David Baksh – creative director, infinite corridor @ Annex Films discusses behind the scenes of SpecSavers, the Ad of the Month featured in The Feed, MediaMind’s monthly newsletter.


What is your favorite brand experience?

Anything that grabs my attention without making me hate it for doing so.


 What was the client brief for the SpecSavers campaign?

‘We’ve got less time and money than the last one.  Go!’


 How did you decide on the concept?

The shuttle crew concept came from Specsavers’ in-house creative department and is a continuation of their latest TV campaign.  We’ve worked together on their last four campaigns and the process is very organic – they push us, we pull them.  We bat the creative back and forth all the way through the project, refining and changing as we go.  Something is only ever signed off if it can’t be improved.  It’s insane – but it works.



 What role did MediaMind play in the campaign?

Initially, we consulted heavily on the concept to make sure that we all knew what the goals were.  User experience was key – we wanted a seamless and subtle scene to play from the MPU and out across the MSN page.  It had to be eye-catching without being annoying.  MPU, float and leaderboard all had to sync perfectly AND we had to give the user something worth seeing after they expanded the creative.  While we were shooting and building the assets, the MediaMind team set about making sure all functionality we needed would be available.   When we started to put it all together, MediaMind were always on hand to iron out any bugs and improve any components.


 What was the client’s reaction to the campaign? 

Pick a quote:

http://www.livethesheendream.com/


 What feedback have they received?

Friends, family and Marketing are ALL very happy.  I think Wills & Kate also sent a telegram of congratulations but, then, I understand that the user dwell time WAS unprecedented.

But for those interested in actual numbers, the average dwell duration for the campaign was 112.49 seconds of quality brand engagement. That’s 129% above the benchmark (49.04 sec).


 What is your idea of the perfect working day?

I’m very lucky because I enjoy every part of the process.  From concept, to shoot, to build, I couldn’t put one day over another and I wouldn’t want to give up any of it.  Mind you, to be perfect it would always involve banking a cheque before 4:30.


 When does your muse visit you?

Just in time.  (So far.)  In truth, my job is to solve puzzles.  You either have that kind of brain or you don’t.  So if you CAN do it, you just do it.  It’s like asking a plumber, ‘When can you fix the toilet?’  He can fix it whenever he has to.  He’s a plumber.

Tourism Australia’s objectives were to engage New Zealanders online, sharing with them Australians’ favorite experiences. Kiwis were then invited to visit www.nothinglikeaustralia.com where they could immerse themselves in over 29,000 unique experiences. Instead of running all creatives evenly distributed, Tourism Australia utilized MediaMind’s Smart Versioning Automatic Optimization algorithm to identify and then to serve the most appealing ad the majority of times in order to encourage a high level of response.


See for yourself!





Download the Tourism Australia Case Study here.

Meet Ronnie K. Pirovino, Sr. Interactive Developer at BLT in Hollywood.  Ronnie discusses the Breakout Kings campaign they recently created for A&E.

Your idea about the perfect working day

Ideally, there’s some structure to the day, but a perfect day encompasses both stellar productivity as well as the opportunity to approach one’s work creatively. We have to adapt nimbly to changes, which is standard for our industry. The fast pace is really part of the thrill of being in an environment where large-volume campaigns are being delivered routinely.

 Your muse best comes when

My muse is always in the back of my mind - art collecting. My world-class KAWS collection, curated now for almost a decade, is source of direction. In part, time is also my muse and it’s always ticking. I enjoy not wasting it and using it to do my best with what’s at hand.

  What was the client brief for the Breakout Kings campaign?

Breakout Kings is an example of a very smoothly produced campaign, collaborating with clients at A&E Television. With among the largest number of ads we’ve ever delivered for one particular project, MediaMind was the exclusive rich media platform. My role in creating interactive media advertising has increasingly become more a combination between ActionScript programming in Flash and motion graphics in After Effects. This project represents this fusion well. Working with our other internal teams at BLT, we used the special shoot assets and design cues from the key art, to create unique video introductions. In this case, Flash is used more as a delivery platform for the motion graphics with the video done in After Effects. Using the best of each of these tools allows us to create the most compelling online advertising possible. A&E is quite a sophisticated and innovative client. They are always allowing us to push the boundaries of our technology. I truly appreciate being the lead developer on their interactive banner projects with BLT & Associates.

 How did you come up with the idea?

BLT created the entire creative advertising campaign for the show.  We used the key art as the foundation for a full blown large-volume online ad campaign. This included just about every type of ad there is available. MediaMind offers a very comprehensive platform for rich media ads, and we took advantage of nearly every size and special placements. 

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Meet Miguel Genovese – Interactive Creative Director, No Bull Shit NBS in Brazil discusses the innovative Batavo Prize Winning Fridge campaign served by MediaMind.


 What is your favorite brand experience?

Our most recent successful campaign has been ‘Batavo Prize Winning Fridge’. We used at MSN, in a playful way, a very interesting format. The Homepage Takeover has shown that innovative formats allied with a good idea can bring the clients very good results.

What was the brief for the Batavo campaign?

Come out with a promotion in which if the consumer bought some Batavo products and registers a code on the website of the company, he could compete to win refrigerators filled with R$ 50,000.

How was this particular format chosen for the campaign?

For the launch of this campaign, we wanted to generate impact on the consumers and create as much visibility as possible. The Homepage Takeover format allows amazing tecnological and creative features.
How did you come up with the creative idea?

Our team explored one of the most popular icons in the world: the refrigerator magnet. When we gave life to them, the small figures became the main characters of the story that we wanted to tell.

What feedback/results have you received?

The number of leads was amazing, but the repercussions on the social media networks was also overwhelming. People sent lots of messages to congratulate us about the creative utilization of this format at MSN.

What is your idea about the perfect working day?

I think a perfect working day is when all ideas are understood by everybody in the agency as well by the client. So, they are sure that these ideas can be powerful and valuable to a brand or a product.

When does your muse visit you?
We are our own references. If every day we can improve our knowledge and learn new things, especially about human behavior, it will be easier to communicate our ideas with more efficiency and creativity.

How did you start working in digital advertising?

I started to work with digital advertising in 1997, when I managed the account of an internet service provider. Everything was a big laboratory of ideas. In fact, that period of experimentalist innovations prepared myself, already at that time, to be an integrated marketing professional today.

Meet Luis Constantino, Creative Director at Media Contacts, who shares insights into the ground-breaking Citroen AirCross campaign launched in Brazil. The campaign lets the browser navigate a car in a 3D environment over hundreds of web pages. When the user stops, they can click-thru to browse the site where the car lands.

What is your favorite brand experience?
There is a campaign that was very special from the first moment we created the strategic planning, the concept and the media planning up to the execution of the ad. I am referring to the launch of the Citroën AirCross in Brazil.

What was the brief for the Citroën campaign?
The Citroën AirCross launch campaign was very daring for Citroën in Brazil. Although the car has a bold and groundbreaking design, this model represented the introduction of a new category of car that the brand had never launched before in the country. The slogan of the Citroën AirCross campaign is “New Choices, New Ways”. It represents all the innovation the car carries and also the possibility of choice available to the consumer in this category. The digital strategy was to apply this concept of innovation and novelty in the communication, so we enhanced the concept of “New Choices, New Ways” to “New Formats.”

How was this particular format chosen for the campaign?
The supporting pillar of the whole campaign was the creation of new ad formats and new ways to communicate as well as the interaction with the consumer. The solution for this ad was to create a new format for the IG website. This ad format had never been seen before and represented a new way the user can browse the website.

How did you come up with the creative idea?
The idea of this ad came up when we felt the necessity to communicate the most important accessory of the car: the integrated GPS into the car dashboard. So, we created a new way to browse the website: guided by the integrated GPS, the user ‘drove’ by the website sections on the dashboard of the car.

What feedback/results have you received?
The ad generated such a unique experience that it generated significant media buzz. The ad embodied the whole communication strategy and contributed to surpassing the sales goal of the model by 45%.

What is your idea about the perfect working day?
I believe a perfect working day , in general, is when we are able to balance our duties with our personal needs. In fact, each working day has its pinch of perfection. It can be the day you have a breakthrough idea, the day your client was delighted with your presentation or even when you have a challenging briefing. Simple things can make your day special.

When does your muse visit you?
Each advertiser, especially the ones who work with creation and planning, needs to provide ourselves with lots of information to make the creative process easier: books, arts, movies, newspapers and even advertising are our daily meals. However, if I had to sum up inspiration in a single word, it would be PEOPLE. A simple talk with friends, a family lunch, walking on the street or travel to somewhere are all examples of great sources of inspiration.


How did you start working in digital advertising?
Although nowadays I do not consider myself a “digital advertising professional” anymore, because advertising, in a sense, becomes more and more convergent each day, I have been working with digital for ten years. In the year 2000, I left the design product world to migrate towards and focus my efforts on this market, living the ups and downs of that time, but totally fascinated and more fascinated day after day.