The father of advertising, David Ogilvy, once said, “In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative, original thinker unless you can also sell what you create.” He couldn’t be more right. At Brand & Mortar, we consider ourselves lucky for working at the intersection of creativity, business and technology, doing what we love the most: selling our client’s brand by creating original advertising campaigns and marketing strategies.

Case Study: Jam3 & MTV Video Music Awards

Today, we want to share with you a campaign that caught our eye two summers ago. Green Screen was developed by our friends at Jam3 Toronto for the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards. As Andrei Chahine, Vice-President and Creative Director at MTV explained, “We’re giving up control by giving people full access to VMA artists and assets and letting them make whatever they want in the name of artistic expression.” Watch the campaign video here:

The campaign launched on August 3rd, 2015 when a series of out-of-home (OOH) ads went live. The posters, transit ads, and billboards featured Miley Cyrus standing in front of a green screen or—even more enigmatic—just the blank green screen with the VMA logo and the show date.

Jam3, as part of this collaboration with MTV, provided the design, development, and UX by creating a site where fans could download tons of assets to mix together and create their own ads. MTV captured Miley and other artists on green screen and selected the best fan art to feature on its OOH two weeks later on August 17th.

Campaign Highlights

1. It doesn’t promote the show directly and allows the users to interact with the brand.
2. It knows its millennial audience, and fits the brand’s image (you can’t predict what is going to happen during the VMA show).
3. It flows back and forth with the target audience, going offline and online and back offline again.

The campaign was a success during the 2016 Cannes Festival, where it won four Lions Awards:

● Gold in the Co-Creation/User-Generated Content
● Silver in Media & Publications
● Silver Promo & Activation
● Silver in Entertainment

At Brand & Mortar we believe that sometimes you have to think outside the box, take risks and get out of your comfort zone to pursue excellence. Because, even if our day-to-day work is great and make us bigger, there’s no profit that could be compared with the satisfaction of a creative and original project delivered.

“The pursuit of excellence is less profitable than the pursuit of bigness, but it can be more satisfying.”
—David Ogilvy