Scott Goodson's Cultural Movements Blog

Agent Provocateur embraces social media

From Brand Republic

Lingerie brand Agent Provocateur has launched an online social media campaign to promote its Hello Agent Provocateur blog using Facebook, Flickr and Twitter.

HelloAgentProvocateur.com was created by StrawberryFrog and includes blog posts, updates and news revolving around relationships, romance, men and women as well as Agent Provocateur promotional work.

Reviews of the latest chick flicks, results of romance-themed surveys and the history of the bra are all included in regular updates which also allow readers to comment.

Originating in the US, the website's launch coincides with a steamy new ad campaign designed to remind men to remember Valentine's Day.

With the slogan 'Love me tender… or else!', the ad is appearing on the company's website as well as the new HelloAgentProvocateur.com blog page.

Both campaigns come as UK-based private equity house 3i hosts a men-only party in collaboration with Agent Provocateur, inviting London's bankers to a preview of the lingerie brand's latest lines over drinks and canapes.

Follow msprovocateur on Twitter.

StrawberryFrog at 10 - Heineken look back

Back in Europe, when I was leading the creative work out of StrawberryFrog Amsterdam, I got the opportunity to create and execute a campaign - called Social Cocktails - which remains one of my favs. The creative team that helped me execute this included my friend Ute Geisler.

StrawberryFrog at 10 - Sam's Club look back

We opened our US office in New York in 2005. One of our first clients in the United States was Bentonville-based Sam's Club, one of the nation's largest retailers. StrawberryFrog was awarded the account in a strategic and creative pitch against several much larger corporate agencies. Kevin McKeon did a masterful job on the creative.

Here is some of our work.

StrawberryFrog at 10 - Mitsubishi Motors look back

Looking in the rear view mirror after ten years is a lot of fun. Back in early 2000, StrawberryFrog was about 25 staffers in Amsterdam. Mitsubishi Motors was owned by Mercedes. We had previously helped launch the Smart Car in Europe and had some friends in the car company. We were asked to join a pitch for the Euro 250MM Mitsubishi Motors 42 country car account. A leap? Well were pitted against powerhouse BBDO Europe out of Frankfurt who had been working on the brand strategy for over a year, Grey Europe, Arnold Havas Europe, and the incumbent Asatsu.

The client was looking for an agency that could do it faster, smarter and with a lot of agility. And one that had a big idea.

We won.

We worked for four years on rebuilding the brand. It sold more cars than they had anticipated, so much so that the company made its first profit in Europe in decades.

But perhaps the greatest feat was winning this massive piece of business in the first place, in the face of huge corporate holding companies. Today this happens more often, but back them it was unheard of.

I loved living in Amsterdam. I loved starting StrawberryFrog in Amsterdam. The city culture is scintillating and it played an important role in defining our agency culture, and still does. In those days, we developed and executed 14 different car launch campaigns with extraordinary precision. Each one building the client's business, each campaign further strengthening the brand and the company. We succeeded in repositioning the Mitsubishi Motors brand and we sold a lot of cars. It was masterfully managed by our team leader Roberta Bantel, together with Vanessa Dolan, and was overseen creatively by me and my associate CDs Shawn Preston and Andy McKeon, and art directed by Corinna Falusi who now works for StrawberryFrog New York.

These ads were done out of our StrawberryFrog offices in Amsterdam.

StrawberryFrog at 10 - Onitsuka Tiger look back

This month, it will be ten years since we started StrawberryFrog in the Netherlands. It's not easy being the ECD of an independent agency, you wear many hats. And in the early days my creative team and I did a lot of multi-tasking. It was amazing the sheer quantity of multi-disciplined creative work (ads/digital/brandPR) that we produced and got out the door and into many different countries.

Looking back on all the global campaigns we developed over the years, Onitsuka Tiger is one of the brands that I am proud to have been a part of re-building from scratch out of our StrawberryFrog offices in Amsterdam.

In 2000, Mark Chalmers (now CD of Perfect Fools Amsterdam) and Dylan Ingham (who runs his own shop in Amsterdam) were then associate CDs at StrawberryFrog. The agency was an incredible creative hothouse. So much energy and enthusiasm. Together with the account lead Heather Fullerton (who moved with me to start StrawberryFrog in NYC and remains a partner today), we met Mr Onitsuka and other top management from Asics and presented them with a plan to rebuild their legendary brand. The rest is history.

In the first few years, the campaigns were produced out of our StrawberryFrog offices on Tesselshadestraat in Amsterdam, and ran in the Benelux countries, Italy and then later Germany and then the UK, and then globally. We produced more and more work. Over the years the brand grew, mostly due to the unconventional work and hardest working digital and guerrilla marketing campaign known to man.

In those days it would be hard to imagine how successful Onitsuka Tiger would become for Asics.

Looking back after ten years, here are a few of the my favorite OT campaigns from the early days.

TED day one wow

Quick update from me (if you want some really wonderful ongoing updates follow Laurel on http://twitter.com/laureltouby)

Key points.

We have a huge economic crisis.

We have a massive climate crisis...and biosphere disaster.

BUT we have some absolutely amazing new technology being born.

The most emotional moment was delivered by Ray Anderson of Impact Carpet and Tile, the CEO who has been called the greenest ceo in America. He read a poem about tomorrow's child, written by one of his staffers. It vividly portrayed the face and life of a child who will be born into this world in the future, and forcefully emblazoned us to make a difference in the world today, so that she/he may enjoy the world.

Totally inspiring day so far, with a huge segment to go. It is really all to much to regurgitate here. I'll try to compose something later.

TED day one

Last night's TED shinding was a blast. People showed up from the four corners of the planet. Met a VC from New Zealand, Ergonomist from Australia, a professor from Columbia, an amazing woman from the upper west side who runs a not for profit to help children with life threatening illnesses. I'm really inspired by the diversity of the people from so many different backgrounds. Today we start at 10 with speeches by juan enriquez, pw singer, naturally 7 and then bill gates. Exciting. Inspiring and commercial free.

The only offputting is the commercialization creep, but discretely tucked off to the side, with exhibits in the side show for sponsor companies. Not really what I'm interested in.

Sun is hot. Now off to breakfast. More later...

A great Heineken commercial

Thanks for all the feedback on the Heineken BBH StrawberryFrog post about our global campaign for Heineken. This is one of the many brand spots - one of my top favs actually - which was produced out of Strawberryfrog Amsterdam.

TED 2009

As a TED virgin, I'm psyched to attend the 25 anniversary of the TED conference which kicked off tonight and will commence the presentations tomorrow, including a keynote by Bill Gates. I've been meaning to come to TED for years. Three years ago I was a hair and a day away from attending but then had to fly to a shoot. But this year I am here. It all started with registration early this morning, and then at 19:30 a Shindig where we met lots of really interesting looking people. Tomorrow is the first day and I will write a brief review of the speakers postop.

Here is the official blurb from the TED 09 website:

It's TED's 25th anniversary. But instead of looking back, we're looking forward. Everyone on the program will be premiering something: a thrilling discovery, a revolutionary idea, a powerful invention, a spectacular piece of art, a first-time performance. We'll share undiscovered talent and shed new light on names you know. And then, of course, there's another great unveiling: our new home in Long Beach, California, and our new simulcast home in Palm Springs, California.

Taxi Design Network

I have been co-opted by the Taxi Design blog - the place for all things design.

More here>>>