MIDDLE EAST
DIGITAL WEEK
GADGETS
RESULT
Stuff we liked this week
The Tandberg Profile
Typecasting
With many Media City inhabitants
struggling to pay the rent, the
considerable outlay required to
JWT Dubai’s viral campaign for HSBC’s platinum card serv-
get yourself a Tandberg Profile
may seem like an irrespon- ice picked up the Cyber Grand Cristal at last month’s MENA
sible waste of money. Not so.
We predict video conferencing is
Cristal Awards. Associate creative director Hari Krishna talks
the way to go. Not only will you avoid
us through his team’s work
the soul-destroying Dubai traffic, you
don’t even need a real office. Just get
a smart desk (or paint some cardboard
boxes dark brown) and hunker down in
your lounge for a day of client meetings. The best
part? You don’t have to wear any trousers—provided you get your
camera angles right—just like newsreaders.
RITI printer
“Warning: Toner low.” Few words can hit you harder on deadline
day. While ink may be thin on the ground in your office, we’re
betting coffee isn’t. So get yourself
a RITI printer. Much like our
executive editor, it runs on coffee
grounds. Just to clarify, it uses
them as ink, rather than an energy
source. Not that it uses electricity
either, it’s manually powered. You
just stick your used coffee filter
inside an ink cartridge, add water,
then move the cartridge back and
forth across the paper. And—eventually—you get your document.
Self-lowering toilet seat
It’s Valentine’s Day soon. All men should buy this. It will add at
least five years to your relationship, and a further eight years*
to your life, thanks to the
reduction in stress levels. We
“BANKS ALL have the same kind of ads for their pre- er video-sharing sites. Each of the virals ended with a
haven’t seen one in action,
mium products,” says Hari Krishna, associate cre- link to the campaign website (www.whattypeareyou.
hopefully it’s more of a gentle
ative director at JWT, Dubai. “They’re all about ‘Ex- ae), where a number of other variations on the same
lowering, rather than a snap-
clusive priveliges… blah, blah, blah…’ You could just theme were available. The site was also supported by
ping action. Nevertheless.
change the logos around and it would work for any print and outdoor executions.
Get one.
of them.” “We wanted to give these office workers a little
*Calculations not based on science
So when HSBC asked JWT to create a campaign for break from their mundane lives,” says Krishna, of the
the relaunch of its platinum card service in the UAE, site. “But a break that was related to them and their
VIRAL VIEW
the agency felt it was time to do work. Not like an advergame where
something different. “HSBC has you race a car around or something.
Jelly Battle
good brand equity among con- It was a very corporate thing. It had
sumers—it’s looked on as a very an analysis test for which ‘type’ you
trustworthy bank,” Krishna ex- are. Then there was a section called
plains. “The client felt we could do ‘Typecast me’, where the site basi-
a campaign that actually talks to cally abuses you—mocks you—
people in their own language.” when you click it. It’s like a random
Since the target market for ‘type’ generator. And people could
platinum cards consists mainly of upload their own ‘type’ videos.”
high-earning office-based work- There were two links—“Type
ers, the agency decided to forego analyst” and “First Aid for types”—
the usual media mix of TVCs and print saturation in which led through to the HSBC Platinum Credit Card
favour of a viral campaign. site, which was—of course—the point of the whole
“Most of the target market for this card are corporate thing. And it worked out pretty well. HSBC reported
executives who work in offices—everybody’s online,” that more than 3,000 people clicked through to the
Krishna says. “So we did a completely different kind of corporate site, and 2,581 new cards were issued.
job. It was very brave of HSBC to buy into this.” “The market has seen a lot of platinum activity. It’s
The agency created four short humorous videos, a packed segment—all HSBC’s competitors have Plat-
INITIALLY WE thought this advergame was for the delicious all based on the campaign’s hook: “What type are inum cards out,” says account planner Neeraj Bassi.
Bassetts sweets, Jelly Babies, given that it involves inflicting you?” For example, one of them shows a woman “We had to cut through the clutter and come up with
grievous bodily harm on cute man-like jelly creatures and lots of who insists on making quote marks with her fingers something different and distinctive. And we did it.”
people like biting Jelly Babies’ heads off. It’s not, though. It’s for when speaking. Until one of her colleagues punches
Logitec. Which is weird. her in the face. As her co-workers crowd round to
Still, it’s easy to see why the game has taken off virally. It’s far check she’s OK, she informs them (from the floor),
more entertaining and engaging than the majority of advergames. “I’m <quote>alright<quote>.” This lady, we’re told,
Jelly Battle is a cross between Tetris, Battleships and chess. is the “Important-things-should-come-in-inverted-
You have to move around the ‘board’ landing on special squares commas type.”
which either launch an attack of some kind on the other players “Everyone who works in a corporate environment
(ranging from hitting them with a handbag to nukeing them), or shows some kind of peculiar behaviour,” Krishna says.
protect you from their attacks (turning you invisible for example, “Some people can’t live without their BlackBerry,
or restoring your health). some chew pencils, some always have at least a cou-
It’s not just for fun, of course. You can win discounts off ple of mugs on their desk to try and show everyone
Logitech products (if you register). That’s not the main draw, that they’re working their ass off. We picked up on that
though. That’s the satisfying meltdown of your opponents when and used it to create a tongue-in-cheek message that
you call in an air strike and the missile drops on their heads. people would relate to.”
The agency uploaded the films to YouTube and oth-
www.mediaweekme.com 08 FEBRUARY 2009 / 25
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