STORYTELLING AWARD OF ALL TIME: FRED & FARID

If advertising is all about telling compelling stories that make you see the benefit(s) in using a brand, then all hail Fred & Farid.

I can’t believe I am spelling this out – there are possibly two creatives in the world who don’t know Fred & Farid – the admen or the agency.

This is Fred & Farid (in the agency’s own words): “FRED & FARID GROUP is the first French independent Digital Creative Group, based in Paris and Shanghai founded by Frederic Raillard and Farid Mokart. 129 Digital Distinctions since 2011. Cannes Grand Prix 2009 winner.”

And this is the funniest self-promotion ad of the decade, by Fred & Farid. NB: Distributed throughout the world on the eve of the D&AD Pencils presentation, when every trade journo is sitting with the results in his lap under an embargo waiting to press publish in twelve or so hours, at which time his (or in my case, her) site will heat up with hits.

If advertising is all about telling compelling stories – [at the right time to the right audience] – that make you see the benefit(s) in using a brand, then all hail Fred & Farid.

Here is the story (transcript):

“The communication business is dominated by giants… worldwide companies driven by CFOs, shareholders and stock markets. They eat up and digest any company tickling them in their world domination plan. It’s harder and harder for creative boutiques to survive.

“So at Fred & Farid, we had an idea…

“Why not organise an epic #fail with 2 giants? Instead of the usual David against Goliath… we made a Goliath against Goliath story. We created… the “Impossible Wedding”… an impossible marriage in between Omnicom, the biggest American network… and Publicis, the biggest French network… a New World Communication Order. Code name: “Omnipub”.

“Here is how we proceeded…

“First, we sent a fake letter from Omnicom’s CEO’s John Wren, to Publicis’ CEO’s Maurice Levy : ‘Dear Maurice, I’m not insensitive to your Gallic charm, and I’ve always loved French fries. To be brutally honest… I think we should marry… merge our groups into a 35 billions family and dominate the world. PS: Don’t worry, I’ll be the bride at the church.’

“Meanwhile we sent another fake letter from Maurice to John: ‘Dear John, you might think I’m a bit Frenchy crazy… but I’ve always admired G. Bush’s creativity to win elections… and bacon ice cream. I think we should marry… merge our groups into a 35 billions family and dominate the world. PS: Don’t worry, I’ll be the bride at the church.’

“They instantly gathered the press to announce the good news: the wedding would happen in a few months… the whole world would be invited… and the newly composed family would protect us from evil, data-minded Google & Facebook.

“To spice things up, we asked anti-trust laws and government regulations to slow things down a little… hoping a few obstacles would fuel their desire…

“Then… when it was time to seal the deal, John and Maurice realised our little trick: There was no bride! Just 2 grooms… No one would sacrifice himself to play the bride!

‘Hey… I am the one proposing!’ said John.

‘No. I am the one proposing!’ said Maurice…

‘You’re the bride!’….

‘No, you’re the bride!’…

‘I’m buying you!’…

‘No I’m buying you, buyer!’…

“Then, we asked a giant KOL, Sir Martin Sorrell, famous for his romantic style, to comment and push our case in the press: ‘When Maurice said to John atop the Arc de Triomphe, all of this could be yours John, he took the bait.’ ‘Wren was charmed by Levy into believing Levy would ride off into the sunset.’

“These punch lines went viral like crazy… making the whole world participate to a very bizarre ‘pre-divorce ceremony’ with 24 000 mentions in a week (Topsy), 500 000 web pages over 9 months (Google)… and an estimated cost of US$100 million (AdWeek).

“But most importantly, our ‘Omnipub project; generated a hilarious series of bizarre ‘crying-laughing’ pic, ‘pinching-hugging’ pic, ‘Ouch-you’re-hurting-me-now-John’ pic and ‘Shall-we-jump-together-now-Maurice?’ pic…