To drive home the point that IBM has created a new breed of software with the launch of Lotus Notes 8–the integrated software allows users to work with their favorite applications in one interface–Ogilvy, New York, created a humorous viral video that introduces viewers to a farmer who has been forced to develop his own creative solution to run his farm more efficiently in a tough economy.
To unify and simplify, he took all the qualities of his favorite animals and combined them into one, a “Cock-a-Doodle Moo” named Lucky. The new breed gives the farmer the best of all animals, which has proven to be a boon to productivity. He explains that Lucky lays perfect eggs, her wool is exported to the top designers in Milan and her milk is not only delicious but its safe for the lactose intolerant.
“Lotus had not been getting a lot of press about its software development for a while, so we knew we had to create something that grabbed people’s attention. The video is meant to be something a little shocking and drive people to the website, www.creatsimplicity.com, where they can find out more about Lotus,” explained Adam Lau, creative director, Ogilvy.
At the website, visitors can select three animals and then click unify to create their own breed. Then they can share their new pet with friends and co-workers. The site was designed to offer people fun things to do and while they are clicking on different things, they are constantly being introduced to new ideas about Lotus.
“You have to engage people online. They are not just out there waiting for your product message,” Lau said.
He pointed out that the video was seeded on video sharing sites such as YouTube and Google Video as well as sites where the creative team felt business leaders visited, such as 43folders.com and gizmodo.com.
The video was shot in HD at a farm in upstate New York. Ogilvy tapped director Henry Littlechild of Outsider Productions, Santa Monica, to helm the project. “We needed something that felt real so you bought into these characters and his treatment of people was so good. He had also shot a lot of projects where there was a lot of post involved. In thinking about this project, we knew that was going to be important–to create an environment where someone like The Mill, New York, could come in and do a great job and create this animal for us.”
Lau said they wanted the animal to feel real and did not want it to look CG. “So the biggest challenge was finding the biggest number of animals and shooting them all against essentially a white screen to give The Mill enough footage to go in and create this animal,” Lau explained.
He enjoyed the challenge of creating something that makes a statement online. “It’s different than traditional advertising because you have to create something that is entertaining, that people will pass around, while finding a way to deliver a marketing message inside of that. It’s a good challenge for creatives to have.”
Raoul Peck Resurrects A Once-Forgotten Anti-Apartheid Photographer In “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found”
When the photographer Ernest Cole died in 1990 at the age of 49 from pancreatic cancer at a Manhattan hospital, his death was little noted.
Cole, one of the most important chroniclers of apartheid-era South Africa, was by then mostly forgotten and penniless. Banned by his native country after the publication of his pioneering photography book "House of Bondage," Cole had emigrated in 1966 to the United States. But his life in exile gradually disintegrated into intermittent homelessness. A six-paragraph obituary in The New York Times ran alongside a list of death notices.
But Cole receives a vibrant and stirring resurrection in Raoul Peck's new film "Ernest Cole: Lost and Found," narrated in Cole's own words and voiced by LaKeith Stanfield. The film, which opens in theaters Friday, is laced throughout with Cole's photographs, many of them not before seen publicly.
As he did in his Oscar-nominated James Baldwin documentary "I Am Not Your Negro," the Haitian-born Peck shares screenwriting credit with his subject. "Ernest Cole: Lost and Found" is drawn from Cole's own writings. In words and images, Peck brings the tragic story of Cole to vivid life, reopening the lens through which Cole so perceptively saw injustice and humanity.
"Film is a political tool for me," Peck said in a recent interview over lunch in Manhattan. "My job is to go to the widest audience possible and try to give them something to help them understand where they are, what they are doing, what role they are playing. It's about my fight today. I don't care about the past."
"Ernest Cole: Lost and Found" is a movie layered with meaning that goes beyond Cole's work. It asks questions not just about the societies Cole documented but of how he was treated as an artist,... Read More