The Ad Filter
D&AD
Issue 36 | September 2015
Agency
BETC
Creative Team
Executive Creative: Director Ste´phane Xiberras Creative Director Olivier Apers Art Director Alphons Conzen, Jonathan Baudet-Botella Copywriter Adrian Skenderovic
Date
April 2015
Background
D&AD wanted to engage people in the creative industry all year round, not just when the annual awards results came out. The strategy was to celebrate creativity using a huge digital trend: ad blocking. The insight was, "If the ads were always great, people wouldn't want to skip them".
Idea
The Ad Filter was a positive version of the famous Ad Block browser extension. But rather than block all the ads on internet and making advertising totally disappear, the Ad Filter replaced boring pre-roll ads with award-winners from D&AD, randomly broadcast from a bank of some 500 great ads.
Results
D&AD was able to engage its target audience and promote its philosophy and high creative standards. Within 24 hours of the PR launch, there had been 18,583 views of the Ad Filter page, 12,000 downloads, 5,000 tweets and 3,300 Facebook shares.
Our Thoughts
The insight here is that most of us in this crazy business are obsessed with it. So the idea of getting rid of boring ads in order to see the pencil winners of recent times is one many creative people would think makes perfect sense. Not sure if media owners would be so benevolent. But, at a time when Cannes is making many other awards shows look a little pointless, here's D&AD promoting itself in a way that is both relevant and innovative. It got a Bronze in Cyber but we'd have given it something in PR as well.