Youth mag Vice launches creative agency Virtue
Vice magazine has launched its own ad agency in response to growing demand from brands for ideas that are more thna just print ads.
Virtue will be headed up by Vice’s publisher Myki Slonim, who worked for four years as a strategic planner for George Patterson Bates before founding the Australian edition of youth culture title Vice in 2003.
He told Mumbrella: “Virtue is a formalisation of what we’ve been doing. Clients started coming to us with more open briefs wanting to tap into our knowledge of the market and what we can do. It’s a recognition that we do a lot of project work outside of the Vice channels.”
One of the projects Vice carried out last year was for Adidas Originals, in which online users could create their own festival and persuade their friends to vote for the best one. The game generated 200,000 visits.
Vice also created a “cuprocking” campaign for streatwear brand Mooks in which it showcased the work of Syndey artist Andy Uprock, who creates installations out of wire fences using only plastic cups.
And Vice capitalised on its relationships with musicians to create a music event to mark the launch of Puma’s Archive range which included a performance from The Hives.
The magazine has also created mini magazines including a Corona summer guide and LittleBigVice with PlayStation. It also leveraged the Do’s Or Don’ts section from the magazine to create a game to promote PlayStation’s Time Crisis 4.
Vice is also behind several executions within New Zealand vodka brand 42 Below’s Because We Can campaign, including Sydney’s garbage snowman.
Slonim told Mumbrella: “We aim to work with brands that that share our sensibilities and sense of fun. Brands should try to act like media. Our approach is to create something that has momentum.”
Vice is also increasing the Australian content for its VBS online TV portal. And the magazine is in talks with Australian TV networks over the rights to some of the documentaries the brand has already produced.
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Good One Vice….lucky you who get to work on booze and sneakers all day long 🙂
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Agency: “Hello Vice, can you do a f-cking cool promo for our client and make it look legit?”
Vice: “Yeah, no worries.”
Agency: “Can you send it be EOP, the client is breaking our balls. Oh, and the budget has been cut to $2k. Sorry”
Vice: “No worries. We’ll start our own agency instead.”
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Can you get a message to the Cup Rocking guy that we have a whole bunch of cups in our tea room that need cleaning. Once he’s done that I’m for than happy for him to rock them.
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Nice one VICE <3 you guys! 🙂
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I love Vice mag. Its the only one I actually enjoy reading all the time.
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It was only a matter of time
Agencies watch out
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Well done Vice! Definitely put Virtue in the Dos.
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