8-BITS #WEARECREATIVE is a monthly inspiration session with our strategy, creative, editorial, design and future tech teams. Strategy starts off with platform updates then each team submits two pieces of socially and creatively brilliant work, equalling 8-BITS. We then debate new projects from around the world and question narratives, cultural point-of-views and how technologies work creatively or not. Here’s the best of the bits:
Cooling off from Cannes, we have a lot of great work to admire and learn from. This is what caught our attention before the golden Lions were bought, earned and paraded around southern France.
Platform news
June brought us a few things that you might have thought already existed but only now are they rolling out.
Facebook
Facebook Fundraisers – nonprofits can now start fundraisers for their own causes, while brand and public figures can fundraise for their favourite charities.
Instagram
Shoppable Stories – you’ve probably seen these in use already: Stickers with a shopping bag icon that let users shop a look by providing more information on the item, pricing details and links to brands’ websites.
Share Stories – you can now share other people’s Stories. Hurray!
Snapchat
Buy tickets in-app – you can now buy game and concert tickets from teams and musicians within Snapchat, thanks to an integration with SeatGeek (US).
Best socially-led campaigns
Campaign: Smirnoff X LADBible: The Unsung Heroes of your night
Why we love it?
In addition to being a fun, short documentary, these social films demonstrate that being open is more than a tagline – it can be a way of life, day and night. The three featured people explain in their own words how they improve people’s nights at the nightclub door, at the bar and even in the loo. No place or subject is too sacred to explore how you can make people feel more comfortable with difference. This is entertaining, but truly authentic content that still supports that that aspirational brand message.
Campaign: Forensic Architects & Stormzy
What is it?
Once in a blue moon, the worlds of news, publicity, social media and architecture collide. Coinciding with the one-year anniversary of the Grenfell Tower tragedy there have been many heartfelt appeals for justice including from Stormzy and untold bereaved. But only one project has gone from public memorial to forensic evidence, in a modern-day UGC Sherlock Holmes case. Forensic Architects normally works in war zones around human rights violations around the world to re-trace moments of destruction. For Grenfell, they created a site where anyone could submit footage – resulting in a “minute-by-minute” account of the fire, in an attempt to provide an “unrivalled understanding” of the deadly blaze. By synchronising the videos and placing them within a 3D model of the tower, the site will reveal details of the events of the fire.
Why we like it?
Social can get ugly sometimes, but its power to unite us is unrivalled in human history. This project truly makes people’s lives better because it’s helping society, police, families and mourning friends understand what really happened. Speaking to Dezeen, Bob Trafford – one of the researchers from Forensic Architecture – said “The project is long-term and open-ended, and could ultimately be put to a number of uses. We only hope that offering our platform as a public resource will support investigations and analysis across civil society, in line with Forensic Architecture’s foundational belief that the interests of transparency and democratic accountability are well served by a strong non-state capacity for forensic analysis and investigation”.
Your bit
The pursuit of purpose. Whether you have an opportunity with a global brand aspiration to translate it practically, or a news event that can inspire participation; not every campaign needs to have profit or consumerism front and centre. Take a closer look at the needs of society and how your brand could add value, not just another product.
