Star Work - Heineken Star Player

You know what, I'm super impressed with AKQA. This agency is breaking barriers every time and their work is simply amazingly breath taking. The best part, Heineken is indeed one brave, clever client who believes an buys into great bold works. You can read more about the work here.

AKQA developed an application for Heineken which can be played online on Facebook an on mobile phones and allows players to bet live on actions during Champions League Games. Now this is truly exploring an integrated multi-media and making the brand culturally relevant with trends. Borrowing from Adverblog, "In the US alone, to understand how web, mobile and social channels are changing the TV viewer experience : 74% of consumers say they multitask while watching TV; among them, 42% browse online, 29% talk on cellphones or mobile devices, and 26% send instant messages or text messages, according to a Deloitte survey."

Good work AKQA. Wish I was part of this campaign.

Coke Studio

Coca Cola is the best brand. I don't care what others think, but they know their marketing skills. Coke created Coke Studio in Pakistan. Such a wonderful property. Their Youtube channel is filled with such great content.

The world however did't know about its existence until their Facebook fan page popped up.

If you notice Coke is still silent and not fast enough to spread the concept of Studio in other countries. This is the flip side of global marketing. Response time to identify and implement cross market learnings is so slow that often the impact is lost. Imagine the impact Coke Studio could have in India especially during Aman ki Asha & World Cup or in Myanmar or in Egypt for that matter. Give the youth a platform to express and the use social media to spread the message, spread the love. Such a simple idea that nicely connects back to Coke's core belief of Open Happiness.

I think 2011 will be an year of consolidation by global brands. We'll see lots of Digital Content aggregation happening this year. Content Optimization to be precise. You should check out the work AKQA has done for Heineken, if you haven't yet. So expect global brands like Coca Cola doing lot of content aggregation and optimization this year. Maybe McDonald, Dove, Pepsi, Cadbury etc will jump the bandwagon too.

Cheers.