I’m new to 1000heads, and have often been asked by family and friends what it is we do. Here’s just one example.
We recently supported the Nokia US launch of the Nokia Lumia 900. The brand and international rap superstar Nicki Minaj teamed up to host a launch of epic proportions, live from Times Square. Local New Yorkers and tourists from around the world witnessed an exclusive visual and musical takeover, using nine immense CGI screens, crowned by a show-stopping performance from Minaj.
She performed a medley of songs from her brand-new album and then introduced the exclusive Nokia remix of her latest single ‘Starships’, featuring London-based DJ Doorly. Lucky fans in the audience were also filmed to appear in the official video for the Nokia ‘Starships’ remix.
And what was our role in all of this?
Prior to the takeover we invited bloggers from the worlds of music and technology to join us for the event. The bloggers, as well as New Yorkers in and around Times Square, had no idea what was planned. Aside from a few hints, everything about the event was secret. The only real clue was a giant blue box that had been planted in the middle of Times Square the day before the launch. The box was unbranded but for a distinctive clock that was counting down.
To add even more intrigue and mystery, on launch day we gave each blogger a scaled-down version of the blue box; inside was a pair of Monster headphones and a miniature countdown timer, synced with the main box.
To support the activity online we created a Facebook tab on the Nokia US page called ‘Lumia 900 Live’. The tab mirrored all activity leading up to the event on the ground, still giving nothing away. Then, post-launch, we ran a Facebook competition giving fans the opportunity to win a Lumia 900 signed by Minaj herself. The tab was also the home for the official video for the Nokia ‘Starships’ remix.
The trip was a blast for lots of reasons, the main one being getting to meet our bloggers face to face, and giving them an experience they’d never forget.
But if one of the platforms we use every day changes, it opens a big opportunity to do something slightly out of the ordinary – and of course there’s usually a race to be first too. Did you all hear about Facebook changing the character limit of a status update to 63k odd characters? What’s the point of that?
Whatever the reason for the change, we thought it would be fun to team up with Nokia and be the first to make use of all that space and produce The Big Nokia Status, powered by Nokia’s worldwide fans…
“Welcome to the Big Nokia Status! We asked some of our fans to tell us what they thought about Nokia, this might be the longest Facebook update ever”.
In total the update consists of 63,157 characters featuring close to 20 passionate bloggers. Who knows… maybe it’s the biggest Facebook update so far, ever?
Wednesday heralded one of Social Media Week’s most exciting events: the Nokia Social Innovation Lab. Four young entrepreneurs gave inspiring presentations about how social tools have helped turn their business idea into reality. Each had a different, but equally fascinating story to tell.
Within the packed room, tensions were running high (and so was the air conditioning) as Becky Straw took to the podium. Despite having flown in from New York that very morning, she delivered a passionate and inspiring presentation about The Adventure Project, a not-for-profit organisation that seeks to provide jobs and dignity to people in developing countries.
She explained how social media is “absolutely integral” to her business, not just in terms of spreading the word, but even in the simple logistical task of keeping up with her team – her business partner, Jody Landers, lives more than 1,000 miles away in Iowa.
Social media also played a huge part in The Adventure Project’s “Coal for Christmas” mission. By selling special “festive” lumps of coal for $20 each, Becky and Jody helped provide more than 1,000 charcoal-efficient stoves for families in Africa and Haiti. Now that’s what I call ethical social media!
The second inspirational speaker was Jess Ratcliffe, founder of GaBoom, a video game swapping website.
GaBoom is essentially a social network for those who want to swap video or computer games. It acts as a middle man, matching users to a network of individuals with whom they can swap and trade their games. As Jess put it, social media is not just essential to GaBoom’s business model, it “is the business model”.
She is also a firm believer in social media being a “means to breaking down barriers” between individuals, using examples from her own experience to show how making connections on social networks can have tangible results in the physical world.
Tricia Bertero also spoke passionately about how the “spirit of conversation” prevalent in social media is crucial to the ongoing success of her start-up, TextPlus.
She told of how TextPlus has grown out of the observation that people are actively choosing texting over calling as their primary method of communication; it’s fast, easy and relatively discrete. From this simple insight into people’s behaviour, Tricia and her colleagues have created a booming business. Also, by conducting polls and monitoring usage, TextPlus has the ability to listen to its users and evolve to accommodate their preferences and needs. This is a shining example of how a business can be successfully social.
Being the last speaker up on stage was never going to stop award-winning “soultrepreneur” Andre Campbell, whose community project Enfuse Youth is all about empowering young people with the passion and drive to achieve their goals. His energetic and interactive speech was, for me, the highlight of the day.
Andre was very vocal about the need for businesses to tap into the youth market, calling young people “the most valuable resource in the world”. His passion and insight exemplified how innovation and participation can’t just be online, and that social encompasses both the real and the virtual worlds.
Although each of the four speakers were very different people, with very different backgrounds and very different visions, they were united by their passion for their business and their successful use of social (and not just social media) to promote it. And they each had their individual (social) success stories.
Social Media Week kicks off today and a huge range of exciting and interactive events will be taking place in 20 cities around the world.
As ever, here at 1000heads we will be in the thick of things. We’re taking part in many events but one we’re particularly excited about is the launch of Nokia’s new social innovation – Agora.
Agora is core to Nokia’s desire to be a listening company and it delivers up to the minute insights into online conversations that its customers are having.
Creative content, both internal and user generated, real-time social conversations, and real-time social metrics are shown on banks of flat screen displays in dedicated social spaces in Nokia offices all over the world.
Agora helps Nokia better understand its customers and puts social listening right at the heart of the organisation.
Take a look.
If you’re at Social Media Week in New York we’ll be showcasing Agora every day, displaying the social content being created around the event and the hashtag #SMW12. It’ll be at Big Fuel’s office here.
Just over a year ago, the 1000heads Nokia account team were gearing up for one of the biggest/most intense workloads of our collective history as we headed towards the 24hr Nokia / Tron: Legacy takeover.
Here, in October 2011, it is still look upon as one of the best pieces of activity we have ever worked on and – for our client – it is continually held up and referred to as their best Facebook campaign, ever.
To put it lightly, we’re chuffed to bits!
A few thank yous:
To the SoMeComms judging panel for recognising our fantastic work.
To our partners at Disney and Propaganda, without whom none of this would’ve happened.
To the ‘heads who worked tirelessly (through the night on some occasions!) to make sure that this activity came together perfectly.
Last, but by no means least, to our awesome client(s) who continually challenge us and brief us into being able to dream, create and ultimately perform best in class and industry-defining work in the social media space.
Thank you, all of you.
Right, let’s get that champagne…
Awards are great, we love them, but what we love more is delivering great work for inspiring clients.
If you’re looking for a career change and want to work with some of the best and smartest people in the industry, then get in touch.
It’s Social Media Week this week and all across the globe, a multitude of key cities are gathering together to learn and discuss about the impact of social media on modern society today.
As part of our work with Nokia, global partner for Social Media Week, we’ve got teams all over the world helping with all kinds of different activations, similar to the work that we accomplished back in February.
Our brief was simple: how do you make the simple things you see around you, just that little bit more special?
Our response? We decided to create one of the world’s first Foursquare-enabled vending machines.
Unlike most machinery, the instruction manual is quite simple:
Anyone following on Twitter last week would’ve spotted this teaser we put out when we first went to test the machine above, I’m fairly sure no one managed to guess what the image was going to be!
If you’re at Social Media Week Glasgow this week, make sure you get yourself along to the Sky Park on Elliot Place and give it a go!
First up, our resident Kiwi and HR person, Lucy Armstrong, wanted to share this awesome piece of Rugby World Cup inspired Lego-based wonderment -
When we asked ‘Why is this cool?’ to the rest of the office, the simple answer was ‘BECAUSE IT IS LEGO!’
However, one thing that did come out of this was the amount of time and effort that goes into some of these cool things. The above stop-motion video leads quite nicely into another high-effort delivery, aka: cool thing number two -
Regular readers will know that we like our big Follow Fridays here at 1000heads and last Friday was no exception. The Nokia community team were in the office helping to create the above #FF message out of post-it notes. @My_E72 was over the moon with our message and well, we thought it was pretty damn cool too.
Our third and final cool thing came from one Joel Diamond. Joel had managed to locate what is being labelled as an ‘Audio-Haptic Navigation Environment.’
Following up on our recent shortlist success with N8Producers (awards announced later this week!), 1000heads are proud to announce a further five shortlist placements for two separate pieces of work.
First up, Behind the E7
In February of 2011, Nokia was launching its flagship enterprise phone: the Nokia E7. With more and more of their devices being well-reviewed for their industrial design, Nokia wanted to give a ‘behind the scenes’ demonstration video that not only highlighted the product itself, but also gave an insight into the design philosophy that exists within the very DNA of the company…
Hitting over 100,000 organic views in the first 24hrs was a huge success for both us and the client. Combining that with the top secret competition hidden in the video (did you spot it?) meant that overall, this is one of our best video creations to date.
Thanks to these results, Behind the E7 has been shortlisted for the following two awards -
At the end of 2010, Nokia partnered with Disney for the launch of the film Tron: Legacy. With the majority of the plot set ‘online’, it made perfect sense to compliment this with a social media campaign reflecting and building upon those elements. As the world’s leading word of mouth marketing agency, 1000heads were perfectly placed to deliver against this brief…
To date, this is Nokia’s most successful Facebook campaign, ever.
With that in mind, it’s great to see the above work has now been shortlisted for the following three awards -
Aside from running the very latest update of Nokia’s Symbian software – aka ‘Symbian Belle’ – these new Belle devices all come with Near Field Communications (NFC) baked-in. Which means, you simply tap – and go.
Working with the smart guys over at NFC-Hub we produced special NFC-enabled posters, similar to the below -
- that were placed up at different locations around Hong Kong. Delivering against Nokia’s release message of ‘Try Something New’, #NokiaTSN, we thought we’d set a two day course of exactly that, with our guests trying their hands at all things news. For example, riding the Crystal Cable Car or simply taking in a Tai Chi lesson in the park.
The best part being that once the on-site posters were tapped -
- the entrants would automatically check-in on Facebook and/or Foursquare (depending on the poster used) which in turn would produce results like this:
Much fun was had indeed.
With NFC becoming more and more prevalent [see Museum integration as well as Dennis Publishing getting in on the act], expect more NFC-based shenanigans from us very soon and, if you find yourself in the 1000heads offices at any point in the future, why not tap us up?
Every day our teams across the world work extremely closely with the community team at Nokia and it is this great working relationship that allows us all to take advantage of opportunities that present themselves, to turn around creative ideas quickly and ultimately to do awesome stuff like this:
The World’s Biggest Follow Friday!
Original artwork by Elina, Elisa, Vilja, Mala and of course JP
We think this is the biggest #FollowFriday the world has ever seen, in the sense that the ‘FF’ itself is written on a massive wall in Helsinki!
Last week, we heard from the guys at Nokia that some of their team were attending this half day course on “graffiti art” and they wanted to know if there was something they could do with their new found skills that they could show off on Twitter or Facebook. As it was a Friday we thought it would be awesome to physically reward some of our community members with a HUGE #FF from a brand they advocate!
It’s important to note that we didn’t choose the guys with the biggest reach (anyone can build something for Scoble), we made a real genuine effort to select those fans who fell more into the category of nascent advocate or in fact those that had just produced some really great content – we feel it is important not to just focus on ‘the big guys’ but to give love to the grass roots too.
I think it is safe to say the guys loved it, aside from this blog post from Christy here are a few choice highlights:
So there it is, not a huge campaign or an expensive activity but merely a great example of group thinking (combined with a quick turn around) to reward some of Nokia’s great community members out there today.
Plus, any excuse to do something fun and cool on a Friday afternoon always makes us happy.
What do you think? Have you seen any bigger #FollowFridays or should I call the guys at Guinness World Records?
