On Wednesday, Mumbrella posted an opinion piece questioning whether Droga 5’s V Australia Twitter campaign deserved to win at the Cannes Direct Lions. Juror Erik Ingvoldstad has accepted our invitation to respond.
I believe the jury discussed this as an interesting way of engaging the consumer and getting publicity.
The tweets themselves were less interesting. I did not follow the account, but I still knew exactly what the campaign was about.
During the judging, I personally spoke up about the spam characteristics of tweeting every minute, but then I don’t believe people would follow this tweet stream to hear about what these guys actually did. It was more the fact that they found a way to get talked about.
ADVERTISEMENT
Twitter is not a great marketing channel, in fact all of us who use it regularly recognise the the fact that most marketing attempts have created as much negativity as positivity (like Habitat, and even the much praised I Spy Levi’s campaign – really all they did was give away free jeans).
But this is still uncharted territory, and I for one give kudos to agencies and marketers who are willing to try new things to get their message across.
The jury in general recognised work that worked on a multitude of levels, and the V Australia campaign one certainly did.
Is it stupid? Maybe, but sometimes that’s what drives interest from the general public and the general media.
As the awesome Diesel campaign (that just won at Cannes in the Outdoor category) says: Smart Critiques. Stupid Creates.
- Erik Ingvoldstad is Regional Creative Director – Asia Pacific & Executive Creative Director – Singapore for MRM Worldwide. He is on Twitter as @ingvoldSTAR.