How Do You Hello? was a strategy developed by Natalie Ranger and myself to kick start a year of communications. Skype is more than just calling. So an Hello can be anything from a video trick, to a picture, smiley face – whatever you like. We began the campaign by creating a series of ‘Hellos’ for the Skype.com homepage. Presented in a random flow. To inspire people to think about how they’d start their Skype conversation. We did everything from a violin recital to jumping on jelly.
For some users, the organised mayhem that is MySpace can be a little daunting. Martin Rose and myself were tasked with creating banners for on-site inventory promoting the improved features on MySpace: finding new friends, sign up, social and groups, enhanced profiles, picture upload, privacy & security.
The heroes of the banners are what we coined Friends & F*ckers and were designed to create a series that felt like engaging MySpace content rather than “ads”. After all, nobody really wants to be told how to use MySpace. The original scripts were pretty dark and weird, but we simplified them down to get the message across in still and simply animated banners.
“It’s a good look cos you’re so tonk!”
Stay tuned for the more racey mini-length films. The banners aim to re-ignite current users’ profiles and to engage with new users too and are running internationally (ex USA).
It was a real team effort job with the banners being animated by Martin (who also jumped into a pile of toys to find the perfect nondescript action figures) and the beautiful blue pants made by Benita our producer.
Natalie and I came up with the simple idea of making custom cookies for Christmas. You’d go to a site, create a cookie we’d bake them and send them. This proved a bit of a logistcal nightmare. However we did decide to bake cookies and capture the experience, along with stories, films & facts.
As part of our preparations we read, made-up, tried and tested many different cookie recipes (causing bellies to expand somewhat). Yes, the Albion Cookie Factory truly immersed itself in cookie and biscuit folklore. So to whet ones appetite we had a little website for friends of Albion to see the full Albion Cookie Processification.
We teased the idea with emails and the idea of secret special edition cookies. Then when baking day came we baked a truck load of cookies. Then wrapped them up nicely and sent them out.
I really love the way the online and real world can come together in such scrumptiousness.
The Venice Project have been a client for a few months now, but we couldn’t talk about it for ages. We’ve just made some films of people from The Venice Project talking about what it is and how it works.
This is part of the strategy to build the buzz around the project among tech enthusiasts. This isn’t about hype or stunts, but by getting their people talking directly to the community, just telling the truth.
So I thought about what we wanted to reveal at this stage, planned some scenarios, and took a documentary film maker to Leiden and London to shoot them. The briefest bit of editing, and then we posted them on their website.
Here they are for your viewing pleasure. Look out for a few odd touches! My favourites are the blank phone conversation and trying to explain how Joost will work with figurines.
For Fruitstock I developed a whole “pass it on” feel to the online campaign. It was all about telling friends what’s happening at Fruitstock this year. First we started with banners…
Go on, click play to listen.
Instead of filling them with info the user can carry on reading the Guardian website, but click on the stereo to hear a mixtape of music from the day.
I then designed and wrote copy for the Fruitstock website and filled it full of great things happening on the day. This enabled me take the Pass It On concept to another level. Any attraction or band featured on the site could be passed onto a friend, who you think may be excited by that particular thing – making it more personal.
This was the email invitation for Fruitstock. When it was forwarded, it automatically created a daisy chain of recipient names. As the email got passed around all your friend’s names got added to the daisy chain on the right, making the email more viral.
Oh no, flashback to hand-cramp from drawing loads with colouring pencils, arrgh.
This was innocents first foray into digital advertising so I didn’t want to do the usual thing in a banner ad.It was part of a bigger integrated campaign, but it’ll be unfair to show the press work as I just looked over Nick Darken’s shoulder in awe as he drew it.
You can have a go of it here. Go on, click on the chicken.
When you have 200,000 people coming to your homepage every day, it’s a good opportunity to tell them something about yourself. These educational films (made in Flash so they were quick to download) helped educate new people coming to Skype who still didn’t get it.
We made the website even more chaotic. The characters interrupt each other with activities, tricks, facts and they get bored if not played with. So the more you play, the more and more content you find.
Click on any fruit to find out more about that fruit. When a character interrupts, follow them to learn how to make Papier Maché or the best paper aeroplance ever.
It is so full you’d never see it all in one visit. I guarantee you’ll never see it all (The site map is as manic as the site) The Poo Safari is still the all time favourite.
Because of tight budgets I wrote, planned the action, illustrated and animated tons of content that fills the site.
Here’s some of my favourite content:
Some of which you won’t find unless you really hunt. Go on… click on them. See what they do.
Using the bug concept here is a game I developed to promote Virgin.net’s Anti Spam. Back when Space Invader rip offs were not everyone’s idea for the online bit. Have a play.
