Time to dream. City of Sydney

 
Challenge
To develop a creative theme for the 2011 New Year’s Eve celebrations that would touch, move and inspire Australia and the world.
 
Insight
New Year’s Eve is a night where thematic complexity needs to be delivered with simplicity.
 
Solution
In celebration mode, people want easy, digestible ideas they can relate to. They want to interpret them on a personal level, rather than “be told” what to think.
Themes are an invitation to engage but must resonate for the whole community, at multiple levels of engagement. Simple, catchy, memorable. Less talk, more action.
 
After securing internationally renowned designer Marc Newson as our artistic director, we created the event based on the theme ‘time to dream’. Dreams are interpretations, aspirations of our desires and hopes. Dreams have the fluidity, richness and depth that simple rational thinking doesn’t.
 
To take the New Year’s Eve celebrations to a new level of brand consistency, engagement and excitement, Imagination engaged Josh Abrahams and David Carbone to compose the first ever Australian only soundtrack to the midnight fireworks and created the first New Year’s Eve anthem in conjunction with internationally renowned composer Nick Wood, which raised money for the New Year’s Eve Charity Care Australia.
 
Imagination was the first agency ever appointed as creative director for Sydney’s New Year’s Eve celebrations. We were tasked with securing an Artistic Director to ensure worldwide media coverage and develop concepts, artwork and final creative for:
 
·         Overall theme, design, logo, look and feel
·         Bridge effect & pylon projection
·         All ambient media
·         All event advertising
·         All harbour entertainment
·         Lord Mayor’s party (1,200 VIP’s at the Opera              House)
·         Lord Mayor’s picnic (2,000 disabled children in the            Botanic Gardens)
·         Dawes Point Viewing Area Party (2,000 VIP’s)
·         Fireworks soundtracks (9pm & midnight)
·         First ever NYE anthem
·         Fireworks creative advice based on designs and concepts
 
Results

• The Lord Mayor of Sydney has proclaimed 2011 New Year’s Eve celebrations the best to date
• The most watched television event of 2011.
• Over 1.5 million people saw the show live with a further 2.5 million watching from their homes in Australia and more than 2 billion viewers worldwide worth an estimated $9.7 million in advertising - up from last year’s figures of 60 million people and $6.3 million globally respectively.
• From 1 Nov 2011 to 10 Jan 2012, the event received the following coverage:

 
-          Television: 2264 items (up from 2021 in 2010)
-          Print media: 280 items (up from 137)
-          AM radio: 1388 items (up from 1377)
-          FM radio: 641 items (up from 520)