Brandweek does this annual article called “The Best Ideas In The World.” Heavy right? This year’s list included escalator advertising, two new sodas brands Anything and Whatever; Pantene treating women like superstars in Turkey, solar advertising, Lufthansa’s Private Jet program, condom’s in India and a Volvo campaign.
Let’s take a closer look at that last one, yeah? Because, we too, would put this idea on our “best of” list if we had the gall to make one. We recall reading about this some time ago, but it slipped our minds. So…
Mindshare hired the New York-based Brand Experience Lab to create a live test drive for audience members in a theater. While waiting for their flick to begin, lucky viewers got “a driver’s-seat view of a curving country road on the screen” and steered the virtual car by waving their arms to the left or right. Motion-sensor technology maneuvered the car by majority rule.”
Oh we do love it! It incorporate some many of the trends and we babble on about here at AS. Let’s see… there’s gaming. Check. There’s community. Check. There’s new technology (gotta keep the audience alert and paying attention). Check.
The campaign, called “Human Joysticks” was for Volvo Cars U.K. who was trying to lose that 80s stuffy image of theirs, while keeping the idea of “roomy” and “family sedan” attached to their brand. Hard to do, which is why the brand’s new logo, “Life is Better Lived Together,” makes sense and “Human Joysticks” was played at showings of Ratatouille, a film sure to draw many families.
We give a big shout out to Brand Experience for coming up with the technology and to MindShare for having a smart planner to implement it.
Read more about “Human Joysticks” here.