Cannes Contenders: BWM Dentsu
How will Australia perform at Cannes this year? In the lead up to the Festival, Campaign Brief will be showcasing the work we hope will impress the judges…
BWM Dentsu, Sydney
Most people living with Motor Neurone Disease (ALS) end up paralysed and unable to communicate with anything but artificial ‘computer’ voices, pre-recorded messages or words mechanically stitched together. All of which sound unnatural. Powered by breakthrough voice cloning technology BWM Dentsu created Project Revoice, a program to digitally recreate the unique essence of any voice and give people with ALS the ability to speak freely and naturally, even after they physically can’t. To launch this life-changing program we recreated the voice of Pat Quinn, co-founder of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, and created a platform where patients across the world can back up and recreate their own voices, forever changing the way people live with ALS.
BWM Dentsu, Sydney
Australia is at the top of Americans’ bucket list, but despite being Australia’s national airline Qantas was struggling to get more people Down Under. By analyzing numbers from the U.S. State Department BWM Dentsu discovered a key local insight that no one in the travel industry talked about – 3 out of 5 Americans don’t have a passport. So BWM Dentsu gave them one. With a simple promo code mechanic the agency deducted the full cost of a new passport from tickets to Australia. This simple promotional twist got instant global media attention resulting in 150% increase in ticket sales to Australia.
BWM Dentsu, Melbourne
Every 20 minutes a teenager is reported missing In Australia. In the search for missing persons, the first 24-hours are the most critical, but traditional alerts are failing to reach the public in time – particularly teenagers. So, BWM Dentsu created a new social media tool to assist Queensland Police with missing person investigations. Sent through Snapchat, Disappearing Person Alerts instantly notify the public when someone goes missing near them. Using the native functionality of Snapchat, the alert communicates an informative and emotive message, ‘Help find John Citizen before he disappears.’ Launched in conjunction with the 2017 National Missing Persons Week, Disappearing Person Alerts continue to be used today as a powerful policing tool.
BWM Dentsu, Melbourne
Every Christmas, kids go hunting for their gifts, ruining the surprise of Christmas morning. So, Pacific Shopping Centres created a cardboard box with such extreme levels of boringness, it could make any toy invisible to tiny humans. Each box was made in a specially calculated ‘boring brown’ and stamped with dull words like ‘toilet paper’ and ‘laundry powder’. Then, at gift wrapping stations, each gift was given its own boring box. Now parents can smuggle presents home and hide them in plain sight without any risk of being discovered. And that’s how Christmas was saved, using a cardboard box.
BWM Dentsu, Melbourne, Columbus
The threat of bushfires is something many Australians live with every day. However, existing alert systems were challenged by how unpredictable a fire can be. BWM Dentsu needed to ensure those in harm’s way had relevant, up-to-date information, wherever they were. BWM Dentsu’s solution was born out of the one thing people turn to first in an emergency. Their smart phone. And the first thing they normally see when using their phone: Google Adwords. We turned Adwords into a real-time alert network which served accurate, geographically relevant fire risk alerts.