The celebrations were just wrapping up on news of PHD having been named Strategy’s Media Agency of the Year for 2010, when lo and behold … we’re celebrating again.

At last night’s 11^th annual Media Innovation Awards, PHD offices in Toronto and Montreal spent much time, in between sips of bubbly, making a bee-line to the podium.

PHD/Touché!PHD combined to take away a total of 11 awards (more than any other agency) including 5 Gold, plus Best of Show for the “Natural Source of Comfort campaign” for the Quebec Milk Producers.

And in an interesting twist, our two offices each won Gold in the Integrated Campaign category.

The breakdown looks like this:

Best of Show – Quebec Milk Producers

Gold – Integrated Campaign (Quebec Milk Producers)

Gold – Integrated Campaign (Unilever Becel)

Gold – Traditional Out of Home (Quebec Milk Producers)

Gold – Fast Moving Consumer Goods (Quebec Milk Producers)

Gold – Social Media (Auto Trader)

Silver – Television (Unilever Becel)

Silver – Branded Content (Unilever Becel)

Bronze - Fast Moving Consumer Goods (Unilever Becel)

Bronze – Charity/Public Service (Quebec Health Ministry)

Bronze – Other Digital (Quebec Milk Producers)

These great achievements are not only a testament to the creative spirit and rigour that exists inside PHD, but also a further demonstration of the power of collaboration that exists between our great clients, creative agency stakeholders, and media outlet partners.

Given that speeches were outlawed last night, we wanted to send a special shout out today to our friends at Quebec Milk, BBDO , Astral, CBS, TVA, Rythme FM, Unilever, CTV, Radio Canada, Transcontinental Publishing, 7 Jours, Auto Trader, John Street, Mosaic, Quebec Health, LG2, Canoe, doyoulookgood.com, and BV Media.

All played a vital role in winning these awards, and so we send along our sincerest thanks.

It’s not surprising these days to see big brand name sponsors supporting many Hollywood parties but Lindsay Lohan has just raised the bar.

The young star recently celebrated her 22nd birthday and with the help of a promotions agency, opened up various components of the party for branding and sponsorship. This obviously isn’t the first time that a star has endorsed products, but this event offered logos on the invite, product availability on site, and images of Lindsay posing with the product… not exactly subtle.

If purchasing all media space surrounding a hollywood star’s birthday is in line with your brand image, then it might be a worthwhile investment.

I am however undecided on who would want their brand at Lindsay’s party…

Check out the website for Lindsay’s sponsorship opportunities at:   http://www.dizmajiz.com/clients/tr/18.html

Imagine if all media & creative could work so magically together that it would evoke a “car-stopping” response - causing you to pull out your camera, take a picture, and share with your friends!

Coca Cola’s new Outdoor campaign shows the powerful brand not only convincing its thirsty passerby’s to “Refresh on the Coca Cola side of Life”, but reveals the talent behind OTHER media executions jumping on board!

How did this obscure Optical join forces with power brand Coca Cola?

Upon asking my friend Google ….

Parinne Optical seems to be the creation of Coca Cola’s marketing masterminds.

Although Parinne is fictitious, this media execution opens up the possibility for two clients to work successfully together, leveraging the notion that maybe 2 boards (and 2 Brands!) are better than one.

The POWER lies in the CONNECTIVITY of the 2 Boards.

Is this a missed opportunity for Hakim or the Ma & Pa Optical down the road?
Would the nostalgic Coca Cola Bottle have the same stopping power on its own??

In the spirit of sharing some stunning creative for one of our clients (and to give myself a kick-start into our blogging world here!), please have a look at this British television ad for Honda/Acura. For those of you who haven’t yet seen it, prepare to be dazzled! The description accompanying this video reads as follows:

If you thought that the people who set up a room full of dominoes to have them knocked over later was amazing, you haven’t seen anything yet. There are no computer graphics or digital tricks in these images. Everything that you see happened in real time exactly as you see it. The recording required 606 takes and in the first 605 takes there always was something, usually of minor importance, that didn’t work.

It was necessary for the recording team to install the set-up time after time and it took several weeks working day and night to achieve this effect. The recording cost 6 million dollars and it took 3 months to finish, including the engineering design of the sequence. The duration of the video is only 2 minutes, but every time that Honda shows the commercial on British television, they make enough money to support any of us for the rest of our lives.

However, this commercial has turned out to be the most displayed in the history of the Internet. Honda execs think that it will pay for itself simply because of the free showings (as Honda is not paying one cent for you to see it). When Honda senior execs viewed it, they immediately approved it without hesitation-including costs.

There are only six Honda Accords built by hand in the whole world, and to the horror of Honda engineers, the recording team disassembled two of them for the recording. Everything you see in the sequence (besides the walls, floor, ramp and untouched Honda Accord) is part of those two automobiles.

The voice is that of Garrison Keiller.

The commercial was so well received by Honda execs when they saw it, that their first comment was how amazing the computer graphics were. They almost fell out of their chairs when told that the recording was real without any graphics manipulation.

By the way, about the wind shield wipers in the new Honda Accords, they are sensitive to water and designed to start working as soon as they get wet.

Enjoy!!

Lastminute.com has taken guerrilla marketing to an all new level. In order to promote theatre ticket sales, the company hired several performers to dress in plain clothes in a London airport and break out into song amongst a group of passengers waiting for a flight. By the looks of it, the performance definitely grabbed people’s attention and gave them something to talk about later. Check out the video below.

This morning, Canadian Living co-hosted, with Brandspark a breakfast presentation on food trends and Canadian consumers.  The purpose being to find out what Canadians think and feel about food.  Topics ranged from shopping & eating habits, to who does the cooking and what food trend products are top of mind to Canadian consumers. 

If you’d like to know what "ah-ha’s" came out of this research, contact your Canadian Living rep for more information. 

Or you can turn to Saturday Night Live, they always have an interesting spin on new products in the market!

http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/play.shtml?mea=239693

The second annual Global Media Festival just wrapped up Tuesday night. It was 2 days of focus on the future of media. The organizers are C Squared the group behind Cream Magazine , which is dedicated to regularly celebrating the best of global media achievement. And although the organizers opted not to name this conference, for me the resounding theme was one of juxtaposition.

From the outset I was struck by the juxtaposition of a conference dedicated to the digital future of communications being held in the ancient city of Venice. There was plenty of juxtaposition of old and new. From featured speakers like advertising legend Sir John Hegarty to dot come millionaire and MySpace co-founder Brett Brewer… Venice was often a study in contradictions.

There was the juxtaposition of the shortage of natural and human resources and a healthy discussion about the industry need to address both. On Day 2, Peter Seligmann, the CEO of Conservation International addressed the conference on the issue of sustainability. He implored all of us in the communications business to use our considerable influence to make a difference. It was certainly a proud moment for PHD when the efforts behind PHD Sustain were recognized. I also learned that PHD has just recently entered into a pro bono relationship to work with Conservation International, which is great and inspiring news.

Other interesting juxtapositions that became apparent in Venice:

With the juxtaposition of the old mass communication model of one-to-many migrating quickly to become one-to-one (with the rise of social media and peer-to-peer communication) there was a very interesting observation that suggests … in the heyday of mass communication, brands used to tell stories to consumers. In the new digital age of communications, consumers will tell stories about brands.

There was the juxtaposition that Sir John Hegarty alluded to that revolves around experience. His thought for the new age is that we all come from a world where we learn and then do. He believes that we need to alter our behaviour for the new reality to “do and then learn”… and hey … who wants to argue with a man who has achieved knighthood?

There was also the juxtaposition of content and context. For years we have heard the mantra that “content is king”, but in an age where technology is enabling smart messaging to receptive audiences, we are quickly moving to an era where context is king. This is a major leadership challenge for us as media practitioners and there was certainly a resounding spirit of readiness from the media throng in attendance.

One final note on Venice … it was truly great to see PHD so dominant on the world media stage. Beyond the aforementioned sustainability initiatives, our ETNA planning interface was featured in one of the breakout sessions on Media Creativity, and our Global CEO, Mike Cooper, addressed the conference most eloquently on the future of the media business.

Like Venice once proved, it is quite possible for a culturally significant (albeit small) body to make a big and lasting impression on the world… we should all be very proud.

We recently pitched the business of a client who has very strong values when it comes to health and the environment.  We felt we needed to cater as much of the media plan with sustainable media as possible and thus was born “The Living Board”.

Don’t get the wrong idea - the board is really not alive, it is not organic in anyway.  The concept is simply that the material is a recyclable vinyl and then transformed into shopping bags and given out to consumers when the campaign is over.  It is also bio-degradable for the time down the road when the shopping bag is no longer needed.

Great idea Michelle and Jonathan.  No word yet on if we won the assignment, stay tuned.

I just stumbled across this on Trendhunter, which follows the above to a degree - recycled movie posters.  And no, I don’t nor do I ever plan to own one…

These pretty bags will delight many environmentally conscious women and if they happen to be film buffs, they will be doubly delighted. The bags are made of recycled movie billboards. Films such as Mission Impossible, The Bourne Ultimatum, Pride and Prejudice and a whole lot more, are featured on these unlikely canvases.

Outfitted with an inside zippered pouch and an elastic-over-metal closure, the Billboard Bags are one of a kind according to Ecoist. They sell for $48.00 and if you’re curious about which movies are represented in the gallery, here’s the breakdown:

1. Thunderbird
2. Pride and Prejudice
3. Bourne Ultimatum
4. Superbad
5. Mission Impossible

How will you be reducing the carbon footprint of your next marketing campaign?

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