This post is in English for sharing purposes.
On Feb 28, 2008 it took place the second edition of Digital Marketing Forum, where during OgilvyOne’s workshop, Wim and myself have invited the audience to a small contest. The award for the best idea was a brand new Asus EEE PC.
As in our presentation we have talked a lot about Dragos, a generic 16 yo teenager, we asked people to imagine the world in 15 years from now, and try to advertise to Dragos (31 yo at that time) an ACME product. If ACME doesn’t ring a bell for you, let me quickly refresh your memory: ACME is the manufacturer of all equipments used in Looney Toons cartoons by Bugs Bunny, Duffy Duck, Elmer Fudd and especially Willy Coyote in his continuous fight against the Road Runner.
So, as ACME is a manufacturer of almost everything, we basically asked people two things:
1. Choose or invent a product, any at your choice
2. Come up with an advertising idea for that product, considering as target audience our guy, Dragos.
We have collected more than 50 ideas, some of them good and some… well, not so good. Since February i am trying to find the time to post all these ideas, and i finally managed to find 1.5 hours to select them and post them online.
For confidentiality purposes i will only post the first name of each idea owner. Also, i will only post the most surprising ideas (and when i say surprising i do not refer only to good ideas).
Before we start, one last quick analysis on some red lines i found in the ideas of we have received:
a) many people picture the world in 15 years as a grey and polluted planet with very little real contact between people (congratulations Hollywood for the effectiveness of the communication)
b) many people have pictured the world of 2233 and not 2023 - flying vehicles, retina scanning, mind control (ladies and gentelmen, 2nd prize goes again to Hollywood
c) a LOT of ideas from Minority Report (the movie; you must remember it… the one with Tom Cruis… made by Hollywood)
d) instant hair grow devices… at least 8 people wrote this idea;
e) pick-up-hot-blonde-chicks devices (keep dreaming guys…)
f) color changing devices
All these being said, here’s a listing (without any sorting criteria or comments) of some selected ideas. Some of them only have the product idea and no advertising plan, and some are totally not related to the brief. However it’s really a nice experience to read them so if you invest 4 minutes of your time you’ll get a good ROI
1. With an instant profile searching device you can point to a girl and instantly get her social network profile, displayed as a short documentary (music preferences, hobbies, men preferences, etc). The advertisment is made at the end of the documentary based on the preferences of the girl. For instance if the girl likes men with long hair, at the end of the documentary, the device will display an ad for ACME’s hair growth pills (Alina).
2. Wife pre-tester (Marius)
3. Digital hangover kit: soothing sounds by phone, relaxing images by email, refreshing smell from the air conditioning devices. Advertising starts with a trial period where you receive a free sample, in the form of a mini-gadget that can be attached to your phone and it continues with loyalty schemes such as pay-per-hangover (Cristina/ Rucsandra)
4. Easy-to-implant sense of humor generating chip (Sorin)
5. One full page with the an ad of the promoted product in the only printed newspaper that will still exist (not signed; have a look at Epic 2014, Epic 2015 and 2020 - A vision of future)
6. A 30” TVC projected on the moon (Victor)
7. iHome - every window is an advertising panel (Dragos)
8. Brain backup device advertised in crowded crossroads: Now you can crash whenever you want, your clone will be grown and updated with your backup (Andrei)
9. Color changing detergent - wash your red t-shirt with it and it will become blue (Vladimir)
10. Color changing device that will change the color of any item you want. Advertising is done based on 1-day free trial. (Diana)
11. Pills that generate nice dreams about a product (Horia)
12. An exact replica of a Minority Report scene (Mihaela)
13. Transparent rooms over New York, where you can see people enjoying fresh air. In a polluted world, the advertised product is Fresh Air Balloons. Somehow similar with the Space Balls’ idea (Eliza)
14. ACME funny objects - you never know what you’re buying (Daniela)
15. Personalized clouds (Laura)
16. Back to origins (Roxana)
17. Moon safari “get a tan closer to the sun” (unsigned)
18. Virtual communities that generate realites. You start with a blank world, then, each member of the community can add one item in the world.