SS+K

Stop Awkward Family Viewing with HBO Go

Update:
Our HBO GO Awkward Family Viewing campaign continues to connect with audiences around the world, earning numerous awards from Cannes, The One Show and The Andy’s, with additional show announcements to come.

Awards:

  • Cannes Lions: 1 Gold, 3 Silver, 1 Bronze
  • One Show Pencils: 1 Best in Discipline (Film), 5 gold, 4 silver, 1 bronze, 4 merit
  • Andy Awards:, 4 Gold, 2 Silver, 1 Bronze
  • Webby Awards: 3 Best in Category
  • D&AD Pencils: 2 Graphite, 1 Wood

Click through to view all 7 Awkward Family Viewing spots and read the industry accolades and press coverage.

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4.1.2014
There are few pleasures greater than diving into a pizza and any of HBO’s award winning sex, drugs, comedy and violence​ shows​. Unless you’re 19 and Dad insists on watching it with you, over your shoulder. This classic family dynamic inspired our latest marketing campaign for HBO GO dubbed “Awkward Family ​Viewing”.

These seven spots were shared across HBO’s social media properties, in digital media, and integrated into HBO’s college campus engagement efforts.

 

For more on HBO Go and Awkward Family Viewing, read:

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We’re thrilled to announce JW Marriott

We’re thrilled to announce a new client to the SS+K roster: luxury hotel brand, JW Marriott. Read Adweek’s take on our first global collaborative assignment with M&C Saatchi.

Adweek

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SS+K Partners with Mark Morris Dance Group on Moving Through Glass

Today Google announced grants for a select group of non-profits that are pursuing ways to use Google Glass and its unique abilities to further their causes. We’re proud to be a friend and partner to one of those select organizations, Mark Morris Dance Group.

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Mark Morris Dance Group, along with Brooklyn Parkinson Group, runs Dance for PD™, an amazing award-winning program to enable people with Parkinson’s to harness the strategies of professional dancers—helping people regain a sense of control and independence as they go about their daily lives.

One challenge they face, however, is bringing learning from the classroom into the real world. That’s where Google Glass comes in.

Together with Mark Morris Dance Group and Google, SS+K will be exploring how we can further empower people with Parkinson’s disease by building Moving Through Glass, an application and program made specifically for Google Glass. Moving through Glass will create an intuitive, portable, dance-based toolkit for people living with Parkinson’s disease.

We are the beginning of an amazing technological revolution powered by exciting new connected devices. Products like Google Glass and Google Wear bring with them a whole new potential to empower people to live their lives in ways that were never before possible. We hope that by taking advantage of Google Glass sensors and heads-up display, we can help develop significant advancements for people with Parkinson’s. This is just the beginning.

To learn more about the project, read:

  • Press release: Mark Morris partners with SS+K to develop new Google Glass app
  • Brooklyn Paper: Google funding Ft. Greene studio’s Parkinson’s-dance app

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HBO Go “Awkward Family Viewing” Earns A Few Lions

We’re back from Cannes and what a week it was! We’re very proud to have picked up five Cannes Lions for the HBO GO “Awkward Family Viewing” campaign and incredibly honored to have received these industry accolades among extraordinary competition.

Congrats to all the winners and thanks to everyone who made it possible.

Awards:
Gold Lion: Film Craft – Casting
Silver Lion: Film Craft – Direction
Silver Lion: Film Craft – Script
Silver Lion: Film – Internet Film
Bronze Lion: Cyber – Webisodes/Episodes

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Rob Shepardson Appointed By President Obama To The President’s Council On Fitness, Sports And Nutrition

SS+K is proud to announce that one of our founding partners, Rob Shepardson, has been appointed to the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition, an honor that reflects his long 
involvement with public health in America, as well as his athletic
 accomplishments.

Rob, an adjunct professor at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public
 Health, was instrumental in the launch of LIVESTRONG, the foundation 
that inspired millions of people to take a stronger stance against 
cancer. Rob also led the SS+K team that helped create and launch
 “Let’s Move,” First Lady Michelle Obama’s program to counter the 
obesity epidemic plaguing young Americans, which just celebrated its 4th anniversary.

An avid sportsman, Rob’s athletic glory days did not end when he hung up his cleats as the quarterback of his college football team. To this day, Rob fuels his passion for fitness by running and this past Monday, completed the 2014 Boston Marathon in 3:36!

Rob lives what he loves, as a business strategist, an athlete and as an advocate for public health. We look forward to what he accomplishes along with his fellow Council Members. We’ll book a conference room for co-chairs, Drew Brees and Dominique Dawes any day.

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We traded up to E*Trade

We’re helping the pioneer of online financial services expand their engagement with investors.  But why are we telling you when you can read all about it in Adweek?

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Brad Kay on the Rising Cost of Super Bowl Spots

SS+K’s President Brad Kay was quoted in a recent article about the rising cost of Super Bowl spots:

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“It’s really hard to argue against [the Super Bowl] as an incredible awareness vehicle; an incredible vehicle to generate talk value and chatter,” said Brad Kay, President of the creative agency SS&K.

While carriers clearly benefit from costly Super Bowl ads, it would also seem that it’s in the interest of advertising agencies to convince their clients to shell out for the big game.

“I would hate to think that we’d be the agency that immediately goes behind closed doors when the clients leaves and says, ‘we have an opportunity to be in the Super Bowl, who cares if it this is really money well spent for the client,” Kay said.

Kay believes that while a Super Bowl ad has the potential to be tremendously beneficial, marketers might be more successful if they took a more “holistic” approach to their campaign – one that leverages the high profile TV spot to create more conversion opportunities online.

“Marketers need to be sure that it’s not an ego-driven decision but a really smart business decision”.

You can read the full article at Investing.com

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Lenny Stern Talks Financial Services Marketing

SS+K’s Founding Partner Lenny Stern spoke with Ad Week about the evolving landscape of financial service marketing.

“No one is in the mood to treat finances as a joke,” said SS+K founding partner Lenny Stern. “This category is looking for a new vocabulary [and] new reference points to be authentic. People feel wary and frustrated—mistreated by institutions—and are willing to switch to brands that will include them.”

Read more about the evolution of financial services marketing at Ad Week.

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Rob Shepardson on Bloomberg TV

SS+K partner Rob Shepardson was on Bloomberg TV this week speaking about challenges the White House is facing with healthcare and the NSA surveillance program:

White House Needs Results, Not Messages

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SS+K Leads Digiday Sammy Awards Finalists

SS+K leads this year’s Digiday Sammy Awards finalists for its work with the Obama for America campaign:

SS+K Leads Sammy Awards Finalists

The finalists have been decided for the annual Digiday Sammy Awards, which recognize excellence and breakthrough achievement in social advertising, media and marketing. Three finalists were chosen in most of the 12 categories, and five categories were narrowed down to four or five. See here for our panel of 10 judges who determined the finalists.

New York-based social engagement agency SS + K’s work with Obama for America was recognized in four categories for two campaigns. The “For All” campaign is a finalist in the “Best Social Engagement Campaign” and “Best Social Creative,” the “First Time” campaign was recognized in “Best Branded Viral Video” and both campaigns emerged as finalists in “Best Use of Social Media for a Cause.”

Read more here.

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