You News
Issue 17 | December 2010
Agency
BBDO New York
Creative Team
Chief Creative Officer: David Lubars; Creative Director: Arturo Aranda; Art Director: Jake Blumeneau/Rob Seale; Copywriter: Kim Mok/Beth Kushner; Designer: Rob Seale; Executive Producer: Eric Weiner; Agency Producer: Charlie Shipman
Date
June 2010
Background
AT&T wanted to showcase the Motorola Backflip, the phone that streams Facebook, Twitter and more on a single screen. They set out to reach the hyper-connected generation, those people who eagerly anticipate every tweet, status update, and text and to position the Backflip as the phone that keeps their social lives in view at all times.
Idea
The concept started with the insight that every social update appears in real time, like breaking-news headlines from major publications.
From this came the “Breaking the news that’s important to you” campaign.
TV spots were created to feel like actual breaking-news stories. A news anchor reported updates that just came in on his Backflip, such as, “Today’s top Twitter story: a local man can’t decide on which sandwich to order for lunch.”
Next was the You News Facebook app. which literally made your life front-page news, by pulling in status updates, photos and tweets to create a magazine cover story.
The app. also gave users the ability to customize their magazine covers by swapping out photos and headlines. Once the cover was newsworthy, they could post it on Facebook and Twitter. What’s more, all friends who had made it to their cover were automatically tagged, notifying them that they had made the news too.
Results
During the campaign, the application saw an engagement rate of nearly 60% and over 10% of users published content.
Our Thoughts
For me, BBDO New York is one of the best agencies in the world because they don’t just sweat the big stuff but they sweat the little stuff too. I don’t suppose teams fight to work on AT&T and I don’t suppose the budget for this campaign was generous and yet the thinking behind it, the idea about ‘Your News’, and the execution of the idea through personalized magazine covers are both top drawer.
Isn’t it interesting, though, that while offline media is suffering as a result of online, a magazine cover communicates the idea of celebrity a lot more powerfully than a photo dropped onto a homepage?
Where would you rather see yourself, on the cover of Ad Age or lost in a TinyURL somewhere?