Title	THE UNIVERSAL TYPEFACE
Brand	BIC DEUTSCHLAND
Product/Service	BIC CRISTAL BALLPOINT PEN
Category	B02. CONSUMER PRODUCTS (INCL. DURABLE GOODS)
Entrant Company	DDB GERMANY DÜSSELDORF, GERMANY
Advertising Agency	DDB GERMANY DÜSSELDORF, GERMANY

Name	Company	Position
Eric Schoeffler	DDB Group Gmbh	Cco
Dennis May	DDB Group Gmbh	Managing Director Creative
Jan Propach	DDB Group Gmbh	Creative Director
Dominika Zajac/Christian Bueltmann/Fabian Jung	DDB Group Gmbh	Art Director
Tobias Hecking	DDB Group Gmbh	Copywriter
Sönke Bruns	DDB Group Gmbh	Account Manager
Jouke Vuurmanns	Media Monks BV	Executive Creative Director
Joris Pol	Media Monks BV	Executive Producer
Quinten Beek	Media Monks BV	Project Director
Nicolas Mollien	Media Monks BV	Creative/Art Director
Matthijs Klip	Media Monks BV	Data Creative
Elbert Niezen/Jorge Garcia	Media Monks BV	Designer
Maxwell Reed	Media Monks BV	Animator
Hendrik/Jan De Harder/Nigel Manson	Media Monks BV	Front/End Developer
Richard Mulder	Media Monks BV	R/D Developer
Johan Holwerda	Media Monks BV	Canvas Specialist
Chase Sillevis	Media Monks BV	Back/End Developer
Matthew Elworthy	Media Monks BV	Copywriter

The Campaign

Since the first one got shipped in 1950, more than 100 billion cristal ballpoint pens were produced by Bic. The cristal ballpoint is a truly iconic pen. We were tasked with bringing it to people’s attention. www.universaltypeface.com – the site of a unique typography experiment that a multitude of media outlets reported on: Tens of thousands of users from all around the globe are creating the world’s first universal typeface, an ever-changing cross section of all of their handwriting. Powered by the producers of the Bic Cristal ballpoint, the universal pen.

The Brief

We were tasked with making as many people as possible aware of the Bic Cristal ballpoint’s unique character. To tell our story, reports in the press were identified as the best means of communication, as the Cristal ballpoint is such a low interest product.

Results

So far more than 1,7 million letters have been entered into the system by people from more than 140 countries. Reputable press including Washington Post, NBC, Huffington Post and Wired reported on the project. Time magazine called our font “better than comic sans”. Success! Like today’s world the resulting typeface is dynamic and continuously changing in a very hands on, direct way – the universal typeface made possible by the universal pen.

Execution

We started off with specifically targeting typography bloggers to get an enthusiastic design-savvy community to participate in our project and to produce first results. Also social media celebrities were addressed – one free tweet by youtuber “V Sauce” led to almost 100.000 new characters entered into the system. Then, be brought the project into the focus of a broader audience, as we provided mainstream media with our press materials.

The Situation

With over 100 Billion items produced by Bic, the Cristal ballpoint pen is the best selling pen ever. It can be called the world’s pen – the universal pen. Yet this pen is so universal, such a commodity that it hardly gets the attention it deserves. Why should any reputable media outlet report on a ballpoint pen?

The Strategy

The idea: If there’s a universal pen, there should be a universal handwriting. Time for an experiment. On www.theuniversaltypeface.com users, targeted on design and typography blogs and on their social media outlets, enter their own handwriting, which then becomes part of the universal typeface – an ever-changing, evolving font that can be downloaded at various stages of development. In its pure form consisting of all contributions and in special versions moulded from a huge set of demographic data. In essence it’s the first crowd sourced cross-section of human handwriting. As many people from as many countries as possible should participate.