This time last week I was curled up in the corner of my hotel room gently rocking back and forth, sucking my thumb and mumbling randomly to myself.

You see, it all started with me being teleported from the safety of my home in Singapore to a place where “crazy” things happen. A place that attracts all walks of life from the deepest darkest places on the planet and brings them together.

Then for fun this place throws in copious amounts of drugs and alcohol which in turn fuels the debauchery all whilst promising endless promiscuity and riches.

You guessed it. That place is Vegas. A very fucked up place.

Here things collide creating the worst in humanity. It is here were things happen that no one should see especially young children or even grown men for that fact. Here, weird combinations are created that you would never in a million years think of being put together. 

Here normal is very different.

Whether it is being outside walking down the strip and encountering a group of overly obese people wearing nothing more than speedos and bikinis riding in duck formation on their mobility scooters. 

To a group of drunken scantily clad woman dressed in nothing but strips of leather, six inch stilettos with their tits hanging out and attacking anything in their path that has a penis.

Then when you think you need a break from it all and head inside for safety sake you are faced with a maze of smoke filled rooms with the added fresh aroma of urine compliments of the eighty year old ladies whose adult diapers are now fully saturated but yet they still refuse to remove their dying hand off the slot machine whilst the other hand firmly grasps that whisky or the fag hanging out of their mouths.

Whatever it is, whatever you can think of. It happens here and it is not pretty.

It was this weird combination of crazy and the fact that I was there to judge the London International Advertising Awards that made me think of a campaign that was similar in craziness. This idea centred around crazy things coming together that you never would think of. One difference. Theirs was beautiful and didn’t make you want to gauge your eyes out with a butter knife.

That campaign was for MailChimp. A creative company born to help other creative companies with digital tools to help them grow in their own creative ways online.

So when MailChimp had to talk about themselves they did it in a very targeted and very creative way by combining nine engaging experiences and brought them together. They had things like KaleLimp, JailBlimp, NailChimp or SnailPrimp which were all very different but they all had one thing in common. 

They all sounded like MailChimp.

What was fantastic about this idea was it was all driven by paid search. So no matter which experience you came across when you searched for it. It drove you back to MailChimp.

They started off with cinema goers and launched three short films with KaleLimp, JailBlimp and MailShrimp. These films were weird and wonderful with a unique art directional look that made them stand out and got people talking.

But they didn’t stop there. They infiltrated culture.

They targeted the music world by making WhaleSynth a musical instrument that uses real whale sounds and put it out there for people to play with. Then they collaborated with Dev Hynes and Bryndon Cook to create VeilHym. Which ended up as a hit single and resulted in an interactive music video that really took off.

But the fun didn’t stop there. 

They infiltrated different areas of culture by creating NailChamp, a national nail art competition. Then the hair and beauty industry with MailCrimp and SnailPrimp which were so ridiculous that it actually became a thing.

Finally they created a product called FailChips, which were packets of chips that were broken and crushed and they sold them everywhere. 

Whatever they did and whatever you saw you were always driven to search and that is where you were faced with the one thing in common. 

“Did you mean, MailChimp?”

This campaign not only made its way into different areas of culture using paid search but they did it in such a fresh and interesting way whilst demonstrating that doing it the fun way is not only good for business but good for humanity too.

If only those people from Droga 5 could focus on Vegas now by creating combinations that would be better for humanity and in turn help me sleep better at night

But unfortunately the only thing that will do that will be the years of therapy I have to go through to forget what I have seen.

I Wish I Had Done That.

Gary