Dreaming in Mono

Dreaming in Mono
Client	McDonald's Shaun Russell, Senior Marketing Director Nordic
Agency	Perfect Fools Fredrik Heghammar, Managing Director Tony Högkvist, Founding Partner, Global Creative
Directed by	Jens Jonson
Production company	Happy Fiction
Produced by	Lukas Wojarski
Starring	Bernard Cauchard Jari Hinshelwood Ole Vevle Marie Bergman Andreas Holm-Hansen Linnea Lundmark Marica Rosengarden Alexandra Alegren Felipe Morales McOwan
Music by	Martin Landqvist
Release date(s)	January 2010
Running time	7 episodes x 8 minutes
Language	English, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish
Official website

Dreaming in Mono is a transmedia storytelling branded content initiative from McDonald's and Perfect Fools, produced by Happy Fiction, in the four Nordic countries of Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. The story combines three principle themes: the Nordic passion for winter sports; the prejudices, rivalries and stereotypes of the Nordic nations; the role of McDonald's as the largest host of diverse people and fun experiences in the region.^[1]

Story

Dreaming in Mono is a fictional drama revolving around McDonald's customer and former professional alpine skier Alain Duchamp and his archrival Hansi Von Spitzmark. The two rivals regularly competed against each other in the 1970s with fundamentally different styles and philosophies concerning their approach to life and to their sport. In one particular race Alain attempted to race against Hansi by using his revolutionary new monoski. Hansi quickly reported Alain to the relevant ski governing body and Alain was disqualified and never raced again. Hansi, meanwhile, won gold after gold medal and became an international celebrity.

Fast-forward to the present day and Alain is based somewhere remote in the northern borderlands of Sweden, Finland and Norway still unable to come to terms with what happened so long ago. He devises a plan to exact his revenge on Hansi and enlists a disparate group of Nordic characters to help him.

Characters

• Alain Duchamp: Former alpine ski professional. Founder of 'Team Monoski'
• Hansi Von Spitzmark: 1970s alpine ski legend. Poet, recording artist and media celebrity
• Terje Olsen: Obsessive but shy Norwegian monoski engineer
• Lene Olsen: Terje’s long-suffering wife
• 'Mad Mads' Steen: Self-styled Danish daredevil and extreme sports enthusiast
• Lovisa Svensson: Talented Swedish snowboarder
• Tiina Nieminen: Tough, independent Finnish entrepreneur and former love interest of Alain Duchamp
• Yasmine Carlsson: Ambitious young Swedish documentary film-maker
• Carlos: Reluctant documentary cameraman from Spain
• Tony Giuseppe Giacosa: Hansi’s loyal sidekick and bodyguard

Content

Dreaming in Mono combines a 56 minute-long drama (divided into 7x8 minute episodes) with character interviews by the fictional documentary film-maker Yasmine, history of monoskiing backstories, character songs and videos, website, character Myspace and Facebook pages, character Twitter feeds. The aim of the initiative was to connect via non-traditional and social media with an audience difficult to reach through conventional marketing tactics and messages.^[2]

A number of elements were also designed to enable the audience to interact with the content both live and online including: Hansi 'Two Sides of Me' song remix; iPhone 'random menu generator' application, online 'McDate' tool, polls, competitions, 'Mad Mads' milkshake flashmob live events, Facebook Fan pages and the opportunity to comment or start discussions on both the site and social media pages.^[3]

Branding elements

The McDonald's name only appears in the introduction title to each episode: "McDonald's Nordic Presents". Much of the story then takes place in and around a McDonald's restaurant in the far north. Familiar products such as Chicken McNuggets, Big Mac, juice, coffee and soda are visible in the restaurant scenes.

Transmedia activation

Dreaming in Mono launched in mid-January 2010 with movie-style trailers and ran until the end of February across TV and cinema media, video sites, social media sites, print media and in McDonald's own restaurants within the Nordic region. The 7 episodes were released weekly both online on Vimeo, YouTube and MSN Video and broadcast with exclusive TV station partners either as part of the station's program schedule (Sub Finland) or as full 8 minute commercial 'powerbreaks' (TV3 Puls Denmark, Viasat 4 Norway, TV6 Sweden). Both the character interviews and character webpages were released online in advance of and during the episodal broadcast. The timing of the activation was designed to coincide with the build-up to, and closing weekend of, the Vancouver Winter Olympics in which McDonald's was a global sponsor. What makes it stand out from other branded content initiatives is the way in which brand, agency, director and media outlets worked together to extend that story across a variety of platforms, each accentuating the central idea.^[4]

Music

Music written by Martin Landqvist, Swedish music producer, recording artist, remixer and songwriter working under the name Nåid. He has produced and remixed music for big artists such as Kent, A-ha, The Cardigans, Meja and Titiyo. Martin is also a member of the band ‘Peking Laundry’ together with Martin Sköld from Kent. ‘Snowracer’ is another of Martin Landquists projects. This super group consists of Amir Chamden from ‘Infinite Mass’, Dregen from ‘Backyard Babies’ and Brady Blade. The soundtrack "If we´re a part of it" is written by Martin Landqvist in corporation with Amanda King, singer/songwriter from Sydney Australia. The track is mixed by Ollie Olson, known for his work with Robyn, Jordin Sparks, Oh Laura and Christian Waltz.

Awards

Dreaming in Mono was awarded with a Gold medal in Web at the Golden Award of Montreux.
See full list of winners here: http://www.goldenawardmontreux.com/winners2010.html

Dreaming in Mono is a Webby Award Honoree in "Integrated Campaigns" and "Websites - Fashion".
See full list of Webby Honorees for 2010 here: http://www.webbyawards.com/webbys/current_honorees.php?season=14

Sets and locations

• Mc´Donalds Häggvik (Sweden)
• Högfjällshotellet Sälen (Sweden)
• Gammelgården Sälen (Sweden)
• Sälen & surroundings (Sweden)

Credits

Digital agency Perfect Fools] and production company Happy Fiction originated and developed the concept in partnership with McDonald's Nordic. The episodes and character interviews were written and directed by Jens Jonsson, previously writer/director of the movie King of Ping-Pong which won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. Real Vikings Monoski provided monoski content for the website and action scenes for the episodes.

Pictures

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See also

• Branded entertainment
• Integrated media

References

1. ^ Renegademedia, McDonald's Premieres "Dreaming In Mono"
2. ^ McDonald's Next Step: Create the Content, Control the Media. Burger Business, February 2, 2010
3. ^ Viralblog.com January 30, 2010
4. ^ The Winter's Tale, Boards Magazine, March 1, 2010

External links

• Official website
• Perfect Fools
• Episode 1 - The Man with the Dream on Vimeo
• Episode 2 - The Gathering on Vimeo
• Episode 3 - Rebels outside the Box on Vimeo
• Episode 4 - All a part of It on Vimeo
• Episode 5 - Bringing in the Mountain on Vimeo
• Episode 6 - Up North Where We Belong on Vimeo
• Episode 7 - Grand Finale on Vimeo
• Interview with McDonald's Nordic Marketing Director, Shaun Russell
• Dreaming in Mono on IMDB
• What is Transmedia?
• Dreaming in Mono wins gold at Golden Award of Montreux 2010 Festival
• The Transmedia Dream, 57th Cannes International Advertising Festival, seminar program