Olympus: THE PEN STORY

Credits & Description:

Category: Best Use of Cinema

Advertiser: OLYMPUS DEUTSCHLAND

Product/Service: OLYMPUS PEN CAMERA

Agency: DSG DIALOG SOLUTIONS

Date of First Appearance: Jul 2 2009 12:00AM

Entrant Company: DSG DIALOG SOLUTIONS, Hamburg, GERMANY

Entry URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9Et7UQh1tg

Creative Director: Christian Wilfer (DSG Dialog Solutions)

Creative Director: Alexandra Lier (Alexxx Conzept & Design)

Chief Executive Officer: Martin Dräger (DSG Dialog Solutions)

Producer: Nina Nauth (Bigfish Filmproduktion)

Direction & Cut: Pet & Flo (Bigfish Filmproduktion)

Song & Lyrics: Johannes Stankowski

Music Production: Michael Kadelbach (Michael Kadelbach Music & Sound Design)

Media placement: Online Viral Video - YouTube - 27/02/2009

Media placement: Cinema Ad - Europe-Wide Cinemas - October 2009

Media placement: TV Ad - MTV - September 2009



Results and Effectiveness

After the PEN story recorded great success throughout the Internet, a cinema version was shown Europe-wide. Since the spot entertained the waiting audience and shortened rather than extended the waiting time like conventional ads, applause filled the cinemas before the main movie.



Creative Execution



The result of the stop motion concept was a content which was meant to attract and likewise evoke strong emotions within photo-enthusiasts through its technique and way of production. After two weeks of shooting and about 20 locations, over 60,000 photos had been taken. After a selection, 9,600 photos were printed and a final 1,800 were laid out and shot again.

The story is based on a man´s life, from the 1950´s until this day, reflecting the last 50 years of photography. Every decade has its own colour scheme. The sorted photos were laid down in the room picture for picture and displayed in fast motion. This concept was inspired by the Japanese stop motion artist Takeuchi Taijin.



Insights, Strategy & the Idea

When in 1959 the first “Olympus PEN“ came to the market, it was composed as a very compact camera, as easy to use as a pen. For its 50th anniversary Olympus re-launched a new PEN involving state-of-the-art technique. It is an SLR without the, until now, necessary reflex construction which has been left away to ease weight and size, without lowering the performance.

The stop-motion concept for "The PEN Story“was developed for the new Olympus PEN E-P1. Months before releasing the new camera, the World Wide Web was full of rumours, whether the PEN camera from 1959 would be re-established or not. The speculations from Blogs and Forums generated a viral foundation around the passionate world of professional and semi-professional photography. The nostalgia of these customers regarding the original inspired the idea of adapting a heritage concept to the new camera.