Marty McFly: Nike seems to have filed patent papers for a shoe that will automatically lace itself - citizens of Maine will be relieved to hear this, since it’s illegal to walk down the street with your shoes untied there.
Ping Pong Wine: To try to create some buzz for their in-house package designers, Rethink created a series of table wines to show off their skills. (Sample text from one of the labels: “At Rethink, we believe great package design is like a ping-pong table: it should inspire intense competition and heated dialogue. Not to mention the occasional fist pump and victory dance”). We love the self-promo and wish wine was really labeled and packaged this way.
Boardwalk Empire: Take a look at this ad for HBO’s Boardwalk Empire, a new series taking place during Prohibition in, of all places, Atlantic City. The MTA bus station ad features a glass bottle filled with moonshine — each day closer to the premiere, the liquid in the bottle goes down, smoothly. (via @mattrichardson)
Get Your Sweet On: Not for any other reason than besides showing their sweet side (and, ahem, to drive traffic to the store), Opening Ceremony is offering in-store Candygrams. You can leave a card and lollipop candygram for a special someone and the swoonee can only get it by picking it up from the store - someone can do this for me at their Ace Hotel location.
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Michigan-based company Gas Station TV (GSTV) is capitalizing on the time people spend pumping gas by feeding them localized programming and advertising. According to a recent Nielsen report released last month, GSTV is exceeding 26 million monthly Nielsen-verified fueling impressions.
Yesterday, GSTV inked a deal with ESPN for brand integration with ESPN content, and according to Erik Sass of MediaPost, “Advertisers can couple brand integration with calls to action for products sold in gas station convenience stores…GSTV’s partnership with ESPN will now allow it to deliver full-motion video clips as part of its news content covering football, basketball, baseball and auto racing, among other sports.”
Do you feel that GSTV is too “in your face” for consumers, or do they appreciate the distraction from pumping gas?
I Am Vampire: Gearing up for the season three premiere of HBO’s True Blood, a website was launched for fans to create vampire personas. Much to their blood-sucking delight, their vampire bios were turned into an ad featured in the birth/death notice section of the NZ Herald.
Vanity Fair Lounge: In attempts to capitalize on their brands, Condé Nast is opening up a restaurant division. For right now, this will only be implemented internationally and they are said to be focusing on the Vogue and GQ brands. There is already a Vogue Cafe in Moscow and Chairman Jonathan Newhouse said it’s been highly successful in enhancing the image of Condé Nast magazines in Russia.
Dot Coms: In the hopes that Speidi will reconcile their differences, eBay user cazual714 (he has 100% positive feedback, btw) is auctioning off HeidiAndSpencer.com for $21 million. And we feel it’s worth a mention that he’s willing to let go of GuidosAndGuidettes.com for $6,000 and 3DSantaClaus.com for $2,500 (and that it actually has one bid). Hurry up, only three days left!
Nothing Is What It Seems: A finalist in Levi’s “Care to Air” Design Challenge is industrial design student, Caleb Hill, who put an interesting spin on the drying rack. He created what looks like a mounted picture – but – it folds off the wall to reveal itself as a drying rack.
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Thinking Hotel: From design strategist Maria Ana Neves comes “The Thinking Hotel” – a hub for innovative thinking and collaboration with locations sprinkled throughout major cities. She is actually opening a 24-hour experimental one this weekend in London.
Taking Names: In India, police officers are using Facebook to issue traffic violation tickets (we guess anything is possible). A page has been created where users can upload images of vehicles breaking the rules and cops then decide if a ticket should be issued.
What’s Your POV?: As their final project, two students from the Chelsea School of Art and Design created an anamorphic type installation that we love. Exhibit-goers can only read the messages standing at one particular angle.
Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce Lands Six Accounts: The New York Timestoday announced that six Unilever brands (Dove, Breyer’s, Hellmann’s, Klondike, Suave and M Booth client Vaseline) are creating Mad Men-inspired advertising vignettes. We can’t wait to see what La Draper would do for a Klondike bar. (via Sheldon Silver)
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Hauntingly Stunning: Russian photographer Sergey Larenkov uses “computational rephotography” to combine WWII-era photos with photos of the same location taken in the present day.
Grab Your Attention: Victoria’s Cancer Council creatively used newspaper “grab marks” with hopes of raising awareness about the high rate of skin cancer in Australia. The grab marks recreate the feel of a suspect mole.
Two Objects, One Puzzle: If you could take two of the oddest things you can think of, and put them together, we’re sure you still won’t even come close to this doozy. The Intimidator Puzzle Pistol is a 125-piece puzzle which, put together one way, can be a 40-pound sculpture, and a second way as a 45-caliber pistol.
Due Ads: To promote their new Countryman in Milan, Mini Cooper placed two billboards side-by-side - one for the Countryman, and one for a make-believe surf company.
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Sci-Fi or Scary?: In Japan, digital billboards are using cameras to identify the sex and age of those who walk past and change the billboard message accordingly.
One Photo Reviews: Scott Davis is a movie reviewer – but instead or writing down what he thinks, he posts pictures that capture his reaction to the movie. Davis posts one picture that he feels has the right expression (“oy yoy yoy” for The Last Airbender, “debatable” for The A-Team) and posts it on his blog, One Photo Reviews.
You Spin Me Right Round: In attempts to tire out children before a flight, 1st Bank placed rotating billboards in airports. The whole idea is that kids will place their hands on a picture of a hand, and as the billboard spins, the child will walk round and round and eventually get tired – or throw up.
We All Bark For Ice Cream: Cruising the streets in Britain playing the Scooby Doo theme song is the K99 van – an ice cream truck for dogs – flavors sold (how do the dogs pay?) are: “Dog Eat Hog World,” a mixture of gammon and chicken sorbet and “Canine Cookie Crunch,” a mixture of dog biscuits, bones, and ice cream.
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Fan-Funded: First, crowdsourced dating, now crowdsourced movie making. Director David Lynch (Eraserhead, Mulholland Drive) has asked his fans for moolah to make his new movie. This documentary of his life will be centered around him (duh!) but those who donate will also get a chance to offer their input. Also, if you feel so inclined to cut your good pal David a check, you’ll get an original print of his self-portrait.
CK Uncensored: Known for their only-jeans-wearing models, Calvin Klein Jeans has opted to take some of their scandalous billboards down and replace them with something a little less racy – QR codes (okay, so, that’s a lot less racy). Tagged with the phrase “Get It Uncensored,” passersby can take a picture using their smartphone which will bring them to a 40-second commercial they can then share with their friends. Snap your pic now, they’ll only be up a week!
Toss It: Over time we all amass a lot of things. In my case, it would be cheap shades. In Joe Garden’s, it would be T-shirts. So, the features editor of The Onion has chosen to toss some – based on public opinion. Besides cleaning up his closet, The Tee-Shirt Project has answered some questions like, Is that a coffee stain or blood? Are ringer tees ever okay? And, Will the cat hair come off?
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There’s a huge, 10-story billboard outside our offices, on the side of a building at the corner of 23rd Street and Park Avenue, that’s repainted by hand every month or so to feature an ad for a new movie. The current ad, for Sex and the City 2, features a larger-than-life Carrie Bradshaw, looking very Attack of the 50 Foot Woman.
Several of us have wondered how exactly these painters can execute a work that gigantic. Luckily, Stella Artois has produced a short documentary called Up There, interviewing these artists and revealing some of their secrets.
Such Tweet Sorrow: Launching yesterday and continuing for the next five weeks is a modern-day telling of Romeo & Juliet – via tweets. The production is made up of six Royal Shakespeare Company performers and is a loose adaptation of the original, missing a crucial protagonist – our fair Romeo.
Food Flags: To celebrate the Sydney International Food Festival, the creative minds behind the feast used iconic food from each country to recreate their flags. Italy’s green-white-red has turned into basil-spaghetti-tomatoes and Greece’s is a whole lotta olives and feta. Nom nom nom.
The Hello Project: An online social collaboration, The Hello Project, gives people the chance to say “hi,” “hola” or “‘ello gov’ner” through an unlikely canvas: the Post-It.
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Chair-driven Stop-motion Nissan Ad: Nissan wants to build a zero-emission car and their latest ad shows people driving something that’s already emission-free - a chair. Our favorite part of the vid? When they’re cruisin’ down the three-lane highway and the driver leans back, one hand on the window and one hand on the wheel.
Mini Food: In celebration of all things mini and our M Booth miniature enthusiasts, we bring you Minimiam’s Food Photography. Akiko Ida and Pierre Javelle bring us tiny worlds which exist on/around food. Our favorite? Construction workers on top of a broken eclair. To browse all their images, go to their site and look under gallery.
Tweet Show: Uniqlo has launched a digital campaign integrating Twitter. The site makes a personalized video from the user’s tweets (or tweets featuring your favorite words!) and spliced in are images of Uniqlo’s new line of tees. Our words don’t do it justice — check it out, because it is adorable.
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Make Your Own Google Search Story: Following suit of Google’s “Parisian Love” Super Bowl ad (and all the parodies that came after), Studio 612a made us the Google Search Stories Video Creator (a.k.a. the coolest thing ever. seriously.), where you can make your own search story and then post it on YouTube.
Situation Water: Do you like baseball, abs and being hydrated? Then check out this video from Vitamin Water that features the Mets’ David Wright being trained by The Situation. It’s a great example of something that is branded yet highly watchable. (Full disclosure: I had to Google David Wright in order to write this blurb.)
Dramatic Steps: 30 Rock’s Jenna Maroney (Jane Krakowski) says she is petitioning the Tony Awards to add a category for living theatrically in daily life. Should they ever add that category, these light-up steps will give you a leg up for winning.
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Resize-a-Room:IKEA introduced a banner ad that is almost as brilliant as the company’s delicious Swedish meatballs. Consumers are invited to drag and resize the banner; once they’ve done so, the space is filled with the appropriate amount of IKEA furniture. Tycka om! (That’s “enjoy” in Swedish – and probably also the name of an IKEA end table.)
House Attack: We’re definitely not in Kansas anymore. Sculptor Erwin Wurm created his own art piece outside, err, on top of, Vienna’s Museum of Modern Art. Wurm wedged a cottage into the building.
Back Yard Office: To get to work, if you could either (a) walk to the subway, take the subway, walk a few blocks or (b) walk into you backyard, which would you rather do? A growing trend is working from home backyard; take a look at a few of these offices.
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Octopets: Advocating getting your pet spayed or neutered, PETA launches new ads with the clever message “Don’t let your dog or cat become an Octomom.’” And if Nadya Suleman is a good sport and puts this sign on her lawn, she gets 5g’s and all the veggie dogs her family of 15 can eat.
Kick the Habit: Puerto Rican artist Jesus Bubu Negron has created a carpet - out of cigarette butts. The butts were collected by street cleaners and Negron layered them on top of each other to create a woven look.
TK TK TK: Created for Italian design brand, Alessi, are a series of dishes and containers that have arrows and speech bubbles for people to write messages on (pen included!).
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We often discuss the effectiveness of ads on social media for optimal results and there never seems to be one clear solution to this issue. However, a recent study conducted by Psychster Inc. and Allrecipes provides new insight on determining which kinds of ads are most effective.
The study, (which can be found here via Mashable.com) tested and evaluated banner ads, newsletter subscription ads, corporate profiles with fans and logos, corporate profiles without fans or logos, get widgets, give widgets and sponsored content on two different publisher websites, Facebook and Allrecipes.
A few key findings from the study suggest:
While sponsored content provided the most user interaction (and was the least likely to be perceived as advertising), it also triggered the lowest level of purchase intent and the fewest viral recommendations.
Corporate profiles are effective but they work better when users can become a fan of the profile and add a logo to their own page.
More people engage with give/get widgets than with banner ads, however widgets do not increase purchase intent or viral recommendations.
Regardless of format, the most effective advertisements were those that were related to the content on the publisher’s website (i.e. a soup advertisement on a cooking website).
Of the seven advertising types, banner ads and newsletter links were the most successful at encouraging purchase intent.
For product marketing, the study suggests that banner ads may be the best choice. However, for campaigns that want to build engagement, corporate profiles or sponsored content seems to be the better option.
Starring Buzz Aldrin as Astronaut Number 1: Did you like the movies Space Jam, Space Cowboys and Armageddon, but wished that they starred actual astronauts? Probably not — but NASA did. Thus, they have been modeling their mission posters after movie posters since 2008. Check them out here.
Speed Reading: Developed by a team at the University of Tokyo, this machine scans text and images of a publication as you flip the pages (say what!?) – and at a pace of 200 pages per minute, it really makes the scanning process fly. We can hear PR interns around the world chipping in cash to buy one.
Starbucks’ Green Project: Encouraging people to start bring reusable cups to java houses, Starbucks held A Green Project last Thursday and Friday – customers traded in their paper cups for a special S’bucks tumbler. Out of the forfeited paper cups they constructed a tree in Madison Square Park.
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