Getting ContagiUOX at Ad Unplugged 2010

First things first, congrats to all mutants, students, participants and living beings who turned up last Thursday at Ad Unplugged to brainstorm and churn out ideas with the ECDs. You guys did a great job, and it's not just us saying that, the ECDs think so too. The fact that there had been no hair wrenching, mouth foaming and exasperated cries from them only proves us even more.

So yes, Mr Kit, Mr Sa'ad, Mr Hisham, Mr Szu and Mr Edward are all very proud of you. This is your cue to imagine them smiling approvingly at you all. If you guys can't envision that for yourself, you can use this picture:

Yes, even Janet's proud of you too...


Moving on, Ad Unplugged 2010 may be over but deng, it was such a blast that we're still feeling its resonance here. That's why the friendly bunch at 95% have decided to have our own Ad Unplugged Post Mortem, where we'll be slicing up the seven selected works, and showing you why they worked.

If you were there at Ad Unplugged, you would already know which were the selected seven and what the ideas were about. If you weren't.... well... maybe if you stared hard enough at the pictures, you might be able to infer something out of it.

So without further ado, let's bring in the winning piece. ContagiUOX, by Celine, Edmond, Ejin, Jon and June.

To recap, the brief this year was to promote UOX using ambient ideas in colleges and universities.

Working on the insight that:

- Students these day lack real-life social communication with each other
- Students live stressful life

and the brand problem which was

- UOX had low brand awareness among youngsters

The group under the guidance from their mentor for the day, Kit Ong came up with a simple solution: The Stick Message System, SMS in short.

How this works was that firstly, sticker dispensers from UOX were installed in colleges and universities. Students can then just grab a sticker or two to write their own messages on it and later, 'send' them out, by simply sticking the sticker onto someone else (without their knowing)

Anything can be written on these stickers, be it a fun message, an encouraging message, a phone number, a death threat, a hotel room number... you get the picture.

When the recipient realises that he or she has been sticker-ed, he or she can choose to reply the message (or take revenge), heading back to the sticker dispenser and repeating the process.

The rationale behind this idea was to help students get more out of life: by creating real life communication opportunities. This paves the way for them to meet more real people than online profiles. Neat.

Production wise? Even neater. It is easy to produce and media space (the student body, literally!) was in abundance. And when the student walks around and out of campus, the idea travels with him. This makes it highly visible.

So why did the judges like it? Why did Kit Ong even say he'd wish he was the one who came up with it?

Primarily, because it was simple. Students are a vicious and vengeful sort (when it comes to things like this) so naturally, they would want to get back at each idea. And because of that, this idea would only end up more viral.

Now don't you wish that you came up with it instead?

So that's one idea down, another six to go. Your humble narrator would love to put them up here but once again, the friendly bunch at 95% would rather go at it one at a time.

Stick around to learn about what worked for the other six. If you've any questions or comments about this idea (or if you're either Celine, Edmond, Ejin, Jon or June who would like to add a little more to our post mortem on your work) let us know! Comment on this post!

Congrats guys! Now go brag about it to your friends!