October 3, 2006, 6:44 pm : Ball Ideas - Get ‘em in!

On Tuesday 3 October, Kevin Roberts gave the WW Interactive Directors a limited edition Nike Soccer Ball. The challenge was to “do something with it”. Here are the ideas - pick the one you like, post your comment as a vote (with your name) and the one with the most votes on Weds get done, second place gets done next, etc. OK guys, get on the, er, Ball.

Skin Ball - Peter Kang
The “ball” has graphics all over it that mean something different to different people. I look at it and see videogame references in pop culture, like the two swords that make up Zelda. The idea is that we need a fabric or “skin” to connect everyone’s idea of what this stuff means to them. So visually we have this page with a grid of the icons grafted onto people’s skin in different countries as a tattoo. It removes the icons from the ball and places them under the personal context of the body and how icons relate to us as humans. Following each set of photographs of the tattoos on skin would be a small collection of that office’s and country’s perception of that particular icon or symbol. The stories can be audio/video/photos…I just thought a good way to connect the symbolism with personal stories would be through something sensual like skin, rather than something digital like motion graphics.

Move the Ball - Tom Eslinger
When you have the ball, you put our finger on a world map and find the closest S&S office. You find someone in the office to be your collaborator and ship the ball to that S&S office. The person who receives the ball begins to post pics, clues, vids, Google ad words, posts on YouTube, etc on a blog page we’ll set up on Flik’r, myspace, whatever. The idea is to give all of the other players clues of the ball’s location - the first player who guesses gets to select the next office and get’s the current office to ship the ball to its next destination. The ball then starts moving again - we can even track it by installing a GPS chip in it or using FedEx to track it’s progress online.

Alessandro Piersimoni

PR spin
Create 10-12 viral videos (by each interactive office), guerrilla etc, promoting (via youtube,etc.) a treasur hunt (the ball it’s the rare treasure). We would involve the public. The person who finds the ball gets a job in the interactive network. It starts as a teaser and then becomes reveal.

Saatchi Interactive internal award
The ball it’s like the world cup trophy. It travels to each interactive office that wins most awards in a year. A healthy network competition. There could be a reward attached to it, like travels/points and so on.

Uwe Gutschow

Turn the ball into a sisomo case study
Perhaps the ball gets passed around from agency to agency and we all have to come up with an idea to post on youtube that incorporates the ball in a funny way, other than soccer. Would be great if Saatchi could sneak the ball into various media photos/video, kind of like thetouristguy (but this would be more difficult to do as a saatchi PR stunt).

Make the ball interactive
Use the ball as an exhibition in sisomo where each of the icons on the ball, when touched, plays a clip, audio/animation. Would be cool if we could do this as a hologram or project on the actual ball. This way the inspiration and meaning of the icons become more real.

Olivier Petit
Olivier sent through a PDF with some visuals, but no copy to explain the ideas! His email: “Please find attached some rough ideas about the ball. As you’ll see my art director is not hired yet. Not sur to be into it but it what came out.”

Check them out here - it may inspire….something!

Adriaan Glastra
The soccer ball will make a “Global Tour” across the S&Interactive offices, and will stay in each country for two days…the local offices are responsible to send it via UPS to the next office. We can stablish the calendar. The idea is to film in HD or in digital video each and every human being in the interactive office passing the ball from left to right (screen right to left)…and generate a cool video with those shots…or at least to have the material for future stuff. The overall video could be recreated across every office in the network, with a huge continuous loop of peple passing the ball around, going around the world.

Matt and Andrew - NYC
Who’s got the ball?
Interactive achievement totem

The ball should used internally to recognize achievement with in the global interactive network. It will become a trophy of accomplishment, and will be used to create a healthy competitive attitude with in the network. At the end of each 100 day Interactive summit the ball will be awarded to an individual office or person.

Similar to Ogilvy’s ‘red braces’ or ‘pillar of the universe’ award, the ball will recognize exemplary performance / being a great team player / going beyond the call of duty / etc.

Pedestals will be set up with in the interactive department of each office where the ball will be displayed.

Possible criteria, for being awarded the ball could be:

- Winning a new piece of business
- Winning the most awards at a given awards show
- Achieving / surpassing revenue goals
- Producing a noteworthy campaign

Saatchi will create a password protected site www.whosgottheball.com. The site will serve as a leaderboard within the network. Its homepage will be dedicated to whoever the current holder of the ball is. Content will highlight the event that won the ball away from another office.

The site will also keep a running tally of which offices held the ball when and for how long.

Similar to the roaming gnome, the ball will make a journey around the world as it moves from office to office. Current holders of the ball are responsible for photographing it in interesting / iconic / unusual places within their geographical location. These photos will also serve as an incentive to win the ball back.