THE OVAL OFFICE

The Live Communication Weekly

2012-02-22T11:57:00.004+01:00

A weekly online newspaper about Live Communication powered by The Oval Office and Paper.li built from all the articles, blog posts, videos and photos shared on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and many other web content. Read Paper.

The Oval Office Lands Two Nominations for the Benelux Event Awards 2012

2011-12-27T09:30:00.000+01:00

TheOval Office has receivedtwo nominations in the Benelux Event Awards2012 for the launch of the Nintendo 3DS in Belgium and the christeningceremony of two large vessels for DEME.

The BeneluxEvent Awards are awards given to events that demonstratetheir strategic value as an innovative means of communication, fully integrated in anorganisation’s marketing mix.

The 2012 BEAAwards will take place on Thursday March 29th, 2012 at Brussels’ Auditorium2000.

Launch Nintendo3DS

Nintendo relied on TheOval Office for the Belgian launch of its 3DS, the first 3D handheld devicethat does not require glasses. During the pre-launch phase, visitors of the discoclubs Spirito Martini, Noxx, Culture Club, B-club and Versuz were the first tobecome acquainted with this revolutionary console. Diverse Belgian shoppingcentres were converted into unique 3D gaming universes.

A 3D photo exhibitionwas organised in Tour & Taxis with works by six top photographers: MichielHendryckx, Henk Van Cauwenbergh, Jimmy Kets, Marco Mertens, Johan Jacobs andAlain Breyer. The Oval Office started 'Nintendo on tour' in mid-April.Prospective buyers were able to try out the 3DS at summer festivals and indiverse coastal cities and this until December 2011.

Christening Event of the Congo River and the Flinstone

TheOval Office created in July 2011 on the demand of the DEME Group the spectacularchristening ceremony of the new ‘mega’ trailing suction hopper dredger Congo River and fall pipe vessel Flinstone. In the presence of more than 1000 guestsincluding national and international politicians and business personalities theships were christened by Olympic tennis champion Justine Henin and Olympic highjump champion Tia Hellebaut.

The Flinstone wasvirtually christened by Ms Tia Hellebaut, who literally passed on an Olympicflame in the huge party tent erected in the outer port of Zeebrugge. The flamethen proceeded to Singapore by means of a long relay chain. There, the flameburned through a rope and the traditional champagne bottle crashed against thebow, christening the ship. And with that, what is likely the first e-christening ever, was history!

Justine Henin, Olympictennis champion and winner of several Grand Slam titles, sent the christeningchampagne hurtling against the bow of theCongo River with a sharpblow from her racquet.

The finale of the day wasa Gala Dinner for 650 VIP guests hosted in a specially erected event tent onthe beach of Knokke … probably the most exclusive location of the country !

Olivier Trop

Live Communication for Life

2011-12-26T10:31:00.002+01:00

Music for Life just wrapped up witha record-amount of generated gifts of more than 7.000.000 Euro. But what struckme even more was the continuous media-hype of the last week launching thischarity-event to the absolute top of the last 12 months of communication.

With a relatively small budgetStudio Brussel and the Red Cross managed to create this unique warm feelingthrough the ranks of the Flemish population. This is even more remarkable giventhe fact that Flanders is positioned only at a doubtable 88^th spotwhen it comes to donating for international charity.

But the organizerssucceeded because they managed to set-up and execute probably one of the best livecommunication projects ever: in the centre a verystrong ‘live experience’ named ‘Het Glazen Huis’ of which then the ‘reach’ ismultiplied by a smart media and communication plan. Beautiful to see how thisway of communication not only is accepted effortlessly by a broad audience, buthow it also gets the message across in a pure and authentic way. Wouter Boits

Advertising Agencies Go Live Communication

2011-12-18T20:41:00.000+01:00

Watching some recent successful campaigns created by mortierbrigade for 'Music for Life', the Carlsberg Bikers by Duval Guillaume Modem, the Bongo Bingo by Duval Guillaume Modem or the bpost ‘choukes’ by TBWA we can only conclude that all of these are perfect examples of ‘live communication’. Starting from the power of a striking live experience a broader communication is organised to leverage the authenticity of the message towards a larger audience.

That is precisely why we have created The Oval Office: to reinforce live experiences by creative communication! Thanks to this move we evolve from an expert in live experiences to one in live communication and by doing this we are also making a step in the direction of the ‘advertising agencies’. And they at the same time make a step in the direction of live experience agencies.

Let’s bet that we will meet in the centre … and that we will inspire each other!
Wouter Boits

Lady Gaga, Queen of Live Communication

2011-12-12T12:48:00.000+01:00

Professor Jamie Anderson (Antwerp Management School) is internationally renowned as one of the most influential thought leaders in strategy, innovation and creativity. At the launch event of The Oval Office, he shared his research on one of the most innovative brands of all time…
An example of a brand that combines engaging live experiences and very innovative communication and media use.
A brand that succeeded in less than 3 years to become a world favourite live brand.
A brand that became one of the Most Powerful in its category this year.
A brand that in July of this year became the first Twitter user to reach 12 million followers. Today the brand has over 16 million followers on Twitter and 45 million fans on Facebook!
The story of a powerful "Live Brand": Lady Gaga - Olivier Trop

Jamie Anderson at launch event The Oval Office - Part 1

Jamie Anderson at launch event The Oval Office - Part 2

Jamie Anderson at launch event The Oval Office - Part 3

The Oval Office - Day 1

2011-12-09T12:27:00.001+01:00

Last night we celebrated the birth of THE OVAL OFFICE with a launch event in the Brussels venue La Chaufferie. Together with some 90 clients all the staff members of the agency enjoyed a mix of live experiences.

Next to a multimedia presentation about our own “united live communication” story, we got a very dynamic live performance by management guru Jamie Anderson telling us the story of probably the biggest live brand in the world … Lady Gaga.

In the different living room settings our guests also enjoyed a very private concert of Mathieu & Guillaume.

As from today everyone can access our new story by visiting our new website www.theovaloffice.be

Olivier Trop

The Oval Office launch event at La Chaufferie

Broadcasted live from the living room

Managing Partner Ken Koeklenberg

Managing Partner Wouter Boits

Managing Partner Tom Bellens

Professor Jamie Anderson

Guests watching the live presentations

Reveal of our new brand name

Live performance by Mathieu & Guillaume

Why we believe in the power of LIVE

2011-12-08T13:33:00.001+01:00

Whydid we decide to merge event and communication agencies GUAVA and Respect foryour Audience?
The reason is quite simple. Because we believe we are at a turning pointin society. Never before technology influenced our daily life so much as today.Thanks to the Internet and the success of “social media” people are talking morethan ever before to friends, family, colleagues but also to brands, companies,politicians, journalists. In fact, thanks to technology people themselves arebecoming the most active and influencing communication medium.

But as marketers and communicators we may not focus on the channels, thetechnologies, the networks but we should in the first place focus on WHY andABOUT WHAT people are talking? On the Internet as well as in real live duringfamily dinners, at the office or in the pub, PEOPLE are talking about theirfeelings, are sharing their opinion. They talk about EXPERIENCES, aboutwhat they have observed or felt or seen during the day. Or about experiencespeople around them have lived. They talk about good and bad experiences. Goodand bad experiences with other people, with companies, with products and withbrands.

And as marketers and communicators we know that WORD-OF-MOUTH has alwaysbeen one of the greatest driving forces behind purchasing decisions. People talking and sharing experiencesare the most important influencers of buying behaviours.Interesting to notice here is that even with the explosion ofsocial media channels surveys show that 90 percent of word-of-mouth conversations about brands still occur offline. People prefer talking toeach other LIVE.

People want to have face-to-face conversations. Theywant to experience live encounters with their peers but also with their musicidols or their preferred brands. Helpingorganisations and brands to create authentic and live experiences will be thefirst big challenge of THE OVAL OFFICE. But looking at the future we believethese authentic live experiences offer many opportunities to enlarge theiraudience by adding creative communication.

As a group of experienced communication, event and field marketingspecialists we have the ambition with our combined forces to play a pioneeringrole in this new era of ‘live communication’.

So why do webelieve in the power of live ? Because we believe in the power of people !

Olivier Trop