A recognition for the Tap Project

On September 22nd, The Advertising Club recognized David Droga, the Creative Chairman at Droga5, for his brilliant efforts on the Tap Project.

Here is an excerpt from his acceptance speech which I think is extremely powerful, especially for everyone in the advertising community. (His speech in the video below.)

"I don't think I'll ever have the luxury to be able to write a check for a billion dollars, I'm not Bill Gates. I'd love to think I could, but what I can do, I can contribute my imagination, and that's my currency. And everyone in our industry has the power to contribute."

The funniest thing is that he is one of the most awarded creatives in advertising, but his mom finally thinks he did something great.

Greatest hook-up site ever

As I was surfing the interweb, I came across one of the best websites ever. It is called Designism Connects and it is for those who are Creatives and want to make a positive impact in the world. It links you with a good cause worth fighting for. Work that will leave you feeling as though you were a hero, doing good.

Here is the site, I fell in love with it.
I hope you do too.

http://www.designismconnects.org/

something epic

This is one of the greatest spots this year and it was done by Weiden+Kennedy for Nike. It's epic. It cannot be defined any other way. No matter how many times you view this spot, you are always left in awe.

No words and yet it leaves so much behind:
Practice makes perfect, if you persist you will persevere, etc etc.

LEAVE NOTHING... it is all that is said in the super, and yet it says so much. Now I wish I put in a little extra during fútbol practice when I was little... next Cristiano Ronaldo, who knows.

This is going to win big at the awards in 09, just watch.




Client: Nike Football
Agency: Wieden + Kennedy

connecting with nature

The other day I was looking through Lürzer's Int'l Archive and stumbled upon a great ad from Colombia, my homeland. I then went on to search online for other work that hailed from Colombia. In my search, I stumbled upon this piece which is great in every sense. It was a huge gamble due to the nature of its' execution which called for screenprinting on banana leaves. The idea was to connect one of Toyota's most popular 4x4's with nature and the execution was brilliant even though nowadays SUVs are associated more with polution than connecting with nature, but that may just be the consensus here in the States. In other countries these cars are used for getting to places where no automobile can go, especially in the rural and heavily forrested areas. These cars are heavily depended on for getting supplies to villages that are in underdeveloped regions where paved roads are a commodity and getting modern medicine is essential for survival.



Below you can find the site where I found this great piece of work as well as a video of how this campaign was produced.

http://www.print.duncans.tv/2008/toyota-prado-on-banana-leaf/

Client: Toyota Prado
Agency: Leo Burnett Colombia

Complaints Choir

We saw the Complaints Choir exhibit at P.S.1 MoMA in Queens and were in awe. I liked this exhibit so much I felt like I had to share it even though this isn't advertising. It is still a very artistic way of communicating... even if it's people's complaints and grievances.

The thing I love about this is the passion with which the people express themselves for the things they dislike.
I had read an article in Fast Company about people having more things in common in the things they dislike than the things they actually like.... it really shows in these choirs.

My favorite choir was the one from Helsinki, but you may find the rest @ www.complaintschoir.org

first award - lots of tissues needed

Last week, we attended our first ever award ceremony.

It was totally unexpected, we never expected to make it down to the shortlist.
It was for AdPack USA's second annual Tissue Tactics II contest and we had to come up with tissue packaging to promote our brand or company. We had tons of ideas, my favorite was for Major League Baseball (MLB) for which our idea was pretty cool, but can't give the idea away just yet as we'll probably enter it next year.

We decided on going with Diamond Edge Communications (DEC), the student-run ad agency that I worked at while I was at school. The idea for this one was to promote the agency and attract new talent/students and letting them know that DEC offers a real life experience, not just running copies and stapling packets for the boss.

Here is a rough JPEG of what we rushed into the competition.
We didn't make bank on this opportunity but at least we got recognition (shortlist).

CW: Camilo Aguirre
AD: Jonathan Correa

Vampire Energy

GOOD Magazine and Nigel Holmes (Explanation Graphics) put this little vid together about Vampire Energy (standby energy).

It's a great piece of communication on how much energy or $$$ we waste by having all our gizmos connected. It doesn't seem like much short-term, but on the long run it may be of great impact.

Check it out, 3 1/2 minutes of entertaining information.

the Humanitarian Lion

Found this as I was surfing the web and fell in love with the idea.

The Humanitarian Lion would be an award given at Cannes. Cannes is not just a city in France nor we think about the film festival, which is great and all, but Cannes [Lions] is one of the most coveted advertising festivals in the world. Advertising professionals from all over the world conglomerate in Cannes for a week of award shows, trade shows, conventions, and the hope of leaving Cannes victoriously with a Lion. The Lion statues that are awarded there are the equivalent of the Oscars, the only difference is that it is International and there are Gold, Silver and Bronze Lions.

Anywho, the Humanitarian Lion would be an award given to the best campaign, as its name states, to the best humanitarian advertising. In the past, many humanitarian projects have won many Lions, and now it appears they will have their own category. The Tap Project, which I've ranted about before, won the most coveted of all Lions last year, the Grand Prix Lion, other humanitarian campaigns that have won have been for Amnesty International, UNICEF, etc.

Hopefully this will be a new category this year or at least in the near future.





Client:
Agency:

Sharing is caring

Sharing IS caring. It's beautiful to see everyone sharing throughout the spot. Even more so how people from diverse cultures share with one another. However, it would be amazing to see people actually buying an extra beer of their choice at a bar and bring it over to a total stranger and say "hey, I just had one of these and thought it was amazing. You look like someone who would appreciate it." Now that would be even more Utopian, hehehe.

Anywho, this is one of those spots where you can place any product in it and still leave people feeling warm and fuzzy inside.





Client: Heineken Premium Light
Agency: Wieden+Kennedy

A worldly religion known as football

This is one of those spots that I'll actually run to the TV and watch closely, especially if I can catch it from the beginning. I fell in love with the spot because it is every kid's dream to play club football. The way this spot starts is as if we were playing in the Minors or in an inner-city team and then getting scouted to play in the major league club, and eventually getting a chance to play in the national team. This spot was very reminiscent of the story-line in the movie Goal!, a movie which is equivalent to Rudy here in the U.S.

Below is the Nike spot that pays a bit of a tribute to football (soccer). Enjoy!





Agency: 72andSunny
Client: Nike Football
Creative Director: John Boiler, Glenn Cole, Jason Norcross, Bryan Rowles
Director: Guy Ritchie (as in Madonna's Guy Ritchie)

Full credits on Creativity-Online

shaving the tiger

Now this is another great ad.

No copy (words) at all.

And yet you understand that this razor delivers the closest shave you can get.

Just brilliant.

Client: Schick

Agency: JWT (NY)

Living the Absolut World

On Saturday, March 22nd, we had the chance to live out that cool Absolut commercial. Except for this time, we weren't fighting riot police nor were there people rappelling down the side of the buildings. We were all there to fight each other in an all out pillow fight war where every man and woman was fighting for themselves. It took place in NYC's Union Square and there were feathers all over the place; to the point that you had feathers in your mouth, in your nose, basically everywhere.

It had to be one of the most fun-filled days of the year. It was called NYC Pillow Fight 2008. Everyone and there pillows met at 3pm that Saturday afternoon to have fun. [Other political implications may be deduced from such a fun manifestation, but I'd rather not go there.] There were people who adorned their pillowcases, others who disguised themselves. All-in-all, it was the most fun I had in well... at least this month.

Check out some more pics from the Pillow Fight on my bookface album.


Below you'll find the Absolut commercial I referred to earlier.

Client: Absolut

Agency: TBWA\Chiat\Day

Friends against drunk driving

Back in Persuasive Thinking class, my first advertising class to be precise, we had to come up with PSA ads for an Ad Council campaign of our choosing. For some reason I got interested in the Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) campaign. I wanted to work on this one because it targets the soon-to-be-drunk person directly, which I believe doesn't work to well. People in a drunk state of mind don't think back about things and even less about possible consequences. They are set on the one thing they have in mind: grabbing another drink, talking to that certain someone, calling people (what is nowadays called drunk-dialing), or getting home by any means necessary.

This was when I realized that the ads didn't really live up to its tagline/motto: "Friends don't let friends drive drunk." Therefore I decided to target friends. A good friend would do anything possible to not let you endanger yourself or the life of others. Therefore my campaign was to have friends intercede when a friend is drunk, buzzed, tipsy, etc. Below is my favorite ad out of the series of ads I created, the other ones are quite embarrassing, they look like kindergarten doodles, hehehe.

Enjoy!

CW: Camilo

AD: Camilo

Year: circa 2005

Rebranding a country

'Colombia is Passion' is a campaign that started about 2 years ago to rebrand Colombia. Nowadays a lot of countries have their own brand and logo: India, Brazil, Australia, etc. This is not only an effort of the Colombian government, but of the businesses, cultural and educational institutions, and of all the Colombians as well. You can learn more at ColombiaisPassion.com

Of the many entities tied to 'Colombia is Passion,' the Fondo de Promoción Turística Colombia (tourism board) developed a new message to increase international visitors/tourists in Colombia and tied it with the Colombian brand. When I was coming back to the States in January I saw many billboards throughout El Dorado, Bogotá's international airport. I basically fell in love with the message because I was seriously considering not coming back to the States. Find more about traveling to Colombia at: VisitColombia.com


In December, two friends from school decided that they wanted to backpack throughout Colombia in January. I told them that they should definitely go for it, that the country was now a safe place to visit. And they indeed came down and stopped by my house for 2 days, which is in the mountainous region where the majority of Colombia's coffee comes from.


Overall, I'm pretty proud of the campaign and the collective efforts of Colombia to have a better international image. Although the image below does make it look like Disneyworld's "It's a Small World" ride, I still like it a lot and have that same sombrero that is soaring. The sombrero is called a "Sombrero Costeño" which comes from the Atlantic coast of Colombia, Barranquilla in particular.


Client: the people of Colombia
Agency: Proexport and Sancho BBDO, Colombia


Facebook Groups:
Colombia, the only risk is wanting to stay - Discussion boards on traveling to Colombia are quite educational especially for those visiting for the first time.
Colombia es pasión - Group composed of people who love the country, Colombians and others from around the globe.

Getting kids back home

This is an Ad Council campaign that everyone can relate to, it's for Wireless AMBER Alerts and the creative is done by Merkley + Partners. It is a campaign for missing and abducted children, and it calls for citizens to register their mobile device to receive text messages with information that could lead to finding a child.

There is no need to stress how important and necessary it is for advertising to carry this message because losing a kid for 10 seconds in a department store is devastating enough.

The message on the van is scary enough and makes you wonder about all those cars on the road in front of you, especially those sketchy ones that pass you by.

For more on this campaign or other non-profit campaigns go to Ad Council.



Client: Wireless AMBER Alerts
Agency: Merkley + Partners

A little Oreo

This is just a little something I thought was great and very well done.


Client: Oreo
Agency: Draftfcb

Tap Project

This upcoming week will be World Water Week, from March 16th to the 22nd, and the Tap Project is where participating restaurants across the country will offer tap water to its patrons for $1 in benefit of UNICEF to provide children with safe drinking water. This was probably one of the best things to come out of 2007 and is really going far, having started in NYC and branching out to 30 cities in the U.S. this year.

When I first saw this last year I got goosebumps, the good kind of when you're happy to see something. I was happy to see this because whenever I go back home and trek out to the pueblos near the family farms, I run into many poor children who ask for food or drink. These kids live in "invasions," houses made from scrap material, on the outskirts of the pueblos or cities and don't have sewage, electricity or any of the amenities that we take for granted. Seeing an idea like this take off and take shape into one of the greatest efforts for UNICEF is very encouraging and shows you how "good" you could be in advertising.

The Tap Project brings social responsibility closer to the public and gives them a chance to spare a few dollars for something we get for free. Now if only they could keep this project running year round at restaurants, that would be great. (Tap Project could be included in your utilities.)

The Backstory

Last year, Droga5, an ad agency in NY, worked with UNICEF to promote World Water Day (March 22, 2007) and let the world know about the millions of children who don't have safe water to drink. This campaign got a lot of buzz going and won a lot of awards including a Titanium Lion at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival last year, which is like the Academy Awards for advertising.

For more info and a list of participating restaurants visit Tap Project.



Client: Unicef
Agency: Droga5

Solidarity back home

Every time I go back home to Colombia, I love to flip through magazines, newspapers, TV channels, basically all media... just looking at the ads. While I'm back here in the States, I like to keep looking, but from a distance.

Recently, a campaign that caught my attention, which was featured in Creativity Online, was a unique campaign where actors were chained to transit ads at bus stops to urge Colombians to go out and march. This campaign was delivered by Sancho BBDO and OMD in Colombia, and it really stressed the fact that those of us who are "free" should do something. The message was: "Tú que puedes sal a caminar en contra de las FARC" and in English it translates: "Since you can do it, go out and march against the FARC."

As you can see, this campaign attracted a lot of attention on the streets and got a lot of press coverage.

This is another reason for which I like advertising. You can use your creativity to support a national cause or any cause you deeply believe in. Many creatives here in the States are showing their support for Obama or other candidates.


Client: OMD
Agency: Sancho BBDO, Colombia
Creative Director: Giovanni Martinez, Hugo Corredor
Art Director: Giovanni Martinez
Copywriter: Hugo Corredor



The Backstory - if you'd like to know more.

Solidarity struck Colombians across the world as they all set out to march in protest against the FARC, a rebel group that has been causing grief and pain for decades. On Monday February 4th, Colombians all wore white shirts and set out with a unified voice that said: No mas secuestro, No mas mentiras, No mas muertes, No mas FARC. Which in English translates as: No more kidnappings, No more lies, No more killings, No more FARC.

That day, the entire country basically shut down as millions of Colombians took to the streets that afternoon. Not only were marches coordinated in Colombia's major cities, but marches were also present in major cities throughout South America, Central America, North America and Europe, basically wherever there was a group of Colombians there was a voice of solidarity. Pictures from BBC.

My First

My first experience with advertising outside of class was at Diamond Edge Communications. DEC is a student-run advertising agency at Temple University, where students intern and get real life experience by working with clients, budgets, and managing time. One of the greatest things you can learn there is "no job is an easy job."

I joined DEC in the Spring semester of 2007. Of all the accounts I managed that semester, the Special Equestrians account was the one that showed me that advertising could benefit people. Special Equestrians is a non-profit, therapeutic horse riding program whose mission is to improve the physical, mental and emotional well being of children and adults with physical or mental disabilities.

Even though this client had a really small budget, we had the privilege and the opportunity to do something that eventually benefited the Bucks County community. This was the first ad that we presented to the client and they loved it. It was a print ad that they intended placing as a flyer in local and regional magazines.

This was when I first realized that advertising is good -- good for the community.

Client: Special Equestrians
Agency: Diamond Edge Communications
Account Manager: Camilo Aguirre
Creative Director: Matthew Keegan
Art Director: Matthew Keegan
Copywriter: Margaret Mastrogiacomo