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

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

(more…)

Bridging the Gap (BTG) is a club night, podcast series and music / design website run by a London-based collective of djs, producers and designers (including myself, an account executive here at Inferno). Surviving in the fiercely competitive London underground music scene is not easy, and building a meaningful brand is certainly key to that survival. It was decided from the very inception of BTG that the night / blog / music policy needed to stand for something, a way of differentiating itself from the sea of competition hungry for people’s attention. So how was the BTG brand identity decided? Here is some of the thinking behind it:

Technology has changed the way we consume and listen to music. The digital revolution seems to have turned us into a ‘playlist generation’. It’s becoming far more uncommon to sit down and listen to a whole album sequentially from start to finish, people would rather build a playlist complied of their favorite tracks. Another emerging pattern from the playlist generation is their reluctance to be defined by one specific genre. People seem to get bored very quickly (particularly in London) music scenes pop up left right and centre (Fidget House, Grindy, Big Beat, 2.2 Step, Surf Revival, Wonky, Donk) only to die before they’ve had a chance to make any kind of significant impact. This attitude also seems to have had a direct impact on the way music is produced, with many underground electronic musicians throwing elements of techno, hip hop, dub, and house into their productions, feeling bored with the same old formats.

Bearing all of this in mind it was decided that instead of representing one specific genre or scene, running the risk of becoming old hat at any given moment, the BTG brand wouldn’t adhere to any specific genre or time-span. BTG is known for supporting and playing music across a whole spectrum of genres, while still staying relevant to ever evolving music trends. This idea / identity is reflected in the name, logo, design and website content, all mirroring the BTG ethos and music policy.

The next BTG live event is at the Alibi in Dalston (3^rd July) featuring Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs as headliner, known for fusing styles such as jungle, electro, 80s boogie funk and techno.

Written by Rob Waite

Ahh the almighty Facebook, its reach on the internet seemingly knows no bounds. It’s how we find out what’s going on at the weekend, invite people to parties, conduct informal qualitative research, express our love for music, show off our holiday, share current events, jokes, games and occasionally catch up with friends. And whilst weaving its way into so many aspects of our lives it managed to simplify the two way communication between brands and their consumers; who wouldn’t want a piece of that? However, there have however been a fair few negative repercussions in the wake of the social media honeymoon.

The Daily Mail published an article claiming that “Facebook could increase your risk of serious health problems by reducing levels of face-to-face contact” (Based on an article by psychologist Dr Aric Sigman who is concerned that the lack of face to face contact could lead to an increased risk of heart disease, stroke and dementia). These claims are certainly to be taken with a pinch of salt; the amount of carcinogenic risks according to the daily mail are too many too keep track of. However many observers are convinced that using social networking sites can lead to social isolation and loneliness which can in turn cause further health complications.

Another reason people are questioning / rejecting Facebook is the ever unfolding privacy settings issue. Facebook claims to have revamped their privacy settings by essentially making them simpler. In actual fact, the new settings are intended to encourage people to open up more of their personal information to the world. This issue has lead to a serious amount of bad press for Facebook and has resulted in a backlash from Facebook users and the wider social media community. Various web applications have started popping up in retaliation to Facebook’s disregard for people’s privacy, applications such as Facebook Suicide which can kill your entire social presence on the internet in less than one hour.

(more…)

All too often an agency is accused of being creative just because we like being creative and because we like filling our cabinets with awards. But finally we can prove to clients that it’s not just because we enjoy it, but because creative work actually works harder for them!

A recent study conducted by IPA and Thinkbox has proven that award winning creative does deliver better results. It found that overall the campaigns that had been rewarded with the greatest number of accolades for their creative work were 11 times more successful in delivering positive results, in terms of both effectiveness and efficiency.

The report also pointed out that the majority of successful campaigns were emotional rather than rationally based. Which is often something that marketers tend to forget. We’re always striving to give consumers a rational reason to buy into our brand, forgetting that a large proportion of consumer’s decision making is based on emotional reactions to brands.

So long live creativity!

Written by Andrea Phillips.

Data sourced from IPA; additional content by Warc staff, 17 June 2010
http://www.warc.com/News/TopNews.asp?ID=26851&Origin=WARCNewsEmail

A few months ago the idea was born to ride to Brighton for charity. ‘Why not?’ we thought, it can’t be that far and around 15 of us cycle in to work every day on everything from 1960’s racers to neon fixies with 2 spokes and less gears. Turns out it is quite far, and hilly, so we set out a plan which included an option for the fair weather riders.

So here it is…

On July 30^th 2010 we take to the road to raise money for charity by cycling a mountainous 54 miles from London (well, Clapham) to Brighton.

Our charity of choice is The Kids Company who provide support to vulnerable inner city children in and around London (please check out their good work here http://www.kidsco.org.uk/).

Cyclists will begin the ride from Clapham Junction at 9am and a Routmaster bus will be departing a few hours later for the non-cycling “supporters” as they diplomatically will be known.

The ride will be completed in three sections, broken up by two stops for refreshments and high fives.

For those wanting to ride but not the entire way a middle section of approximately 15 miles will be available.

Now, to make this a success we need your help.

Please give as generously as you can to support, this is not an easy task and is far in excess of the sub-7 miles commutes we usually take.

http://www.justgiving.com/Inferno-LoveWhatCouldBe

If you would like any more information please get in touch.

Sonia.t@inferno-group.com

Love What Could Be

x

The Chip Shop Awards were held in London last week. The awards pride themselves on ‘creativity with no limits’ and this certainly rang true again this year.

From a light-hearted event set up as a humorous alternative to D&AD, the Chips have become an international event with entrants from around the world. There were Chip finalists from Australia, Germany, South Africa, Thailand, Kuwait, Amsterdam, and Poland.

The event was live online (I didn’t see it as I was watching A Single Man on DVD, definitely not as much fun.) Not only that, while Colin Firth was failing to get an Oscar, we picked up a ‘finalist nomination’ for our ‘Squeeze Bus’ ad. We did it as a piece of intro/spec work for Macari’s Musical Instruments in London.

Creative by John Peacock and Alastair Scully

You can see the rest  of the entries here. Well worth a look!

John.

We are very proud to show you our latest 360º campaign for Unilever Hellmann’s.

Our brief was to bring Hellmann’s to life over the summer BBQ season, and show it as something more versatile than ‘just a dip’. So we devised the campaign ‘BBQ’s Love Hellmann’s’. We worked with Unilever and an award winning chef to create 11 delicious recipes that use Hellmann’s as one of the integral ingredients.

We then exploded the BBQ thought and the recipes across all consumer points, print, on pack, in store point of sale, in store activity tastings, promotional and online.

Watch this space for the results, and in the mean time, why not enter the competition to win the ultimate BBQ party in your back garden or browse through our delicious BBQ recipes?

Suggesting the future of advertising is “integration” is a little like suggesting the future of personal computing is the floppy disc.

In reality, the most progressive people and agencies in our industry were tackling integration 10 years ago and things have come a long way since.

And my reference to 10 years is not a convenient round-number.

In 2000 our industry (along with most western economies) was in the throes of dotcom mania and although the ensuing crash caused a lot of pain it also witnessed an emerging divide between the agencies who genuinely understood how to integrate ideas across multiple media touch points and those who slapped a web address on their TV ads as an afterthought and called it “integration”. That’s not “integration”, that’s “matching luggage” and a well trained monkey with a set of crayons can probably do a similar job.

I can make that assertion with more than a little confidence a) Because I was working at a large London network agency at the time and more importantly, b) Because 2000 was the year inferno opened its doors for business, as a genuinely integrated agency intelligently blending traditional advertising with DM, SP and of course, digital.

Back to the point.

I guess I have two main beefs.

The first is the simple difference between capability and ability, and they’re too often confused when it comes to integration.

Brother and sister agencies with funny names who take care of the non-TV work are far too often the way traditional agencies “integrate”. Too many agencies continue to simply bolt-on integrated campaigns to their TV ads and try and use retrospective logic to justify it.

In truth, real integration involves the talent, the agility, the willingness and (perhaps most importantly) the ability to execute great thinking in whatever mix of media best solves the client’s business problem. Without media bias, and well beyond simple capability.

Integrated agency groups with multiple P&Ls often present a very compelling set of capabilities to prospective clients, but we all know that once the initial briefing meeting is over and Mr or Mrs Client has left the building, a nasty scrap kicks off as the different group agencies battle for creative leadership and their share of the budget. Which probably isn’t in Mr or Mrs Client’s best interest really.

Which leads directly into my second point:

The future of the advertising industry isn’t integration, it’s ideas. Ideas that can run anywhere from a supermarket promotion to a global sponsorship – not just TV scripts. And just as importantly, those ideas need to come from agencies that can make them exciting and effective in those myriad environments.

The most seamlessly organised and integrated agency on the planet won’t last very long if its ideas are inflexible, short sighted or media biased.

And finally; we need to be prepared to share our ideas with consumers, the media, anyone. Technology has seen off the days where advertisers can simply shout their ideas at consumers and sit back and hope for the best.

Smart advertisers are welcoming not only feedback on their ideas and beliefs, but involvement in the very shaping of them.

A few people from inferno went to a live album. I don’t mean ‘Queen at Wembley’, but an album that was a live sculpture exhibition. Here is what fellow inferno person John Williams had to say about it.

Ever heard an album so good you actually want to get inside it?

Partizan director Saam Farahmand, pushes the boundaries of what music videos can offer by creating a 3D physical interpretation of the brilliant first album from The XX. The result is as simple and hypnotic as the South London band themselves. There are just 3 speakers with integrated screens and lights based in a triangle formation in a dark room. Each pod represents a band member and their corresponding instrument, so stand in the middle and you hear the album as you would on your iPod, but move around and you can single out each of the delicate individual melodies and beats that come together to make the whole so satisfying.

The experience is very calming and worth checking out this week at The Vinyl Factory- just below Phonica records on Poland Street.

inferno has picked up another award, this time a radio Vox Award best in category for our work on the Glasses Company, written by John Peacock and Alastair Scully. It has also been shortlisted in the RAB awards, so fingers crossed for that one too. Have a listen here

Google Xistence? Seems like an early April fools from Google to me. Apparently it sends randomly generated tweets, status updates and photos to your social media stream, so you don’t have to.

The Guardian newspaper have released a iPhone App that allows subscribers to read the news in a format that is personalised and convenient. They are not charging for the content, you can access the guardian.co.uk perfectly well on the iPhone or any other internet enabled smart phone, for free.

This app is for sale at £2.39, and in December, it’s first month, it was downloaded 68,979 times. That is £164.859 income. This will have no doubt smashed the development costs, and will be turning a very tidy revenue stream that could amount to £2m per annually. This App is available in UK and US, and has been extended to the rest of Europe now, so that figure could increase further.

It is already possible to buy news for the Kindle, the same news that is available free online, and with the upcoming Apple tablet, there could be another commercialised format available.

My point being, no one will pay for news Mr Murdoch. There is such a thing as a free news story, so deal with it! We can watch it on TV, read it on the internet, read it on the tube and listen to it on the radio, without paying a penny for it.

If I buy a Sunday newspaper, I buy it because that particular format suits me that day, to maybe sit down for an hour, with a civilised cup of coffee in a quite cafe. Or more likely in my case, in a screaming warehouse in Tesco’s car park called Clown Town (It’s a kiddie thing). My usual preferred format is on the internet for free, but if you make another format more appealing to me, I am happy to pay for it, but not the news thanks.

In the summer of 2000, Frazer Gibney, Drew Saunders and Tim Doust launched a new independently owned agency called inferno.

It’s been a rollercoaster of a journey, working with some fantastic clients and agency people along the way. When we started the agency, we had no clients and no prospect clients, although that changed very quickly! How things have evolved! The first ten months we were working in a flat in Wimbledon, which we knew we had out grown when Drew’s office had to be relocated to the toilet, infact his Mac was balanced between the sink and the loo! (some of his best work came from that loo!)

Our founding clients were Gunwharf Quays and Budweiser, Gunwharf Quays are still with us and we said goodbye to Bud only last year…. Not a bad innings. We moved from Wimbledon to the West End by December 2000, not just because we had run out of space but also because we couldn’t attract the best creative talent down there.

When we moved to Palladium House, opposite Libertys we were situated on just one half of the first floor with around 18 people, we sub-let the other half, but we continued to grow and win business. Prudential came on board and we were doing more and more for Budweiser and other clients like Telewest (now Virgin Media) also came on board.

Our growth continued in the following years, picking up Visa, Premier Inn, BBC, Sony Playstation and Nokia along the way. Consequently we moved onto the 5th floor and the other side of the 1st floor as well. Infact we have now outgrown that space too and I am very excited about moving this summer to a bigger premises in Soho this Summer. I am also very excited about our own brand refresh and the new web site, which is almost ready!

We are now about 65 people with a lovely blue chip account list and I think the things I am most proud of is that what we set out to achieve in 2000, was to be able to deliver right across the media and to retain our independence…..long may that continue. We have a fantastic group of people here and we will continue to have some fun on the journey.

Tim Doust
(The young looking fella on the far right in the top pic!)

All of us here at Inferno would like to say thanks to everyone who came to Sketch in the freezing December to celebrate a great year of working together.

The celebration was conducted in the honorable tradition of drinking, dancing and pulling funny faces at a camera whilst stood inside a giant cut out Nokia X6. Top work everyone, you excelled yourselves.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New 2010 Year to you all.

Inferno.

We here at Inferno have discussed how much further Google Earth and Google Maps can go. We now have Street View, so we can get 360° ground level view, but could we ever have a real time ground level view?

Well boffins have got us a step closer to a realization by augmenting various video camera footage on top of Google maps to give ‘a more interesting’ view of the world. And it works. OK, it’s a bit rough, but it has added another dimension to the already awesome Google open API.

So with this sort of technology taking it‘s first steps, does this mean in the future we can set up high definition web cams, maybe on mobile communication towers, plus open access to CCTV etc, and overlay them over Google maps, in order to give us a real time moving, 3D image of what is happening all over the surface of the world at any time?

Well it means it is certainly technically possible, but is it morally possible?