Building off the success of our 2007 campaign, we expanded the 2008 campaign into some exciting new areas including broader content creation, an event to showcase customized N95 devices, and a cross-branded interactive promotion on MTV sites globally.
The campaign goal - to present Nokia Nseries devices as the ultimate creative tools to global audience - was met by telling the story of the multinational Young Lions creative teams as they scrambled to produce winning viral videos under a strict 48-hour deadline.
Throughout the competition, extensive viral and broadcast content was generated using over 100 Nokia N95s. This year, we embedded 30 French film students to document the teams' progress. We also had professional film crews interviewing teams and top international creatives attending the festival. We even distributed customized N95s to attendees to help shoot part of the show via a booth in the Palais des Festivals.
Dubbed "The Cannes Experiment," we developed a concept for the on-site presence that showcased 50 N95s that we customized with Holga, wide-angle, and fisheye lenses. Intrigued ad creatives attending the festival were allowed to take these hot-rodded devices for a spin in exchange for shooting short spots like, "How would you explain a Gold Lion to your grandmother?"
After the festival, Local Theory managed all of the viral word-of-mouth marketing and strategically seeded the videos to targeted worldwide audiences. This included developing an MTV News broadcast segment about the competition and creating a voting widget that was hosted on MTV sites around the world, which let MTV audiences view team background videos and vote for the spots they wanted to see on the television show.
