Project brief: In all honesty, there was no creative brief for this project. While working on another project for Schwinn, the creative team came up with an idea to promote Schwinn during the holidays and give bikes to kids in need. They presented it to the Schwinn team, who bought it enthusiastically. If there would have been a brief, it might have included something about creating a campaign that would stand out from the mountains of clutter clogging people’s attention spans during the holidays.

Approach: Bikes and the holidays have gone together for decades, so combining classic holiday carols with the classic Schwinn bell was natural. In terms of execution, we created a full-screen online-video site experience so that viewers could see the Bell Choir actually playing the bells. We wanted it to feel as immersive as it was sharable.

Effectiveness: Tens of thousands of people sent e-cards and more than $65,000 in bikes was raised for the Boys and Girls Club of America. The Schwinn Bell Choir was covered by hundreds of blogs and online news outlets. But most important, hundreds of children who couldn’t afford bikes otherwise received them for the holidays.

Loved this. Playful. Simple idea but wonderfully surprising. Takes brand into sound design. Effective social-media tie-in. Very practical and engaging. Cause-driven. Made sense about the design objective; a good use of social-media design conveys this. Co-creative fun (make songs).

You’d be happy to receive this link!