Here are a couple of fun stop-motion films we made recently for HK. Top is A-Kasse Vs B-Kasse, a short film highlighting the world of difference in unemployment insurance from HK and the offerings from various discount unions. More info here.

The second film, for HK Handel, is aimed at students who work part-time and encourages them to know their rights in the workplace. More details here.

We’re launching some new work for Toys ‘R’ Us today to tease a big upcoming Star Wars event in their Nordic stores. AD Tim has the full story:

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The brief from the client was to put a splash on the front of their catalogue to tell people that Darth Vader was coming and that you could meet him at Toys ‘R’ Us. After considering it for a while we returned with a completely different recommendation.

I was surfing YouTube for Star Wars inspiration when I came across a video with more than 2,000,000 views. The film shows the Galactic Empire from Star Wars ‘invading’ San Francisco and I thought something similar would be a funny way to advertise Darth Vader’s arrival at Toys ‘R’ Us. We wrote Mike Horn, the creator of the film, and asked him if he would be interested in coming to Copenhagen to make a similar film for one of our clients. Thankfully he thought it was a great idea!

Working with Mike was great. He turned out to be a one-man film production army and, even better, he knew everything worth knowing about Star Wars.

Mike and Tim (right)

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We were all sad to see Mike leave earlier this month but we managed to grab a quick interview with him before he took off:

First, can you tell us a little about you and your professional background…

I went to film school at NYU & SVA in New York City, and became a freelance editor, cutting everything from indie feature films to reality cooking shows and tv commercials. Over the years I taught myself After Effects, and in 2008 released “Death Star Over San Francisco”  a Star Wars fan film that went viral overnight.

What did you think when we first got in touch with you?
At first I was skeptical, because I’ve had many offers from other people and businesses that wanted me to craft similar viral-style videos, but nothing panned out into anything real. When I checked out Advance’s website and saw they were legit, and saw all of their killer Lego work, I got very excited, and just kept my fingers crossed the job would get green lit.

Have you gotten a lot of work on the strength of your video’s success on YouTube?
I was working at a TV channel called Current TV when I made my two Star Wars virals (the second viral being “Death Star Destroys Enterprise“. Those videos got me noticed by the Current TV executives and turned into a few opportunities to direct some promos for the network. They also helped me get on the directing roster of a commercial production company in San Francisco called Rehab, which in turn got me a few directing gigs for Lego and Pentax.

What were your thoughts about this project?
I had so much fun making it! It was a dream getting the chance to experience Copenhagen for a few weeks. Tim Ustrup Madsen, the Art Director, and Trine Schou, the Producer, were such smart and fun people to work with. I wish the fun didn’t have to to stop, and we could keep making more Star Wars spots forever! The project was also a step up from my previous Star Wars films in that I used more 3D, and learned some new skills such as 3D motion tracking.

What did you like or dislike about working with us?
Advance is one of the coolest office environment’s I’ve ever worked at. Even though they have a lot of employees, the camaraderie between them seemed strong. It seemed like everyone knew each other much better than at similar sized companies in the US. I think the catered lunch they offer everyday in the cafeteria helps contribute to the tighter employee bonds. In contrast, my experience at a few similar sized companies in the US, is that 3 years could go by before I actually learn another employee’s name. Lunch is every man for himself, and is often eaten at your desk. The only thing I didn’t like about Advance was lack of cold water… we’re big on water coolers and refrigerated water fountains in the States.

How does it compare to agency life back home?
I’ve never worked at an agency in the US, but have worked with a lot agencies and agency people, so as an outsider looking in, my take is that Advance seems a lot more humane in comparison. I found it amazing that many people were able to go home to their families at 17:00, where it often seems in the US, you’re signing away your life to the work and are lucky if you make it home by 21:00. I was also surprised at how long I heard some of the employees have worked at Advance, some people spanning multiple decades. It seems like there’s a higher rate of turnover at US agencies, that it’s more cut throat, and everyone moves to another agency after 2 years in order to get a pay bump, as if it’s impossible to get promoted within your own company.

What did you think of Copenhagen?
It has the best food out of any city I’ve been too. Even the cheap pizza shwarma places were really good. I thought San Francisco, where I live, was a green city, but CPH puts it to shame… it’s the little things like automatic timers on light switches, or glass bottles being re-washed for reuse, as opposed to being crushed and melted back into brand new glass like in the US. I also feel like the citizens of CPH have a lot more respect for their city and its upkeep compared to citizens of many US cities, like NYC, where many people simply discard trash on street, even if a trash can is close by.

Would you come back?
In a heartbeat! I hope to experience CPH in the summer time.

What’s next for you?
I’ve just started working for IGN and their START channel, where I should have the opportunity to continue making viral mashups of other geeky franchises. Tron is on my radar next, and I’m starting to think of ideas for my next Star Wars fan film, that I can enter into the official Star Wars Fan Film Festival this July.

Mike hard at work

2011 was a tough year for the economy and a tougher one for the industry but I’m proud to say that we’ve come out the other side a wiser and even a bigger agency. As I write, most forecasts indicate another challenging year ahead and we’re focused on making sure we continue to evolve our offering.

Clients need agency partners to work faster, smarter and cheaper. These pressures are not new but have been accelerating in recent years to the point that the industry is barely recognisable from just ten years ago.

The digital transformation is the most obvious change but while we’re retooling to ensure we up our online skills, we’re just as interested in the way the contract between advertisers and consumers is being transformed. We’ve always said the best communication is a great product or service and this simple saying is truer today than it’s ever been.

We’re intrigued to see how the relationship between brands and people continues to evolve in the months and years ahead. We hope and believe the transparency of the Internet will continue to push companies towards more responsible practices and we think more of our time will be spent helping clients stay on top of societal changes, as well as those affecting the way brands communicate.

Anyway, here’s a quick look back at some of our 2011 highlights as an agency, and here’s to a great 2012.

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Our LEGO team had another busy year with the launch of LEGO Friends on December 26 the culmination of several years of intense work. We’re proud of our contribution to what was one of the company’s most important launches for some years.

The LEGO Universe experience was bittersweet. We invested a great deal of energy in this project and we can be proud of what we achieved. We were deeply saddened when LEGO decided to close the game but our time on the project made us smarter and strengthened our gaming credentials.

One of our most high-profile projects was our Caroline Wozniacki campaign for COMPEED. The partnership has helped the brand re-establish its athletic heritage and given it an injection of star quality.

Our campaign for Øresundsbroen was hugely effective with over 35,000 motorists signing up for the half-price bridge pass in the first few weeks alone.

Elsewhere, we’re continuing to do interesting work with Coloplast. The company is on a mission to be more customer-focused in its communication and this has led to some powerfully compelling work with the voice of the user increasingly central.

Customer insights are also at the core of our thinking behind the creation of the Bloom retail brand for Widex. This was an extremely challenging project that involved the creation of a brand for over 500 retail shops around the world in a very tight timescale. Hearing loss is daunting and complicated – our goal was to create a brand that made it seem less so. We’re still on the journey but we can be proud of what we’ve achieved so far.

I was also proud of the work we did in helping P2 communicate its switch to digital. We made a great little short film with a limited budget and in rapid time.

We also had a solid year in terms of new-biz, being awarded the business for two global product launches from Nycomed (now a Takeda company) and winning CoRo Foods in a pitch. Perhaps more significantly we didn’t lose any business, a plus in a year when many agencies lost clients or closed altogether.

On a personal note, my highlight of the year was our agency masterclass at Hyper Island. The three days we spent there gave us a massive energy boost and brought us closer together. We came back full of hope for the future and full of ideas about how to work smarter and more creatively. It was a great way to end the year.

We’re launching an exciting new Hero Factory project soon that will have some social media elements built into it. Yesterday was spent preparing, building and experimenting… (more news soon.)

A while back we stumbled across an archive of VHS tapes that had been locked up in a cupboard and forgotten about. We had them digitized and, to our delight, they turned out to hold many of the old LEGO commercials we’ve made over the years.

We got in touch with the Brothers Brick – one of the best LEGO fan sites around – and they agreed to serialise the commercials on the blog together with the exclusive backstories of how they were made. For many of these old commercials, it’s their online debut! So if you’re a fan of vintage LEGO, keep an eye on the Brothers Brick over the next few months.

To give people a chance to see all the videos in one place, we’re also gradually posting them in a special Blast from the past playlist on our YouTube channel.

Working as the principal strategic and creative partner for the last decade, Advance has played a key role in developing COMPEED from a technology to a Pan-European brand grossing USD100m a year.

The Details

Johnson & Johnson acquired the COMPEED brand from Coloplast in 2002. Since then, J&J has continued to build the brand throughout Europe with Advance as lead agency on all communication and all media.

From the start, COMPEED has had to negotiate a highly complex path to success. Its portfolio of plaster products encompasses both physically and emotionally demanding conditions (principally blisters, corns, wounds and cold sores), its target groups hail from the worlds of fashion and sport, and it operates in markets of varying degrees of maturity. Our initial task, then, was to find a red thread that would give the brand its reason for being. Knowing just how effective its products are, we focused on performance.

Some early print and TV work:

Key to the development of the brand was a tight strategic platform, developed jointly with the client, which incorporated the highly attitudinal payoff – Be Unstoppable. We had successfully positioned COMPEED as a highly effective enabling product (COMPEED believes nobody should be stopped in the pursuit of their passion) but it was this payoff that gave the brand its flavour.

As a brand, COMPEED has never rested on its laurels. In 2009, the decision was made to reconnect with its sport heritage. A two-year sponsorship deal was signed with the ATP. The following year, a similar deal was negotiated with women’s tennis world #1, Caroline Wozniacki.

Both deals gave COMPEED renewed impetus with the athletic half of its target market while Caroline Wozniacki’s burgeoning profile added credibility and exposure. Advance’s job was to put together the strategic and communicative platforms to maximise the brand’s return on what was a significant investment. The sponsorships gave COMPEED a wealth of collateral:

After a decade of consistent growth, COMPEED has become a must-have product for dynamic, high-achieving individuals who refused to be stopped in the pursuit of their passion. Advance continues to play a key role in its success.

The green room – lots of Skittles on the rider.

Account manager Mette had this to say: “We’ve been working with Øresundsbron for less than half a year and we’re delighted that our work has helped them achieve such great results already. The campaign worked across TV, print, digital and dialogue and we’re proud of the fact that we were able to demonstrate our skills in all those areas.”

Markedsføring’s report is here.

Here are a couple of the TV spots from the campaign:

A few pics from a recent shoot for Coloplast that took us to the top of the Alps and the beautiful Normandy countryside. We’re looking forward to sharing the final videos.

Some nice press for Hero Recon in Wired’s GeekDad blog last week. Hero Recon lets Hero Factory fans customise and build their own Heroes online. And lots of fun it is too.

Below you’ll find the first TV spot and a little behind the scenes-type movie we made while filming in LA. The campaign rolls out across Europe over the next days and weeks and we’ll have plenty more to show you soon.

You’ve sung along to the TV ad, now you’re going to hear the full version on your radio. We’ve sent a copy of our catchy rap soundtrack for the Lastbiltransport campaign to all of Denmark’s radio stations. If it proves popular we’ll release it as a single.

For the past year and a half, we’ve been working with ITD – the union of Danish goods transport associations – to help improve public perception of the work done by its lorry-driving members.

There are plenty of negative stereotypes around truckers but little thought is given to the indispensable work they do in keeping the country moving. That thought became the central premise of our ‘Holder Danmark Kørende‘ campaign as we attempted to get people to connect their need for fresh produce, new furniture, vital medicine etc with the job done by the drivers. In other words, without their hard work we wouldn’t get half the stuff we want.

The campaign culminated in a music video TVC starring drivers and logistic workers from the industry which went on air last week following a kick-off event at Copenhagen’s Town Hall Square:

There’s a few pics below taken at the event while the final image is of some of the press the campaign has generated to date:

Hero Factory, the new buildable action figure playtheme created by Advance and LEGO, will soon be ready to open and we’ve been busy finalising the last details.

The teaser website was launched recently and features a call out to the 1-888-4-HEROFACTORY emergency hotline where kids can hear messages from the heroes, review latest missions and villain updates and record their own unique villain or monster emergencies.

The audio link below is just one of several hundred already submitted by fans:

Our first work for LEGOLAND Billund aired last week, a TVC promoting the attraction’s latest ride – The Temple. The production was a bit of a juggling act, combining live footage and animation as well as various tactical messages but we’re really pleased with the end result.

Enjoy!