Intro: "The Banner That Makes You Like Banners" for Post-it (3M) is a smart idea of how to turn the most hated online digital asset - retargeting banners - into something fairly useful. Generated during the annual "Cannes Lions Ideas" seasons in Proximity/BBDO Russia, it was prototyped, approved by the client and it briefly went live online - I personally tested it and it worked. lt got 3 Cannes Lions in 2015 (Gold, Silver, Bronze in Media) and many other awards at all the major shows around the World. It also got most people involved in its making (yours truly is an exception) significant career boosts and a great deal of industry recognition. It's in my portfolio because I still believe it's a uniquely brilliant idea, and that my contribution made a difference.
Watch the case study here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeUN82fSlFY
Challenge: How to start making Post-it (a completely analogue piece of product) a noticeable part of the digital conversation? (and win some awards on the way)
Key Insight: Someone on the team noticed that Post-it notes and retargeting banners have the exact same purpose - to annoyingly pop up right under your eyes when you expect it less
Creative Solution: We created a banner campaign with interactive banners where people could create Post-it notes with daily reminders. Once they were done, they could save their note on our website, where they would create more digital Post-it notes, edit and manage them online. Once they left the Post-it activation website, a custom coded tracking cookie would show them as retargeting banners, the very Post-it notes they created there. Hence, giving the "reminder" role of retargeting banners a purpose that would truly benefit the user. They would click on the banners/notes and the whole cycle went on and around.
The juicy bits: The results of the project are partially made up, as there was not enough data to provide such analytics. Also - the cherry on the top, sort of - for undisclosed reasons, the unlucky person on the client side who approved "The Banner That Makes You Like Banners" idea was fired even before or right after we sent the case study to Cannes.
My contribution: As the project was already on the roll when I took over, my contribution was to offer Creative Direction for the Case Study - script structure, naming, and positive energy when all seemed lost, of course.
