After Heineken’s genius TV commercial The City launched the global campaign ‘Open Your City,’ cities around the world have created their very own spinoff commercials.
Aiming to challenge city dwellers to break old routines and discover new places, New York’s ad ‘Phone Booth’ required pedestrians to pick up a ringing public phone. On the other end of the line was comedian and Portlandia actor Fred Armisen, who tried to lure them across the road, where they would join him onstage at the Comedy Cellar. Just ten people took the risk. In Seoul, the idea was to send the participant on an intense ‘Amazing Race’ style ‘Heineken Bottle Hunt’ around the city, but only a few people joined in.
W+K Shanghai got much better engagement during their three-day event. According to Heineken Account Director Dino Xu, almost 200 people participated, experiencing a barber’s chair amusement park ride through some of the world’s greatest metropolises.
Dino told SHP+, “In order to push people to explore further, we needed to set triggers. Hidden in the city where people won’t pay attention if they ain’t curious enough, one of them was an interesting-looking pop-up barber shop in Xintiandi,” he said. “We gave the participants half a hair cut and an address where they could finish the other half. A hidden go-pro camera behind the mirror caught their reactions.”
As well as prompting some hilarious outrage, the half haircuts incentivized people to continue on to the second location, an art and design complex on Huangpi Nan Lu, where they were rewarded with an impromptu amusement park ride. On the other side they found six detailed sets built from scratch.
“Every scene represents one city,” Dino said: “Amsterdam, Berlin, London, New York, Rio de Janeiro and Shanghai.” It was the quality of production of these sets that really elevated the project. “if you look at the quality. It is probably one of the biggest things Heineken has ever done in China.”
Dino felt secure putting the whole production in the hands of Stink Shanghai. “It took 20 days and a team of over 50 people to build the sets.” He reckons the biggest challenge was “to replicate each city and be authentic in every detail. For example, for the New York scene, we found a real abandoned New York yellow cab, cut it half and then shipped it to the set.”
The film was co-directed by Mackenzie Sheppard, who mainly worked on the set, and Kosai Sekine (famous for his award-winning ad ‘Sound of Honda’) who worked on the story. “Koasai is experienced in the area of doing things for real and documenting it in a nice way. That’s why we put him on the project,” Dino said.
The score was composed exclusively for the experience by the notable Tokyo breakbeat duo HIFANA, which was designed long before the film was finished.
At the end of the ride, participants had their heads scanned. “Three weeks later, we held a event to show 50 of them their own heads assembled on two-meter-tall sculptures. And we also dispatch these sculptures back to the streets so that people could get inspired with their stories by simply scan the QR code. It was a huge 3D printing production. We found a vendor in Hangzhou.”
As for Dino, his 2-meter tall statue now is placed in a room of W+K for colleagues to ‘admire.’
Heineken continues to encourage others to “Open Your City,” and come up with even more interesting and new ways to get more people involved, we’ll see what is next!
Credits:
Client: Heineken
Agency: W+K Shanghai
Title: Curiosity Pays
W+K SHANGHAI
Creative Directors: Winson Woo, Wanshi Lu
Producer: Bernice Wong
Account Direcotor: Dino Xu
Strategic Planning: Leon Lin/ Rob Campbell
Executive Creative Directors: Yang Yeo
Project Management: Theresa Shehadeh
Head of Production: Angie Wong
PRODUCTION
Production Company: Stink
Director: Kosai Sekine & Mackenzie Sheppard
Executive Producer: Desmond Loh & Louise Kwan
Director of Photography: Oliver Millar
Editor: Pang Wai Fong (Freelance)
MUSIC + SOUND DESIGN
Music+ Sound Company: JKD Collective Inc.
Composer: Hifana
Sound Designer: Hifana
Mix Company: Neon Sound Singapore
Year: 2014
去年中旬，喜力发布了全球广告战役#城市再发现#（“Open Your City”）。 随着主打电视广告 “The City”的热播，也宣告了喜力在世界各城市营销版本的正式开展。
为了让城市人打破每日常规和尝试新事物，位于每个城市的喜力广告公司可谓绞尽脑汁地去设计一系列能让城市人勇于踏出“发现之旅”的第一步。
纽约的广告战役 “电话亭” 直接考验了纽约人的胆色: 著名的主持人Fred Armisen以匿名的方式拨打纽约街头的某个公用电话，接起电话的人被“请”到马路对面的某个地址。其实马路对面是Comedy Cellar喜剧俱乐部。虽然成熟的纽约人对新奇事物都见惯不怪，但是大部分人还是没有胆量接受这么唐突的“邀请”；而在韩国首尔，喜力则上演了“极速前进”式的寻找喜力啤酒瓶的大争夺。游戏设计得非常精彩刺激，可惜由于名额有限，大部分人都没赶上这个机会。
W + K上海在设计这个活动的时候，不仅加入指定的“探险”元素，而且更考虑到如何让更多喜欢探索的人可以参加。据W+K上海的客户总监徐涵轩(Dino Xu)说，在三天的活动里，有将近200人坐上了那把神奇的理发椅，体现了五分多钟的万花筒式的超现实城市之旅。
活动的开始是不发邀请函、不透露地址、不说规则。 Dino告诉SHP+，“为了设置一个好玩的‘诱子’，我们大胆地在新天地街头搭建了一个临时理发店。”Dino说。 “我们把来剪发的人剃了一个阴阳头，然后塞给他们一个地址，让他们到那里剃完另一半。我们在去镜子后面藏了台GoPro，拍下了他们真实的反应。”
有人变得勃然大怒，有人很变得迷茫无助，也有人很坦然地就去找那个地方。指定的地址位于黄陂南路的一处创意园区，当他们推开那扇神秘的小门时，他们还没意识到已经掉进了“爱丽丝漫游奇境”的兔子洞，在前面等待他们的有荷兰美女、热辣的桑巴舞娘、英国卫士、疯狂的DJ和喧嚷的纽约客等各色人。
“每一个场景代表了一个城市，”Dino说：“它们分别是喜力全球城市限量版瓶身的城市：阿姆斯特丹，柏林，伦敦，纽约，里约热内卢和上海。”六个场景的设计和制作真正体现了此项目的造价： “只要你看过现场，你就可以想像为什么这大概是喜力在中国做过最大的制作。“
Dino对制作公司STINK的水平和品质很有信心：“整个场景用超过50人、花了20天的时间来建造。”他说最大的挑战是“要真实地复制每一个城市，让每个细节看起来很正宗 。比如在纽约的场景里，我们就在纽约找到了一台被废置的真正黄色出租车，割开两半后运到中国来。”
片子由Mackenzie Sheppard和Kosai Sekine联合导演，前者主要负责场景，而后Kosai主要负责故事，他的作品“丰田之声”获奖无数：“Koasai经验丰富，尤其擅长纪录片式的拍摄手法。所以我们让他来拍摄现场”，Dino解释道。
整个体验的音乐及音效由东京的Breakbeat团队HIFANA为喜力独家创作，据说在视频拍好前就早早准备好了。
在体验完结的时候，参加者还做了一个类似“脑部扫描”。 “三周后，我们邀请参加者去到另外一个地方，他们看到了自己的3D头像被组装在一个两米高的人像上。”从来没有一个广告曾动用过这么大规模的3D打印。“我们找到了一个杭州供应商，”Dino说：“这个尺寸的3D头像市场的造价大约是600美元一个。”
在W + K的办公室里，我们看到了那个传闻中的2米高人像，它的原型正是Dino本人，端端正正地被放置在房间里供同事 “羡仰”。
如果你错过了这个活动，不要紧，相信喜力今年新的市场战役很快就要袭来。只要我们保持好奇的心，敏锐的眼睛，而且要特别留意任何有绿色标志的事物，它可能会领你走进更多刺激的城市冒险游戏。
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