Cole & Weber United Creates Innovative Commercial for International Olympic Committee's "Show Your Best" Campaign

SEATTLE, WA--(Marketwire - Jun 21, 2012) - Seattle-based creative agency Cole & Weber United today announced the launch of an innovative TV spot for the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as part of its "Show Your Best" global campaign and video competition to help build involvement with the Olympic Movement among young people and create the next generation of Olympic fans. Titled "The Best of Us," the spot represents the first time user-generated content has been intermixed and put on the same stage with Olympians in a TV commercial.

The commercial draws from amateur video submissions across 175 countries to create a video mosaic of current Olympians -- including Michael Phelps, Yelena Isinbayeva and Usain Bolt -- demonstrating that the Olympic spirit is in all of us. The spot utilizes proprietary technology created by The Rumpus Room that aggregates user-generated content from a site and pulls it into a broadcast unit in a mosaic style. Using a pre-determined mosaic AFX matte, each individual video clip was graded to match that of the source video.

The spot extends and builds on the IOC's platform of "Show Your Best" and its goal of reconnecting youth with the values of the Olympic Movement (excellence, friendship and respect). A global social campaign, "Show Your Best" encourages people from all around the world to demonstrate their personal best with the chance to win a trip to the Olympic Games and appear in a TV ad. Users can record, upload and share their talents and skills on the Olympic site www.olympic.org/showyourbest. After gathering videos from around the world, Olympic athletes picked the videos that inspired them the most. The winning videos were then used to create the TV spot that will run in hundreds of countries and at the opening ceremonies, celebrating the best from around the world.

So far winners have included Ryan Celestain, a US amateur triathlete, and Alfredo Montenegro, a Guatemalan athlete who balances his studies with basketball. Both winners are highlighted in the ad's mosaic footage.

"The commercial was developed as the result of a social campaign with truly global penetration -- over 85% of the countries in the world have visited the site," said Mike Doherty, President of Cole & Weber United. "It demonstrates how the Olympic Movement itself is drawing upon the power of people to live and breathe the Movement's values."

The spot will air on Olympic broadcasters across the world including NBC (US), CTV (Canada), Foxtel and 9 Network (Australia), Rede Record (Brazil), EuroSport, RAI and SkyItalia (Italy), ZDF (Germany) and ESPN Latin America. In addition, it will be broadcast before Olympic events in the stadiums throughout the Games, including the Opening Ceremonies and at LiveSites across the UK. It will also appear on IOC's YouTube channel and other social media sites.

CREDITS
Spot title: The Best of Us
Agency: Cole & Weber United
ECD: John Maxham
ACD/AD: Scott Fero
CW: Joe Gerlitz
EP: Pete Anderson
BL: Jeremy Kuhn
PM: Erin Keeley
Director: The Rumpus Room
Edit: The Rumpus Room
Grade/Color: Workbench (Kevin Adams)
Sound mix: Clatter & Din (Eric Johnson)
Music: Big Foote Music & Sound (Darren Solomon and Paul Seymour)

About Cole & Weber United
Cole & Weber United is a creativity company known for creating innovative campaigns that go beyond traditional advertising to solve business problems. Founded in 1931, the Seattle-based agency has established a reputation for producing insightful, creatively disruptive, award-winning work. Cole & Weber United is a member of WPP's Voluntarily United Group of Creative Agencies, a global network of communications entrepreneurs. For more information, please visit www.cwunited.com.