The 2013 version of the initiative is to be announced on Thursday as a gaggle of Googlers gets ready for the annual South by Southwest Interactive Conference and Festival in Austin, Tex.
The initiative last year, known as Project Re:Brief, was meant to help change minds outside Silicon Valley and Silicon Alley about the role that technology in general, and Google products in particular, could play in mainstream brand marketing.
The focus of Project Re:Brief — as in rethinking a creative brief — was to reimagine for contemporary consumers four classic commercials and campaigns from the “Mad Men” era, for Alka-Seltzer, Avis, Coca-Cola and Volvo.
This time, the brands taking part are Adidas, Burberry and Volkswagen, with Volkswagen of America and its creative agency, Deutsch L.A., going first.
Another change for 2013 is a renaming of the initiative: Art, Copy and Code, riffing on the ad industry phrase “art and copy,” evoking the two components of most ads; the organization known as the One Club for Art and Copy; and a movie, “Art and Copy,” produced by the organization.
Perhaps the biggest change for Version 2.0 is to shift the time frame. The work developed last year for Project Re:Brief was based on ads from the 1960s and 1970s. The work being developed for Adidas, Burberry and Volkswagen will be based on current ads.
“We had a great experience last year when we went back to the iconic campaigns, people saying, ‘Wow, you can build brands online; digital isn’t just for click-here, direct-response ads,’ ” said Jim Lecinski, vice president for United States sales and service at Google.
“And we were pleased and proud of recognition in the industry,” he added, like the initiative for Coca-Cola’s winning the first-ever grand prix for mobile advertising at the 59th Cannes Lions international advertising festival in June.
This time, the goal is to see “what we could do for a live, real, of-the-moment brief for a brand,” Mr. Lecinski said, and “to get something into the marketplace right now.”
For Volkswagen, the basis of what is being created is the current brand positioning campaign that associates Volkswagen with what Esso gasoline described decades ago as “Happy motoring” — in other words, said Winston Binch, partner and chief digital officer at Deutsch L.A., “bringing enjoyment, fun, to every drive.”
Examples of how Deutsch L.A. has been expressing that recently for Volkswagen include a commercial last fall that carried the theme “It’s not the miles, it’s how you live them” and a spot that ran during Super Bowl XLVII on Feb. 3 that carried the theme “Get in. Get happy.”
For Art, Copy and Code, Volkswagen of America will offer drivers a mobile app and Web service called Volkswagen Smileage, billed as fostering a social driving experience. Drivers who use the new Google Plus Sign-In program from the Google Plus social networking tool can share their smile-inducing driving experiences with friends and family.
“Brands need to act more and more like inventors,” Mr. Binch said, and embrace “productized marketing” like the Nike Plus Fuel Band and the American Express Open Forum.
(Social driving may be another example of how social media are remaking marketing; there are also, for instance, social shopping and social sampling.)
“We have a passionate owner base, and we’re going to reach out to them first with the beta version” of Volkswagen Smileage, said Justin Osborne, general manager for advertising and marketing communication at Volkswagen of America in Herndon, Va. After that, “we’re going to roll it out to a larger audience,” Mr. Osborne said, offering it to all drivers, not only Volkswagen owners.
“I want someone who owns a Corolla to have this app in their car, to get a little piece of Volkswagen in their car,” he added.
Google “reached out to us to see if we’d be interested in the second version” of Project Re:Brief, Mr. Osborne said, “and it was a bit of a beauty pageant; we had to write a brief” explaining why Volkswagen ought to take part.
“To be honest, we didn’t know what we were going for” at first, he added, but after brainstorming sessions there were “aha moments” that proved “the Google people live up to their reputation: they’re wicked smart.”
Also working on Volkswagen Smileage with Google, Volkswagen of America and Deutsch L.A. — part of the Deutsch unit of Lowe Partners, owned by the Interpublic Group of Companies — is Grow, formerly Grow Interactive, a digital agency in Norfolk, Va., that worked with Google on Project Re:Brief.
Grow will be Google’s “creative and technology partner” for all the Art, Copy and Code initiatives, said Drew Ungvarsky, chief executive and creative director at Grow.
“I think this is a welcome progression from last year,” he added. “What we did was received incredibly well, but this is on a broader scale, with ideas that are ready for today’s market.”
Aman Govil, team lead for the advertising arts team at Google, who also worked on Project Re:Brief, said the efforts for Adidas and Burberry are “still in the early creative process.”
“We’re looking at how we can innovate with them,” he added, also “looking at more than ads, using social media, apps, Google Chrome, Android, Google Plus, to help brands build with digital.”
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/07/business/media/google-upgrades-campaign-for-mobile-marketing.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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