A new year, a not-so-new problem. As an agency, you want to send your wishes for the New Year in an original way to clients, as well as to family and friends. You want to be creative, show your expertise and craftmanship and send a card that stands out. Unfortunately, you often do not get any further than “Best wishes”, “Happy 2019”, or worse: “I wish you good health”. Could we as a creative agency come up with something more personal and unique?

We wanted to create something that involved all the people of DDB Brussels. At the same time, we have to be honest with ourselves by saying we did not want to put too much effort into it. After all, we still had real work to do for clients who paid the bills. How could we solve this paradox? Introducing: The Co-Created New Year’s Card. We installed a camera overseeing the busiest corridor in our office and livestreamed the feed to a microsite: ddbwishesyou.com. Then we virtually divided the livestreamed area into interactive tiles, which triggered certain messages or visuals once movement was registered. And there you have it. Original New Year’s cards were automatically generated without effort. (Our web designer still has nightmares about this initiative, but let us just say it was worth it.)

With the Co-Created New Year’s Card we wanted to position DDB Brussels as an innovative agency with digital expertise towards clients and prospects. Tracking, data, co-creation, marketing automation and design: we used it all to wish our clients a happy New Year. But let us be honest. We also wanted to use the tool ourselves to share it with friends and family. Because it was so easy-to-use, and relevant for basically everyone, it was immediately shared between people on social media.

We built an alpha layer on top of the feed using a game engine, transforming the livestream into an interactive game. Depending on where the people of DDB Brussels walked in the area that was filmed and which virtual tile was triggered, visual and textual elements linked to every tile were picked up to create a unique Co-Created New Year’s Card. Each tile contained one of the 350 original wishes and 200 graphic elements that were developed in-house by our copywriters and designers, resulting in more than three million possible combinations. People without inspiration were saved. All they had to do was to fill in their name and email address, as well as that of the person they wanted to send the wishes to.

In only two days’ time, we generated more than 720 unique and beautifully crafted Co-Created New Year’s Cards for friends, family and clients. Without wanting to compete with Hallmark, we are proud to have brought some craft and entertainment to the business of greeting cards. And we showcased our digital expertise as DDB Brussels to our clients.