At 9am Friday 30th of July, most of the agency have got on thier bikes at Clapham Junction and headed southwards towards Brighton on a all agency charity bike ride.

Wish us luck, by tweeting to us using #lwcbbike, sponsor us here and track those of us who are hooked up to the internet live here

We will publish some photos throughout the day, and maybe even some footage from the head cams!

Last week we wrote about Wieden + Kennedy (Portland)’s social media campaign for Old Spice – the phenomenal viral videos that had millions tuning in to see and receive personalised messages from “spokesperson” Isaiah Mustafa through social media channels YouTube and Twitter.

The cheeky campaign propelled Old Spice to the top of the Viral Video Chart, collecting over 90,000 Twitter followers, 700,000+ Facebook fans and smashing records to become the all-time most viewed sponsored YouTube channel, with a total of 35.7 million individual video views. Of the top 11 most popular YouTube videos on July 16, Old Spice had eight of them.

There is no doubt of the social media success of Old Spice, starring the “Most Interesting Man in the World 2.0”, but is Mustafa’s popularity translating into sales?

Warc figures show that sales of the Old Spice product Red Zone After Hours Body Wash, which is being promoted by the campaign, have fallen by 7% in the 52 weeks ending June 13, despite Mustafa’s beloved pecs appearing on TV screens since February.

However the campaign didn’t reach its social peak until 13-14 July, so it remains to be seen if Mustafa’s videos are driving people to the stores to buy Red Zone.

We know that high social exposure does not necessarily generate demand, as seen when Gatorade this year launched its Replay social campaign (also a Cannes winner), which tracked down members of two American high schools’ rival football teams – 15 years after their senior year – for a rematch.

The campaign generated a strong online following – with webisodes and Facebook pages about the players – and the 15,000 tickets to the rematch sold out in 90 minutes. However Gatorade’s sales for the year declined by 8.5% nationwide.

And while it remains impossible to prove any fluctuations in demand are caused by a social presence, what Old Spice has achieved is what it set out to – awareness and visibility. Mentions of Old Spice on Twitter exploded last week, with many celebrities such as Alyssa Milano, Ellen DeGeneres and Perez Hilton getting involved and spreading the word.

In the sense of raising awareness and bringing the brand to the top of our minds, Old Spice has certainly been a social success.

Written by Lauren Rayner, Account Executive

We quite like it that way though. Read article here

inferno won a place on the Keep Britain Tidy advertising roster as their lead creative agency in October last year and we were immediately energised by the great creative opportunity, fantastic clients and important cause! KBT briefed us in February on their main campaign for 2010: fighting the war on litter nationally.

The tongue in cheek ‘Bend over and think of England’ campaign – was intended for a larger, more holistic activation platform utilising PR, WOM, Ambient, Merchandising and a variety of ATL, however as the government changed over earlier on this year, so too did the rules and regulations (and budgets!) regarding government-funded communications.

To this particular campaign’s credit, it had already caught the interest of enough Local Authorities that they stood firm with their support of the campaign and generously allocated what they could of their own council budgets to fund the distribution of the creative throughout a range of local media including Bus Backs, 48-sheet sites, 6 sheet sites, postcards, T-shirts, bags, badges and A3 Posters, with a number of them also opting to have their own bespoke titles created including ‘Get Behind Essex’ and ‘Get Behind Northumberland’.

With the objective of expanding Auto Trader’s social media outreach, inferno created a Facebook-based competition whereby fans of Auto Trader could win an American road trip along Route 66.

Inferno developed the creative idea for the competition along with Facebook ads to complement other comms, such as an email sent to an existing opt-in database of 350k, promotion on AutoTrader.co.uk (which receives 600k unique daily hits), Facebook, Twitter and other social media such as blogs and forums.

Simply by ‘liking’ Auto Trader’s Facebook page and recommending it to friends, Facebook users were entered into the draw to win a two-week road trip for four people along Route 66 in America plus £1,000 spending money.

Auto Trader kept the momentum going on their Facebook page with regular interactive updates relating to the promotion, enlisting fans to discuss topics such as their ideal car for an American road trip, what their perfect track list would be, and random Route 66 facts.

These discussions showed a high level of engagement among fans, who commented on posts relating to the road trip and engaged in banter relating to the competition between each other.

This was necessary to the competition – running for just one week; it relied on viral sharability to accumulate fans. Facebook users spread the word – 5,000 fans were attained in just 2 days, and almost 12,000 fans were gained throughout the week.

The competition closed on Monday 9 July and winners will be notified by 23 July. There are plans for the winners to keep a video blog during their Route 66 road trip, which could produce further content for Auto Trader’s Facebook site. Watch this space…

Written by Lauren Rayner, Account Executive

The idea: ‘Anything is possible when your man smells like Old Spice’ rings true in this viral phenomenon.

This brilliant example of a social media campaign by Wieden + Kennedy Portland proves that ads can actually talk to you. Bloggers and fans were name-checked in personalised videos tweeted by Old Spice Guy himself; ex American footballer Isaiah Mustafa. He’s now an internet sensation racking up over 55 million views, making his channel the most viewed sponsored channel in history.

The Old Spice Guy made hilarious videos for well-known Internet folk,  including Ellen Degeneres, Alyssa Milano and celebrity blogger Perez Hilton. Anonymous people who had blogged, tweeted or commented about him in the past were also targeted.

The Old Spice Guy was even able to help Twitter user @Jsbeals with his marriage proposal. @Jsbeals tweeted this request to Old Spice Guy: “Can U Ask my girlfriend to marry me? Her name is Angela A. Hutt-Chamberlin.” Less than three hours later, Mustafa was holding a ring in the glow of candlelight and asking Angela to “make @Jsbeals the happiest man in the world and marry him in real life.”

The campaign is perfect for becoming huge virally. It taps into specific bloggers who have access to many followers allowing it to grow and grow. It creates an exciting platform that people are willing and excited to engage with as they are creating it themselves.

The first ad, ‘The Man Your Man Could Smell Like’, has racked up over 12 million views alone and went on to win the Grand Prix award in the film category at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival.

Article by Dani Brown & Paul Mann, Junior Creative Art Director and Copy Writer

Clay Shirky, lecturer at NYU, columnist and author of “Here Comes Everybody”, appeared at the RSA last week to promote his new book “Cognitive Surplus”. Like many new media commentators, the focus of his talk was the internet as the beginning of a major cultural shift of great advantage to mankind. I was one of the ones lucky enough to secure tickets to the event and so here is my summary and some thoughts packed into a blog post.

Firstly a brief explanation of the term: cognitive surplus refers to the cumulative attention/talent that is being pooled into collaborative projects enabled by new technology and the web. Not that interesting a concept in itself but is the momentum behind the shift away from pure consumption to production and sharing; a small shift that is having some quite dramatic effects. Where these effects are manifested in a negative way (Shirky gives the example of lol cats), there is a tendency to blame the tools. However, the cause of these effects lies in ancient motivations that are simply being channelled in new ways. This all seems a bit of a given to me but then I understand that this is still not something that is accepted by many of our distinguished tabloid journalists and other “guns kill people” type

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