Interactive videos, impossible online banners, experimental sites, streaming video series created with drones, beer tap hacks... This archive is a compilation of quirks, nostalgia, and private jokes. Extraordinary (literally) projects that I've proudly been part of since 1996.

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#DroneWeek :: GE

General Electric entrusted The Barbarian Group to take another step in its quest to showcase the scope of its scientific and industrial capabilities in a fun, relatable way by using livestreaming app Periscope to launch a week-long content extravaganza called #DroneWeek. The project allowed viewers to criss-cross the U.S. via Periscope and get a drone's eye view of some of the company's least accessible facilities where jet engines, locomotives, wind turbines and industrial machinery are made and tested to extremes, featuring interviews and expert commentary from GE scientists and technologists. It was like Shark Week for science and social video enthusiasts.

Featured as Top 5 Ad of the Week and as a full article at Fast Company, Brandchannel, DigiDay, Tech.co, Geekwire, and Marketing Dive.

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Mirror’s Edge :: There’s No Looking Back

This integrated campaign was created around the story of the video game's protagonist Faith, a beautiful yet jaded free runner that exists on the rooftops of skyscrapers' high above a future dystopia. The TV, print, OOH, and online components plays with the elements of perspective as we take Faith and gamers past a point of no return.

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Valets :: Need For Speed Hot Pursuit

EA Games' campaign, starring Kevin Dillon and Jerry Ferrara from HBO's "Entourage," showcased them as valets racing sports cars in "Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit." Set in Hollywood's fictional Hotel St. Fritz, it highlighted competitive play among friends. The game's latest installment introduced Autolog, a social network that tracks performance and fosters direct challenges, emphasizing that in competition, friendship comes second.

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Stay If You Dare :: Booking.com

Booking.com chose to celebrate Halloween by showcasing some of its more interesting properties: haunted hotels. The campaign highlighted the unique characteristics of seven featured hotels by mimicking horror movie-style posters. "Stay If You Dare" encouraged bookings of the eerie accommodations while providing an immersive and engaging experience that helped drive brand awareness.

Winner of the Mobile Site of the Day at FWA, Special Mention at Awwwards, featured at Google Creative Sandbox, and at Creative Review.

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Steve Aoki’s SmartThings :: Samsung

Megastar DJ and #TeamGalaxy member Steve Aoki demonstrates just how easy life can be with SmartThings technology - all controlled from the palm of your hand.

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How We Respond Is Who We Are :: Nokia

Responding is how we share ideas, is how we take advantage of new opportunities, is how we overcome any obstacles in our way, is how we express our identity, it’s how we make the world a better place. How we respond is who we are.

That’s the human truth we aimed to prove. The Responsiveness campaign proved the importance of email and chat on our lives by elevating the conversation about the importance of being responsive.

The conversation started with a series of documentaries asking selected thought leaders from the TED Fellows program to share their ideas on responsiveness. Each documentary ended with an open question that users responded online.

And the conversation continued online with articles on Monocle, and a guide on tricks and tips on how to be more responsive, complemented by Nokia’s POV film and product OOH and print ads.

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Battlefield Bad Company :: Electronic Arts

The Battlefield: Bad Company series bolstered the massive multiplayer offering with a strong single player campaign. It is here that players made their first acquaintance with the charismatic and motley crew from B Company.

Building the new game engine Frostbite from the ground up, Battlefield: Bad Company featured the series’ trademark sandbox gameplay in a universe where almost everything is destructible. The ever-changing battlefield forced players, team mates and enemies to react accordingly and use destruction in a tactical manner.

So we did with our launch campaign.

• Print execution - opens in new window.

• Rich Media: Jacuzzi - Hawaii - Gold - each link opens in new window.

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Sprint Sister :: Nike

Sprint Sister were the most vibrant Nike women shoes to date. We decided to launch the collection behind a colorful curtain of shoe laces.

A leaderboard, a skyscrapper, an MPU, and an interactive layer working together at ELLE's home page, which we turned in black and white so the only splash of color was the one provided by the laces.

Intrusive? I'd go with cheeky instead.

Winner of Cannes Silver Lion, One Show Interactive Silver Pencil, FIAP Silver, and selected at LAUS.

• Rich media launch - opens in new window.

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San Miguel City :: San Miguel

A social experience before the social media boom, San Miguel City invited anyone to live a second life online. When joining the city each user received an apartment and a pre-existing character with a name, a look, and a few vague details about their past. That was the starting point. The quest to find out their own identity, which ultimately became a joint effort to restore the collective memory of the city.

Beyond my creative role consisting of writing lots of copy, creating puzzles, plotting enigmas, defining missions, and establishing the evolving maps of the city, I had an active task as the mayor of the city -I even married couples that met in the community and ended up together in real life.

The project is still a personal favorite. Unfortunately it's no longer online, although there's still a Facebook group of nostalgics that keep asking San Miguel to 'reopen' the city. And like Jack from Lost, I'd go back.

Winner of a Cannes Bronze Lion, Sol Gold, Interactiva Awards Gold, DRAC Gold, and selected at LAUS.

*A quite off-sync version of the launch trailer and a promotional music video are still online.

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Audi A8 :: Audi

With the Audi A8 we were embracing skeumorphism way before we could even pronounce the word. To ensure that every single interactive feature could be replicated in real life, we first created a paper version of the site. The result was a very analogue and elegant experience that rewarded every simple interaction.

The microsite won a Gold both at IAAA and at FIAP, a Silver at El Sol, and a LAUS trophy.

• Open microsite in new window

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Macarra :: Attitudes (Audi)

This controversial interactive video launched in the holiday season to raise awareness of the issues surrounding road rage. With its explicit language and a very simple interaction, the campaign and its main character became a phenomena in Spain, featuring on most automotive blogs and on national news on all major TV channels.

Despite DoubleYou taking a year off festivals in 2005, Audi decided to submit the work regardless and ended up winning a Gold at El Sol.

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Get on with your life :: Beeline

Beeline’s new product ‘Mobile Top Up’ allowed users to add credit right from their phones for the first time. Quite convenient when you think that, until then, people had to go and find a top up terminal on the streets. Now imagine that in the middle of a Russian winter. Got the point, right?

Besides the rotating OOH, our integrated campaign featured the same unlikely hero on a funny TV ad, and on an innovative website that topped up users' phones with 100 rubles for free to test the service.

• Open rotating outdoor in new window

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Ich Du Überraschung :: Kinder

In this campaign for the German market, Kinder Surprise became the little surprise that brings people together in a very unexpected way. Very unexpected indeed.

- Surgeon TV ad.

- Monster TV ad.

For the first time, we also brought to life their special edition toys without animation or CGI. Just by focusing on their personality:

- Car bumper TV ad.

- Chandelier bumper TV ad.

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Moving is Fun :: Mitsubishi Japan

With Kafka's The Metamorphosis as a conceptual springboard, the experimental 'Moving is fun' starts with four characters that for no reason wake up inside a foreign body: a mechanical one.

Contrary to Gregor Samsa's experience though, they thrive with the unexpected situation. Every interaction of the user tickles their mechanical bodies and sets them in motion until they reach a state of supreme pleasure that takes them to another dimension.

Yup. That's pretty much it. You can still play with Paddly, Speedy, Jumpy, and Shaky here (opens in new window).

• Open microsite in new window.

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Photo Booth :: Beer Tap Hack

Photo Booze was the first ever beer tap-mounted camera connected to the Internets… As far as I know.

At Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam's bar, we created Photo Booze to capture the anticipation on the face of beer lovers just before they get the glass of Heineken they were craving. And, while we were at it, to have some fun. Actually, mainly for the fun.

How did it work? Unlike the following sentence, it was very simple.

A sensor mounted on the tap lever detected the movement and connected via an Arduino to a Mac Mini running MAX software, which used face detection to determine the best positioned face in front of the camera and took a picture, which was cropped, scaled, rotated, and sent to a LCD screen placed behind the bar, while it was simultaneously uploaded to a tumblr gallery of beer portraits.

Read again. It’ll all make sense.

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