Global Chief Creative Officer, VML (formerly VMLY&R)
Debbi Vandeven, VML, Loeries 2013 International Seminar of Creativity
... there vml is not in Kansas either we're in Missouri um Kansas City is actually split by a river so if you ever say that you're coming ...
Transcript (18 segments)
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Debbi Vandeven0:06
Hi everyone, I'm really excited to be here. I chaired the Digital Lores and saw great work. I flew halfway around the world to judge. I'm from Kansas City, Missouri. Many people associate Kansas City with The Wizard of Oz; that film relates to creativity. Kansas City is the first city to get Google Fiber, with download speeds 100 times faster. Here's a clip from Aaron Koblin.
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Aaron Koblin3:34
My name is Aaron Koblin and I lead the Data Arts team at Google's Creative Lab. We experiment with digital technologies and storytelling. With faster bandwidth, we can share media in real time. The Johnny Cash project invited people to create drawings for a music video, creating a constantly changing database. Every technology starts by imitating the past, but now we can do things completely different. With fiber, the limitation becomes our own imagination.
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Debbi Vandeven5:11
After the clip, I noted that email marketing in the US is analytical, while here there's more creativity. I showed VML's headquarters: 600 employees locally, 1,500 globally, 20 locations, part of WPP. Newest offices in Johannesburg and Cape Town. Global clients include Kellogg's, Colgate, Wendy's, Gatorade, Microsoft. I shared personal stories: married 20 years, the internet introduced in 1991. My daughters Kylie and Haley illustrate the generation gap in social media use. Kylie gets 46 likes; Haley gets 102. Young people are on Instagram, not Facebook as much. I returned to the Wizard of Oz analogy: wisdom, humanity, courage, spirit.
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Narrator13:49
The Folly Theater in Kansas City needed to connect with a younger audience. We created a mobile app for a burlesque show where the audience could vote on costumes, songs, and direct the performance. Attendance went up, and the theater became the talk of the town.
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Debbi Vandeven15:33
I don't recommend that for every theater, but it worked for burlesque because we could time it. It got a lot of buzz. The next case study you might have seen—Tony Granger might have shown it last year. I included it because we partnered with GPY&R in Melbourne, showing the world is small.
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Narrator16:44
The brief was to recruit 850 medical students for a Defense Force scholarship. We created a mobile diagnostic tool that let students diagnose conditions using their phones. Students solved increasingly difficult challenges. The campaign directly recruited 850 of the most highly skilled medical students. The tool now lives on as an education platform in defense universities.
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Debbi Vandeven19:26
Now on to the Tin Man: if I only had a heart. Technology should never get in the way of humanity. Ideas should evoke emotions. The next piece is a five-week campaign for Wendy's. The insight was that people love to share what they love, even about fast food.
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Narrator20:38
When Wendy's launched their new pretzel bacon cheeseburger, we let customers sing its praises. We created love songs using actual tweets and Facebook posts. New videos were produced each week. The campaign became the most engaging in Wendy's 44-year history, making the pretzel bacon cheeseburger their most successful product launch ever.
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TV Host22:50
Pretzel Wendy's pretzel bacon cheeseburger... this is awesome. #pretzellovesongs. This is genius. Wendy's stock went up.
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Debbi Vandeven23:13
My team will be thrilled with that reaction. The executive creative director was nervous because Wendy's only did coupons, but they took a risk. The campaign not only went viral but also appeared on Mad Money, boosting Wendy's stock. It proved the ROI of social media. Kaplan changed their TV to match. Next: Mind Drive, about authentic stories that people like to share.
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Narrator25:26
Mind Drive is a hands-on learning program where mentors teach at-risk students to build electric cars. Graduation rates shot up to 100%. We had the students drive their car to Washington D.C., powered by social media shares. Social fuel poured in—Richard Branson blogged, Nancy Pelosi retweeted. The students met with legislators. They generated enough fuel to complete the journey seven times. New Mind Drives opened in Ohio, Texas, Colorado, California, and Australia.
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Debbi Vandeven28:10
I'm really proud of that work. We did the PR for it as well. We started as a full-service agency and brought back skill sets. Global stat: we consume 10.7 hours of media a day, more than half digital, 48% on social channels. Use that medium to connect, not just sell. Next: courage. If you try to avoid failure, you avoid success. I showed The Exchange from Native—they chose a physical mall to connect with consumers. We can scale this globally.
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Narrator31:03
The Exchange is a fashion boutique where you can't buy anything with money—only by registering as an organ donor. It opened in a Cape Town mall. Shoppers signed up via a simple app. The store was filled with donated designer clothes. It generated 4.5 million Rand in free PR. 759 items were sold, potentially saving over 5,300 lives.
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Debbi Vandeven33:34
We look at work and think about changing people's lives. Everyone here has talent to do that. There's a lot of pro bono work because we can change the world. Next: Nashville. We worked on this for over a year. The client wanted a website and TV spot, but we came up with a different idea to change the perception of Nashville from a country-western town to a diverse music city.
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Narrator34:36
Nashville had a perception problem as a backwoods country town, but it had evolved into a diverse music city. We recruited big names like The Black Keys, Kings of Leon, and The Civil Wars to tell the story for free. The result was a one-hour documentary, 'For the Love of Music,' which ABC agreed to air at no media cost. A second-screen mobile app connected the stories to real places, inspiring visits. The film helped change the city's image.
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Debbi Vandeven37:12
My executive creative director is a music lover and pitched this idea. It took a year to coordinate, but all artists did it for free. The documentary launches November 3rd. We also set up PR for 30 cuts of video for the celebrities. I also discussed women in advertising: only 3% of creative directors are women, yet women control 60% of personal wealth and drive $20 trillion in consumer spending. Encourage diversity on teams. Finally, I showed a reel of our work.
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Narrator40:50
Picasso said if you can imagine it, it's real. We imagine cars powered by social media, diagnosing with phones, using nutrition to fuel performance, turning trash into something good. Their finish line is our drawing board. We keep pushing until the impossible is done.
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Debbi Vandeven42:19
Thank you.