Best of 2017 Integrated/Interactive--No.5: These Bizarre Short Films Play on MailChimp's Name in Truly Surreal Ways

Through New Year's, we'll be counting down the best work of the year in TV/Film/Branded Content, Print/Outdoor/Design and Interactive/Integrated (IX) as our picks of the day. At No. 5 in Interactive/Integrated is Mailchimp's "Did You Mean Mailchimp?" campaign, created out of Droga5 New York, which ingeniously raised awareness of the Mailchimp brand by creating bits of pop culture out of "mistaken" versions of the Mailchimp name. The idea centered on research that found people regularly mispronounce or screw up the brand's name, and all the executions led back to the correctly spelled Mailchimp brand. The campaign, launched last January, was named one of three Cyber Grand Prix winners at Cannes in June. Original story: Email marketing platform MailChimp plays on its unusual name in a surreal debut campaign for the brand from Droga5, consisting of three short films that will air first in movie theaters. The agency collaborated with Riff Raff Films, The Directors Bureau and British directorial duo The Sacred Egg on the unbranded one-minute spots, each of which dreams up a bizarre scenario riffing on a mistaken version of the brand name. In "Mail Shrimp," seen here, a shrimp sandwich croons to a mail boy about his hopes and dreams. "Jail Blimp" sees a little girl freeing tiny prisoners from a blimp pinata at a birthday party, while "Kale Limp" features dogs made of kale providing the ingredient for a romantic dinner. The films are part of a wider integrated campaign taglined "Did You Mean?" that centers on the fact that people (apparently) regularly mispronounce the MailChimp name or get it wrong, and, according to the agency, aims to position MailChimp as a "beacon for not blending in." They are running in select theaters in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco and Atlanta, among other cities, and will also air on television starting Feb. 20. The directors, otherwise known as Ed Kaye and Alex Mavor, spent five years as agency creatives at Mother London and were chosen for the Saatchi & Saatchi New Directors' Showcase at Cannes in 2014.

Best of 2017 Integrated/Interactive--No.5: These Bizarre Short Films Play on MailChimp's Name in Truly Surreal Ways

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