Skateistan

We all have heard many things about Afghanistan, however have you ever heard about the Skateistan? 

Skateistan began as a Kabul-based Afghan NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) and is now an International non-profit charity providing skateboarding and educational programming in Afghanistan, Cambodia and Pakistan. Skateistan is non-political, independent, and inclusive of all ethnicities, religions and social backgrounds.

According to its website its mission statement is:

To use skateboarding as a tool for empowerment by:

•    providing access to education

•    focusing especially on girls and working children

•    developing leadership opportunities

•    building friendship, trust, and social capital

If you wish to support them you can go here

TomTom (almost) makes a viral

For the promotion of their contest 'Tomtom More' the GPS brand has decided to produce a 'viral' video. They took the best past vitals as ingredients and created this amazing video. However with budget cuts due to the amount of prizes there is to win the video is not as impressive as they hoped for ... 

You've certainly recognized T-Mobile Dance (january 2009), Sony Bravia Balls (october 2005), TNT ‘A Dramatic Surprise on a Quiet Square’ (april 2012), Will it blend (since october 2006), Evian – Roller Babies (july 2009), Old Spice (february 2010) and Red bull Stratos (october 2012)

Source

Working on the next post

Movies of 2012 Super Cut

I missed not finding the time to write new articles, so I now decided to take some more of my rare free time to share with you what I love, what I feel, what I think is worth sharing and some other things. In other words, be ready to see more content!

Every year I post a the movie recap of the year, this one comes from Youtuber Nick Kinder. He spent 2 months, 65 Gb off his laptop, went through 200 movies and around 50 hours to edit this piece of art. Since his description will be much better than mine I invite you to read it in the description of his video.

Movie list: http://themoviesof2012.tumblr.com/

The faces behind your toys

Wow I can't believe I let you down for the past month, work being hectic I had little time to come up with something interesting. Well that was until I stumbled upon German born photographer and his Series 'The real toy story'. http://photomichaelwolf.com

I think my timing is well chosen, since we are right After Saint Nicolas and a few days before Christmas. I remember as a kid I had this crazy idea that all my toys were coming from a same factory that knew exactly what kids would love to have and play with. The more I grew up the more I this idea shattered and I discovered the truth ... Then the more I became an adult the more I understood the economy behind these toys and therefore the supply chain of such toys. 

In 2010 the average monthly salary, including overtime, for a migrant worker was CNY1,690 (£150), insufficient to cover basic needs for workers and their families. In 2009 alone, approximately 1 million workers suffered industrial injuries whilst about 20,000 were victims of occupational disease. (Source: War on Want)

This series of picture give a candid and unaltered look at the faces behind your toys or the toys you are about to buy.

If you still believe in Santa Claus this post is not for you!

Unlock the 007 in you. you have 70 seconds

So Coke Zero challenged unsuspecting train passengers to unlock the 007 in them for their chance to win exclusive tickets for the new James Bond movie SKYFALL. However, the tickets weren't free. People had to go the extra mile and unlock their inner 007 in less than 70 seconds to win.

Enjoy

1.000.000.000 monthly active users on Facebook

Facebook has now officially passed the 1.000.000.000 mark, and celebrate it with this hipsterish photogenic video.  

"Chairs, doorbells, bridges, airplanes. These are things that people use to get together and connect. Facebook is also something that over a billion people around the world use to connect with one another"

theofficialfacebook 

Move your lee!

Well every once in a while you see something that gives you goosebumps, and you think to yourself:
Damn this is Freaking Awesome.

Well I had such moment yesterday, a friend of mine send me an article about a Belgian Creative Director: John Israël from the Agency The-Satisfaction (Article here it is in french though). During the interview he talks about the new lee campaign: Move your lee.

During the interview there were some sequences of the new video. So I looked for it, found it, watched it and all I can say is goosebumps ensued.

The video is poetic, aesthetic, beautiful, sleek and epic. The music is awesome as well!

Enjoy

Source: The-Satisfaction

NEW Old spice interactive/viral Video

We all know Old Spice from their out of the blue/crazy/funny/viral commercial. For the last years we still have in mind the interventions of Mustafa the man on a horse. Well Terry Crews, the somewhat lesser known but infinitely louder and more muscle-y Old Spice guy, is back with a raucous new project for the men's care brand.

The Muscle Music where Terry's muscles are all hooked up to musical devices. When he flexes each muscle, an instrument plays—flex them all furiously, and you get a symphony of muscle-y sound. The video is just one piece—when it finishes, you can use your keyboard to play, and even record, some special Muscle Music of your own. The campaign is a collaboration between Old Spice, Wieden + Kennedy, director Tom Kuntz of MJZ, editing house Mackenzie Cutler, effects specialists The Mill and Vimeo.

Please enjoy

Old Spice Muscle Music from Terry Crews

London 2012 H-5

Well it is time,
In less than an hour I'll be taking the Eurostar for London where I'll spend the next 30 days working for Coca-Cola at the Olympics. The task I'll undertake is not 100% clear however what I know is the excitement to get involved in one of the biggest entertaining event the world has ever witnessed.

Personally it is the first time that I'll attend the Olympics and with my "Backstage" pass I'll see both side of the event. I'll make the time to write some posts from time to time to share with you my personal experience, photos as well as an inside look of the Olympics.

Off I go, see you soon,

Simon

The failed project or The dead horse theory

Source

Cocaine Unwrapped

Cocaine used to be the drug consumed by fancy New York wall street's ants, hardcore partygoers, ... However today Cocaine became some kind of recreational drug and it became much easier to access it.

The add you'll see below was created by Leo Burnett for the promotion of the documentary  “Cocaine Unwrapped”. The documentary will take viewers on the journey through the cocaine trade, from the cropping to its international distribution and of course about the money that fuels it.

The objective of the film and Leo Burnett’s campaign is to raise awareness and understanding amongst the British public of how cocaine consumption in the UK has been profoundly damaging South America as a continent.

Source

Kumare

One day one wise man and American Filmmaker Vikram Gandhi, decided to take a deep look into what obsesses people with Guru. One day he decided to see for himself if Gurus were real or just full of it.

Let me introduce you to Kumare a wise guru from the East who indoctrinated a group of followers in the West. Vikram Gandhi impersonated a spiritual leader for the sake of a social experiment designed to challenge one of the most widely accepted taboos: that only a tiny "1%" can connect the rest of the world to a higher power. Concealing his true identity from everyone he meets, Kumare forges profound and spiritual connections with people from all walks of life.

At the same time, in the absurdity of living as an entirely different person, Vikram, the filmmaker, is forced to confront difficult questions about his own identity. At the height of his popularity, Kumare unveils his true identity to a core group of disciples who are knee-deep in personal transformation. Will they accept his final teaching? Can this illusion reveal a greater spiritual truth? KUMARE, at once playful and profound, is an insightful look at faith and belief.

It just goes to show that it's nothing spiritual or religious that helps people it's people that help people.
Always remember that and you won't go far wrong.

The listserve,

With loads of work and personal projects on the side I did not have much time to write more these last months.Now I am taking the time to write about things/projects/campaign or whatever things that touched me.What you'll see hereunder is a perfect example:


The listserve is a mailing list that will send you everyday an Email from a subscriber that will be randomly selected. Here is how it works: you subscribe to the mailing list (17,491 people are subscribers so far). Once a day, a subscriber is chosen at random to share a self-written essay with the other subscribers.
I have been subscribed for the last 3 days, and I can't tell you how happy I am from that decision.

Now every day I am waiting for that little email to pop up in my inbox.

If you had a chance to share a message with thousands of people, what would you say? 

Source:

Tipp-Ex Experience 2! Rewrite History

After the worldwide success (50 million views and multiple awards) the Tippexperience is back and is really fun. There 46 new videos and 8 scenes that will require interactions! This time the Buzzman team comes with some time travel experiences allowing you to rewrite History!


This second season is not a revolution. It is a loyal sequel, well executed, with lots of little treasures to discover. My favorites are probably the following years : 1492, -1000000, 1980, 2000 and 1989.

Be part of the conversation with #tippexperience2

Explore Your Dual World - Samsung

To promote the launch of its first 2 SIM card smartphone, Galaxy Y Duos, in Portugal, Samsung made this video featuring projection mapping on a face and thorax of an man. The task at and was not easy since to get the right effect, the actor had remain still for up to three straight hours. The head holder made this task easier.

Lisbon-based digital agency Excentric was responsible for the creative concept, while the video mapping is by Oskar e Gaspar, video production is by DROID I.D. and the music is by Timecoders.

Source: The Dailywh.at

The latest strike of Coca-Cola Happiness was in Belgium!

In case you didn’t know I am working for Coca-Cola, I really enjoy what I do for several reasons:

-          - I love what I do, digital is awesome!

-          - I always wanted to work in marketing , but working for Coke is like a dream

-          - Pretty much everyone around the world enjoys a fresh Coca-Cola

-          - Coke offers a dose of happiness and optimism.

This post is about my fourth point, you perhaps all know the different videos where happiness will strike next.

There was the famous Happiness machine 1 and 2, the happiness truck, … well this week happiness has stroke Belgium!!

And for once I was behind the scene, to see the smile and the positive reactions we got was great and unique!

Enough said, I let you have a look at the video hereunder,

Enjoy,

EMDA Israeli Alzheimer Association: The wrong movie

Today and thanks to my friend @mowzy I saw an amazing campaign for EMDA Israeli Alzheimer Association.This great simple idea from ad agency: ACW Grey, Israel. To highlight Alzheimer’s awareness week the agency confused 1000’s of movie goers by switching the movies they were expecting to see with another one. After a short while they explained the switch. Brilliant wor and great results!

Source: Adsoftheworld & @mowzy

The Soccermen - The amazing dream

Today I was browsing through reddit, and I stumbled upon an amazing AMA (?). FYI I got lazy so I c/p a lot,

Here it goes, Matt Conrad, and his friend Paul after a few beers had the crazy idea to ditch the drudgery of life and pursue their dream of playing international soccer. 

They faced one problem: Who would take them? Neither of them were what you would call "talented."

A few more beers and some Googling later they found the island of Pohnpei, a tiny speck in the Pacific Ocean. Pohnpei had never won a game and were called "the worst team in the world." Perfect! - they thought. Let's grab a camera, pop over to the other side of the world, wow the locals with some kick-ups, play a game, win and become local legends forever!
Not exactly.

After a 48 hour flight they touched down on an island unlike anything they had ever seen. It was beautiful, very weird and everyone was staring at them. They bee-lined to team practice anxious to meet their new team-mates. But lo and behold - there was no team at all!

I invite you to read the rest of their story and support their cause on Kickstarter! As well if you are looking for answers to some of the questions you might have go to Reddit!

Flying men spotted above New York

Back in the 70's ads for "Superman" proclaimed "You'll believe a man can fly."  This past weekend, a very different kind of promotion for a new superhero film actually did convince some New Yorkers that humans were actually flying in the sky.

It appeared that 3people were spotted flying around the skies of lower Manhattan last Friday, causing a lot of double-takes and dropped jaws from onlookers.  But while it appeared to be a sight straight out of a comic book, it was actually a clever bit of viral marketing for this week's upcoming film "Chronicle."  Those aren't people in the air, but some very intricately designed radio-controlled airplanes.

Source: Yahoo!

71 covers of Rolling in the deep under 4'

As you all may have notice it has hard not to hear Adele's hit « Rolling in the deep ».
Every successful song comes with a its thousands of covers, around 350.000 of this one, so Youtubeer Zapatou decided to gather some of the best (71 of them) and to offer us this great new piece.

This is not his first tremendous edit, last December he edited « best-of » de l’année 2011, a video that got more than 1.3 Million views

* * * HAPPY NEW YEAR * * *

May the best moments of your past be the worst of your future!
To start this year in style, I give you the Performance of Kanye during the last Victoria Secret catwalk.

Enjoy

PS: Really sorry for posting less, but I had little time to keep up with the frequency. However promess I'll do better