Sorry for the absence of this post over the last two weeks – I was indulging in a few offline (down the line?) distractions.

This week I’ve been pondering on how the net is forcing ad agencies to be proactive and relook at how and where they get ideas from. This new focus also involves making sure that brands are all nice and social while also making consumers feel like they are the ones who are in control.

So, here we go…

Adidas 

This brand spanking new Adidas campaign is beautifully crafted (and Flash heavy for those with slow connections) and is a great example of creating that sense of consumer control. Simple premise – let the user photograph their own Adidas campaign. 

The idea? Once you have shot your ad (in glorious slow motion), you feel happy that you are a creative whizz kid, have interacted with your favourite brand and are now naturally more inclined to purchase the well-placed catalogue items. I’d like to have seen a bit more Social Media integration - but it’s great nonetheless.

Walkers Crisps 

According to Ian at crackunit, this campaign has generated over 800 000 ideas for new flavours of Walker’s crisps. If you are in the UK, you would have seen the great supporting advertising, but I’d say it’s the idea at the core of the campaign that has made it so successful - ask people for ideas and pay for the ones you like the most.

P.S: Watch this space - Quirk has another exciting trick up its sleeve along these exact lines…

Some Great Reads

• The W+K London blog is a great source of interesting stuff. Here is an interesting summary from a conference discussing the future agency model. Relevant to this post me thinks! 
• Conversion Agent has a great guest post from Dion Hughes. It’s a really nice analogy about old school and new school brand behaviour. 
• And finally….. this has nothing to do with anything other than a great way to scare the bejeebers out of your little brother or sister.