Wow… should I be pissed?

Back in October 2009, I sent a campaign promotion idea for Tuborg to a creative director I knew in Copenhagen.

When I came up with the campaign, I personally thought it was the most radical, coolest PR campaign ever. One, because it was so good natured, and two, it totally reversed why we create promotions in the first place: to get someone to do something for the brand and in turn, the brand, reward them.

Take a look at a couple of slides from my 2009 power point.

The creative director that I sent it to thought it was “a very good idea :-).”

She passed it on but then it kind of mysteriously died off – legalities… (I was not employed there…).

I never really found out why. And even though the creatives that had seen it (cc'd in emails) asked me to meet with them, those meetings never came about.

2012

Jump to this past month 2012, Robert/Boisen & Like-minded (a different Copenhagen agency) win a 1st place Bees Award! – the world’s #1 social media award – first time ever for a Danish company!

To top that, they were short listed for a Cannes Lion.

What’s their campaign? 

The Generous Store. -  No cash or credit cards, just good deeds 

To reconnect their brand with generosity and inspire people to see the positive effects of being generous Danish chocolate brand Anthon Berg opened the world’s first chocolate store where you couldn’t pay with cash or credit cards, just good deeds. The pop-up store was only open for a day and had people queuing up for one and a half hours to make generous promises towards a friend or loved one on Facebook for a box of chocolate.

Wow, that sounds awfully familiar...

In fact, here's the similarities vs. differences

The same

1. Fundamental (& what is so unique) premise - brand rewards customer for a good deed they do for a 3rd party & not the brand
2. Size of the reward based on the size of the good deed
3. Platform Facebook - (OK - not a hard choice for anyone)
   

Differences

1. Chocolate not Tuborg goodies
2. Retail based

Now, I fully understand that other people could have come up with the same concept. But having lived here in DK for many years, I never heard anyone ever use the term or even words, “good deed.”



In fact, if you look at the text on their website concerning the award: “The Bees Awards is recognized as the worlds 1st international social media marketing awards” – the agency can’t even conjugate is/are or put an apostrophe in “world’s.” Yet they come up with the idea of “good deeds.”

The questions haunting me now are: Am I a big baby? Delusionary or crying over spilt milk?

I knew three years ago when I came up with the idea that it was something special, but being named the world’s best SM campaign and short listed at Cannes is pretty cool.

Only thing is, was it my idea or did they coincidentally come up with the same idea to base their campaign on?

Please provide your feedback – and help a guy sleep a little better.

I really look forward to hearing from you.

About Andrew Singer

I provide cost effective communications and inbound marketing services to a wide variety of Danish companies that do business globally. From hi-tech firms like Siemens and TrackMan to more mainstream organizations like Carlsberg, Coloplast, Novo Nordisk and the Confederation of Danish Industry, I deliver strategic creative development and English copywriting services.

Check out examples of my work on my website www.andrewsinger.dk or online portfolio.