Incito MentisA blog by Syed Abdul Karim

How do they do it! It’s simply amazing what Doritos did for the Super Bowl 2010. 116.2 million viewers watched the Doritos – Snack Attack Samurai spot, making it the most watched television commercial of all time!* WOW!

The brilliant thing about this all is that everything is user generated! That’s right! Doritos simply created a platform and the users did the rest. Anyone with an idea could write it, shoot it and submit it. It was that simple. If they became one of six finalists then they got $25,000 each. The six were then put to vote. The Top 3 were aired as Doritos commercials for the Super Bowl 2010.

To top it all, if they got ranked in the Top 3 on the USA Today ad meter as well then the first place would get $1,000,000, the second place $600,000 and the third place $400,000. If all three took the Top 3 slots then everyone would get a $1,000,000. And so they did, the Doritos Underdog spot took the second place. Two 20-something aspiring filmmakers walked away with $600,000!

I found this entire contest very interesting because Doritos got it right at multiple levels. For one, Doritos engaged the filmmaking community by building on the premise that a great idea can come from anyone! Secondly, they engaged America to participate and vote for the best commercial, thereby taking the idea to the masses and creating interaction!

Lastly, the thing that I found most brilliant was the simplicity of the brief. “Go for action-packed. Or go for funny. It’s up to you.” It is all about Originality, Creativity and Appeal! No big ideas, No big strategies. All the commercials have taken a ‘creative leap’ on a simple message – People who love Doritos don’t want to share them with anyone.

As a creative strategy there was nothing new there! The power is in the creative itself. My personal favorite is ‘House Rules’! “Keep you hands off my mama! Keep your hands off my Doritos!” LOL! Check it out!

Doritos – House Rules

Doritos – Underdog

Doritos – Snack Attack Samurai

* According to the Nielsen Company

Volkswagen has done it again! This is simply a brilliant example of how to create influence using social media. As a DDB’er I can safely say that the VW Fun Theory does everything right when it comes to applying the DDB Influence Springboard (a proprietary set of tools to create influence in this new world of media). As a strategic planner I must add VW is one of my favorite brands. The VW Philosophy, their unique tone of voice is sheer genius. The strategy is so straightforward and yet so powerful. It is translated into three simple words – VW is going to be honest, human and intelligently humorous in everything it is going to do. Over the years, VW has delivered on this promise in all it’s advertising and won innumerable accolades for it. Now it’s taking it to a whole new level. This idea brings the element of collaboration to the mix by making audiences interact and live the brand promise (or Brand Conviction as we say at DDB). At the same time it is engaging the advocates to participate and contribute to the concept. The concept itself is fairly simple. You can change people’s behavior for the better if you can make it fun for them. The video below is one example of how people were made to use the staircase instead of the escalator by adding that element of fun! Just so you know this video has had more than 8 million views on YouTube to date. Need I say more! See for yourself!

Now that’s what I call a Big Idea!

The concept of storytelling in advertising is a concept as old as advertising itself! Yet so many TV Commercials produced today ignore this wondrous and entertaining approach to communicating a message. Lately I came across two very good TV commercials that tell a story about a brand and do so beautifully! One is for Jameson Whiskey and the other is for Topline Kiss Chewing Gum. Have a look!

What can we learn from this? As a planner I would say the Topline Kiss is genius at multiple levels! I think the idea that someone thought of a gum for kissing is brilliant in itself. It is unique and puts everything in a whole new space. The second leap comes at the strategy level. The task here was to simplify and focus on the benefit. I think somewhere in the creative brief there must have been a key insight which went something like this, ‘A great kiss is long, intense, never-ending!’ and thus the idea of “for unbreakable kisses” must have been born! Kudos to all those involved! It would be great to get the creative brief from the team behind this!

As for the Jameson Whiskey ad! I think it is a very simple ad based on the “Taste” benefit. Something which we have seen in at least a million other commercials. What makes it stand out is the dramatization of this benefit in 30 seconds and doing so in a way unique to the brand. The characterization of the John Jameson! I wonder what the brief would have been like. I believe all the credit here goes to the creative team to crack an over-used benefit of taste in an interesting way!