly never taken much notice about them in prior to this concert.

Overall, it was a pretty enjoyable night. Hopefully the guys from Red Spade Entertainment, the events company that made the gig happen, will be able to bring in even more groups next year.

And also, it’d be great if the price can be brought down a little more, since it was one key factor to the smaller crowd this year. Other factors include the talents choice that is also inter-related to the sudden invade of K-pop acts in town this summer, emptying the kids’ poor wallets. Poor fans have to choose to give up on several events, trust me.

Not in any order:

• Daffy’s retail store: Underground Puzzle
• LAFA: Where will 100 000 condoms end up this summer
• Mint Museum of Toys: Tin Toys
• Interbest Outdoor: Man
• Polo Mints: Snow Stamp
• IKEA: Facebook Showroom
• Canon EOS: Photochains
• Water Safety NZ & Royal NZ Coastguard: Live Rescue
• Solidarités International: Water talks
• Eichborn: Flyvertising
• Burger King: Whopperface

(View in-depth entries with photos & videos)

For more winning entries, you can visit adsoftheworld. Thanks for their efforts in collecting the great ads together in one place.

What’s your favorite?

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Daffy’s retail store: Underground Puzzle

The cleverness of this campaign lies in the execution. To avoid running into troubles with regulations, the campaign imagery is split into smaller jigsaw puzzle pieces. 40 unique posters were placed in subway stations. The posters included the twitter has tag #UNDERGROUNDPUZZLE, where mobile captured contributions were aggregated for users to piece together the final image. And in that way, it engages the users to participate in solving the puzzle to see the entire ad. One stone kills two birds.

Advertising Agency: Johannes Leonardo, New York, USA
Chief Creative Officer: Johannes Leonardo
Creative Director: Johannes Leonardo
Art Directors: Emmie Nostitz, Ferdinando Verderi
Copywriter: Johannes Leonardo
Photographer: Tom Hines
Account Manager: Frederique Nahmani
Account Supervisor: Matt Ahumada
Producer: Matthew Mattingly

LAFA: Where will 100 000 condoms end up this summer

The campaign gives out 100,000 free condoms to the public, and adds a number tag to each condom. Condom receivers are directed to the website kondom08.nu where they can post the story of their condom. The campaign generated many user generated content and created its own community. What a way to give out freebies!

Advertising Agency: Ester, Stockholm, Sweden
Copywriters: Emma Zetterholm, Daniel Vaccino
Art Directors: Emil Jonsson, Ulrika Eriksson, Lotta Mellgren
Creative Director: Lotta Mellgren
Account Manager: Roger Kempe
Account Coordinators: Anna Wennerström, Emil Couch
Graphic designer: Dennis Hankvist

Interbest Outdoor: Man

Shocking & disturbing. Totally in your face & effective. Luckily, the headline was short enough to be read before we get turned off by the imagery. Bad in a good way. Scroll down immediately.

Advertising Agency: Y&R Not Just Film, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Creative Directors: Marq Strooy, Robin Zuiderveld
Copywriter: Robin Zuiderveld
Advertiser’s Supervisor: Meindert Van Den Heuvel
Art Director: Marq Strooy

Polo Mints: Snow Stamp (also on Small Ideas)

The perfect use of the adverse weather & environment, the stamp creates a perfect replica of the product on thick white snow. Why didn’t anybody else thought of that?

Advertising Agency: JWT, London, UK
Executive Creative Director: Russell Ramsey
Creative Directors: Russell Ramsey, Jason Berry
Copywriter / Art Director: Phillip Meyler, Darren

IKEA: Facebook Showroom

Perhaps the best use of Facebook features from a campaign. You’ve probably heard of this. The big idea is simply having the fastest users, who tags himself onto a furniture in the picture, rewarded with the furniture itself. As simple as that! It’s easily one of everyone’s favorites this year.

Advertising Agency: Forsman & Bodenfors, Gothenburg, Sweden
Media Agency: Mediaedge:cia
Photographer: Lennart Sjöberg

Canon EOS: Photochains

The EOS Photochains idea is to create a chain of user generated photos, encouraging one photographer to inspire the next. The photochains network grew and created a growing community, supported by Canon camera owners. The keywords that make this work: social & inspirations.

Advertising Agency: Leo Brunett, Sydney, Australia
Executive Creative Director: Andy DiLallo
Executive Creative Director: Jay Benjamin
Creative Group Head: Michael Canning
Art Director: Kieran Antill
Digital Creative Director/Design: Kieran Ots
Group Account Director: Amanda Quested
Account Director: Jodi McLeod
Director: Daryl Ward (Curious)
Photographer: Sean Izzard (The Pool)
TV Producer: Rita Galiardi
Head of Digital: Dominique Hind
Digital Producer: Tristan Parker
Developer: Nick McGrath
Interface Developer: Keong Seet

Water Safety NZ & Royal NZ Coastguard: Live Rescue

Cruel, honest & down-to-earth. The idea of this campaign is to strand four people on a capsized boat with a GPS 20 nautical miles off the coast. Informing the audience through an all-rounded media strategy, the advertisers created a sense of urgency to save the four poor souls. Online, the audience find GPS locator information and a search plane simulator racing against the clock in real-time. Almost threatening the hearts of the citizens, the event attracted thousands of virtual rescuers to take part, but only 1.8% managed to find the boat. Nevertheless, the four people were saved.

Unlike many other campaigns, this one shoots one’s heart down directly through targeting the basic needs. That’s why I like it.

Advertising Agency: DDB, Auckland, New Zealand
Art Director: Matt Swinburne
Writer: Brett Colliver
Group Executive Creative Director: Toby Talbot
Deputy Creative Director: Regan Grafton
Account Executive: Sarah Burilin
Account Director: Libby Weston-Webb
Agency Producer: Tania Jeram
Creative Director: Daniel Wright (Tribal/DDB)
Interactive Designer: Steven Leong (Tribal/DDB)
Senior Developer: David Vaughan (Tribal/DDB)
Developer: Rowan Oulton (Tribal/DDB)
Senior Account Manager: Tim Cullinane (Tribal/DDB)
Editor: Steve Gulik

Solidarités International: Water talks

Watch this. The execution & production is amazing, and perhaps something never seen before. It’s a billboard made of water. I hope they didn’t waste much water for this, haha.

Advertising Agency: BDDP & Fils, Paris, France
Creative Director : Guillaume Chifflot
Art Director : David Derouet
Copywriter : Emmanuel de Dieuleveult
Motion Photographers : J and J
Production Company: Cosa (Paris)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZnDnu8zSco

Eichborn: Flyvertising

To promote their exhibition stand at the Franfurt Book Fair, Eichborn the publisher with the fly prepared 200 flies with an ultra light banner. The banner was attached with natural wax. After a short time the banner dropped off by itself. And the flies were not harmed.

Never ever seen before anywhere else. Amazing, cute & effective. Spurs curiosity too. Only problem is the proximity & reach. Doesn’t matter anyway.

Agency: Jung von Matt/Neckar, Germany
Creative Directors: Jacques Pense, Michael Ohanian
Art Directors: Benjamin Beck, Thomas Lupo
Copywriters: Norman Scholl, Lennart Frank
Account Managers: Daniel Adolph, Christine Seelig

www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBvtANapQwU

Burger King: Whopperface

Burger King has did it again. All they need was one cashier, one printer & one hidden camera to prove that Whopper is made to order. Any customer who customizes a Whopper receives the burger wrapped with.. their face. Funny enough, in a good way of course. But how many Burger King outlets can have that?

Advertising Agency: Ogilvy Brazil
Chief Creative Director: Anselmo Ramos
Executive Creative Director: Michel Lent
Creative Director: Angela Bassichetti
Copywriter: Eduardo Marques
Art Director: Douglas Kozonoe
Head of Art: Denis Kakazu
Motion Design: Rubens Angelo
Account: Carolina Vieira | Virgínia Mendes
Approved by: Rafael Romero
Production: Bossa Nova Films
Director: Giuliano Saade
Audio: Bamba Music
Voice Over: Zachary Lee

But you probably haven’t heard of this… the Nike Stadium at the Selfridges London. There, you get to watch the matches live in an exhibition-hall-like fanciful place. How fanciful can that be? 62 plasma screens with a wrap-around wall of sound. It could have been the most amazing World Cup watching experience you’d ever have! … Well, if you dig that kind of stuff.

On the other hand, Nike’s long-time competitor Adidas (one of my favorite brands by the way) also made quite a place for watching World Cup altogether with their fans. They teamed up with Bar 25 in Johannesburg 24 to create a very special place for celebration of the World Cup, a place very different from Nike’s luxurious stadium.

As usual, Adidas pulled the artistic, funky, and original feel off well. Tin roof, wood, bizarre hidden rooms and dazzling light. The place also houses 3×5 meter LED monitor screens to broadcast the games live. Guests can also enjoy a spacious pool site or watch Berlin’s Skateboarding community trash next door.

Which place would you choose?

It was only a week ago since Apple launched its much anticipated iPhone 4. Quickly, word spreads all out in the cyber space and the real world. But I’m still not convinced to get an iPhone, and I’d still wish for a kick-ass Japanese “dumb” keitai phone.

The iPhone may have captured over 70% of the smart phones market share on the land of rising sun. But again, that is just in the smart phones category. Consider how many keitai phones there are in Japan, 70% aren’t as big as we imagined.

Although they may not be deemed as smart phones, those beautiful flip phones & slide phones in Japan can function just as well, or even better. And they even have functions & characteristics iPhone is missing:

• Variety of designs. You have to admit it; iPhone 4 has only one design and two colors. No matter what kind of casing accessory you get for the iPhone, it is still an iPhone.
• Phone straps! These lucky charms can’t be hooked up on an iPhone, unless you drill a hole on that smart phone.
• QR Code. You may download an app for that, but it’s already inside the core content of almost all keitai phones.
• Digital TV Tuner. Streaming videos on Youtube? Why not watch a higher quality live television shows on a keitai phone. Feels much faster.
• Digital Business Cards. An app for that? You may have it but not the others. But for keitai phones, you can create your own digital business card and send it to any other keitai via e-mail or infrared.
• Local services that can be accessed through keitai web browsers. They let you check everything, from transportation to restaurant reviews. And they have already existed way before the apps phenomenon in Japan.
• Self-exchangeable batteries. Need I explain some more?
• Better cameras. 5MP was an upgrade, but the keitai phones have at least 8MP.
• Video calls aren’t limited to Wi-Fi. That limitation on iPhone 4 is crap, at least for me.
• Waterproof. Many new keitai phones are now waterproof too.

There are certainly pros for iPhone 4 too. But honestly, I doubt it’d be a good time to get one. I’d rather wait for a while, until at least video calls get better. I do like the current design much better than the earlier models though. And I wonder which features, from Japanese keitai phones, new global smartphones will adopt.

Web giant Google attempts to simplify the complication by introducing Google Cloud Print, which basically builds a printing experience that enables any app (web, desktop, or mobile) on any device to print to any printer anywhere in the world. Apps no longer rely on the local operating system (and drivers) to print, but rather, documents are sent through the Google Cloud Print to cloud-aware printers; web enabled printers that can use the cloud print services.

In simple layman’s term, it means that you can print from any device to any printer through Google.

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What are the benefits?

• Printer drivers are no longer necessary
• Ability to print at any cloud-aware printers (with necessary authentication)
• Ability to print from any web-enabled device
• Skipping the computer & network middlemen for the print procedure, Google Cloud Print eliminates the extra step.
• Scheduled printing & selective location-based printing
• Simplified installations of new devices & printers

However, there bound to be downsides to it. Especially when you see the word “cloud”

• Privacy issue as documents will go through the cloud to the printer.
• Security issues for confidential information
• Easy access for cracking the necessary authentication to printers
• Waste of bandwidth for transferring files to printers
• Internet connectivity is required to print
• Questionable ability for specified & manual printing procedures

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Google Cloud Print is currently still in the development stage. Many questions are yet to be answered but, we are already welcoming the first batch of cloud-aware printers from HP. Right now, the tech company is already selling web-connected printers with Print Apps (on the printer) and an ePrintCenter (to check printer status from any browser).

Google is also speaking to other manufacturers about developing cloud-aware printers to support this service. If it were to succeed, we may see an increase and changing usage of printing service, and a possibly elimination of fax machines. No?

Antwerp Zoo’s Baby Elephant campaign has a single-minded big idea revolving around it – to get mass audience to experience at least a little bit of being a parent or being a relative to a pregnant lady. Instead of brainlessly dumping gold to attract attention through big media buys, what they did was to update public about a mother elephant’s pregnancy experience enough to attract the public to constantly want to be updated. It’s like feeding you with chocolate till you’re used to it, you start finding chocolate on your own.

It’s a clear example of how a big idea can drive the entire campaign and forge a strong link in it. And it’s also a clear example of how by implementing a universal human touch, you can connect to the mass audience altogether… this is where we can forget about niche targeting, blockbusters work this way too don’t they?

Hooking the audience up on to your journey, with a compelling story, altogether with you definitely gets them to participate actively too.

The Samsung Shakedown is a great example of a live streaming campaign, where audience can interact and directly affect the outcome of one or few elements within the campaign in real-time. The campaign offers 70 mobiles up for grabs in every Shakedown round, where you can win one of those mobile phones on the site by calling them and making it vibrate off the table.

NIKE78 – W+K Tokyo LAB | ‘ABUKU -泡-’ from NIKE78 on Vimeo.

Nike Abuku is a new viral video coming from W+K Tokyo Lab. Abuku means bubble in Japanese, representing “Air”. They decided to create an aquarium inside the shoe to visually represent the air. While it may be just a visual symbol of the word “air” and not the “lightness”, I find the representation pretty original, and it definitely spurs curiosity!

Quite an interesting & eye-opening video to watch, at least for the first minute

Touch? From Nintendo DS to iPhone/iPad, it was merely about touching the screen. Until recently, we have the Internet of Things. But you know, it’s not like we could touch something far away, right?

Taste? I guess mobility has helped deliver food to your door step with a few clicks as fast as the deliverymen can.

How about smell? That may be something that has been left out, unless I’m missing out from something. Recently, I came across a campaign from Brazilian company Kaiak, selling “smell” through.. Internet.

Teaming up with 15 Internet cafes across Brazil, the crew installed mini-printers at the side of the monitors so when the Internet surfers click on an ad banner asking “Want to try it? Click this banner. It’s Scented”, a cardboard perfume tester is actually being printed out via the mini-printer.

Results? Resounding success. The click-through rate on the banner ads was 43 times higher than the worldwide average, and 10,000 of the perfume testers were distributed through people’s computer monitors in just one weekend.

SCENTED BANNER NATURA KAIAK from Black Mamba on Vimeo.