As kids, we all felt our hearts pounding entering a big top, anticipating death defying acts, beautiful trapeze artists and tightrope walkers, colorful clowns and acrobats.
Our jaws would drop in disbelief and our imaginations would be challenged by magicians, sword swallowers and fire-breathers. We would leave these events on an aspiration-high, thinking what amazing thing we could be capable of one day. Everybody dreamt of joining the circus.
Remember when the glamour of advertising was not very far from this? When we all lived (still do!) for that one moment when a buzzer-beater of an idea would magically appear on a paper napkin, when a multitude of campaign components juggled together just perfectly, or that first time you see your hard-won TVC produced and released at just the right time.
Fast forward to today’s world when our work feels like looking into a circus mirror – sometimes we don’t even recognize it anymore. But here’s the thing – isn’t our job the most exciting when we’re getting ourselves in a situation where we’re not sure where the exit is? Can we get into the house of mirrors and look at each distorted reflection as an opportunity? As we walk onto a tightrope trying to balance this act of traditional human emotion contrasted with ever-evolving technology, don’t we want to stick around to see if we make it to the other side?
The pandemic put much of our work in a disappearing cabinet with knives being thrown at it. And we’re holding our breath if the lady comes out in one piece; or perhaps this lady will come out as a totally different person. The Hakuhodo/BCi group mixed its members around, built new teams within, upskilled, reskilled themselves, re-learned the role that advertising should play in the lives of human beings, and unlearned the bad consequences that the rat race has brought upon us.
We created innovation teams that all simultaneously worked with agency-born products that aim to not just make advertising life easier, but more importantly, bring the industry and its clients ahead of the times, rising above pandemic issues, giving it the power to navigate whatever the future will hold.
And no, these products are not only for HBCI. Our team proudly offers these products to the rest of the industry. We’re all in this together! HBCI has already invested in building these products to be shared with everyone. Just as our teams got together to create the products, we invite the industry to get together to leverage them. So here goes.
STARS PH. All of us need quick consumer insights whether to ask dipstick questions; or get the pulse for a fast concept test. Stars PH has a panel of 20,000 members pooled together in a mobile app, segmented and profiled so we give you only respondents that you need. Very soon, you will have access to a website that allows you to create your own surveys and feed it to the apps of your chosen respondents. For more information about this, click this or send us a quick email at [email protected].
ALL-E. The era of pulse-racing product launches or concerts, sports events, and mall activations have all been on pause; not knowing when we will do them again. So, what about having a 3D online venue that beats the doldrums of zoom meetings or the flat experience of online shopping. ALL-E is a gamified events and activations venue that puts together HALL-E, an online events hall; and MALL-E, a 3D shopping mall experience. Think about anything that you can do in an events hall or a mall, you can do it in ALL-E. Click here to know more about the platform; or send us a quick email at [email protected].
It is time that we all cooperate, despite that we compete.
