Now Smell This: Replay, an Israeli perfume company, has a molecule in its perfume called cyclodextrin. Now, I don’t want to talk down to you because you probably already know cyclodextrin is – but essentially it releases the scent of the perfume when it comes in contact with water. To play up this technology, Replay tied thousands of water guns to trees, bikes and benches in order to encourage the best-smelling water fight ever.
Paperless Class: The University of Notre Dame is testing an iPad-based class model. The Fightin’ Irish who are taking Project Management 118 Section 7* are encouraged to use the pad for class – as well as everyday life.
*completely inaccurate
FashionStake: Founded by two Harvard grads last fall, FashionStake allows consumers to help fund and shape a designer’s collection before it’s been manufactured. Members can provide feedback to a designer, preorder from the to-be collection and/or throw some dollars the way of the designers so they can produce their pieces. (via @ARBetts)
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Scenic Spots: To celebrate Britain’s best views, Chevrolet adorned the sites with large picture frames, turning nature into “scenic art.” People are encouraged to park in front of the frame so they can take in the beautiful scene as if it were a picture in their living room, only better.
Speedy Gonzalez: To capture speed in a visual form, UPS Express Delivery placed these art installations in public spaces.
Signing Off: To fight off his internet addiction, Mark Malkoff (the guy who tried to visit all 171 Starbucks stores in Manhattan, lived in an IKEA store for a week and lived on an AirTran plane for a month) decided to spend five days in his New York City bathroom. He doesn’t have his iPhone or laptop but has a to-do list that should keep him occupied: memorize the location of every country in the world, learn how to sew on a button and read Gravity’s Rainbow.
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Bottled Up: Schweppes is exploding. Literally. The seltzer brand transformed a geyser into an installation in the shape of their bottle, which will stay that way for the next year.
Beat It: The New York Times put out an article yesterday about the trials and tribulations one must overcome to be a Foursquare mayor and mentioned a new site called When Will I Be Mayor? To beat out @sirronnyc as mayor of M Booth, you would need over 36 check-ins (that’s all you’ve got, Richardson?). My own personal goal is to beat out that lousy Nick G. as mayor of the Bellmore Train Station – 27 check-ins to go! Check out Guest of a Guest’s list for hot NYC mayorships, too!
Lounging for Lunch: We spend a majority of our day feverishly typing and staring at our computer screens – and when lunch comes, we pretty much do the same. Going out to restaurants often takes up too much time and finding a place to sit for a quick bite often proves challenging. Designer Alexandra Pulver seeks a fix for this with her Pop-Up Lunch initiative. She created a lunch bag that doubles as a portable seat.
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Major Spillage: Toyota has launched an app to teach us how to lower our fuel consumption by changing our pedal-to-the-metal driving tactics (aggressive driving and frequent braking are huge fuel wasters — the less fuel, the fewer CO2 emissions). The Glass of Water app is a virtual glass of water that reacts to your driving as if this glass is actually on your dashboard. The app captures distance, driving time, average speed, idle time and water spillage, and you can analyze the results more closely at the website they’ve set up. Disclaimer: Do not check to see how much water you’ve spilled while still operating the motor vehicle.
Let Me Take You Down: To promote the new Lennon exhibition at The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, the establishment “planted” die-cut strawberries in the Strawberry Field section of Central Park. Curious passersby picked the strawberries to reveal info about the exhibition.
Hearts Will Go On: Providing a look at the Titanic we’ve never seen before, the Expedition Titanic team (no Bill Paxton, unfortunately) will be diving the depths later this August to explore the famous shipwreck — in 3-D. Not only will there be this 3-D footage, but thanks to current social media and digital technology, the team will update Flickr and YouTube in real time and divers themselves will tweet about exploring the wreckage (once they come up for air, we hope).
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#Itsaprocess: Kayne West joined Twitter last week – and his tweets are actually somewhat entertaining (“I jog in Lanvin,” and “Don’t you hate when girls send you a picture of … anything other themselves!!!” are favorites). Other people think so too, and decided to illustrate Mr. Ye’s tweets as New Yorker cartoons – take a look here.
Here Comes the Sun: If you’re crossing Abbey Road, you’re most likely mimicking the Beatles. And now, the Abbey Road webcam is there to capture it all – check out the live feed here.
Oh, The Possibilities: The folks over at Macworld are too cool for school – they have shot their most recent magazine cover with the iPhone 4 and only edited it using apps.
Look at Me: Taking publicity into her own hands, novelist Jennifer Belle hired actresses to read her newest book, The Seven Year Bitch, on the subway and at famous NYC landmarks. The ladies infectiously laughed while turning each page, garnering attention of passersby.
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Fleet Week: In London this week, a fleet of scented taxis will hit the streets – and no, the scent will not be “dirty laundry.” English perfume house Penhaligon’s is sending out scented (and adorably decorated!) cars; each one will smell like a different perfume and the driver will be trained to talk about the product.
New Use for Parking Meters: In an effort to collect money for Montreal’s homeless, the city is using retired parking meters as piggy banks. Passersby are encouraged to drop coins in – and in the past three years they have raised CDN $23,000. This year they revamped the meters – local celebs and organizations were asked to adopt and paint them for a more personal touch.
Dan 3.0: In the newest attempt of crowdsourcing life, Dan Brown (of “How to Solve a Rubik’s Cube” fame) will be putting his life in the hands of YouTube users. For an entire year. He has laid down some ground rules: he won’t dump his girlfriend or do anything illegal or harmful to others (odds are he WILL ice a bro, though…), and he does have veto power. We hope our request for him to bake 1,000 mini red velvet cupcakes and send them to us here at 300 Park Ave South, New York, NY 10010 doesn’t get turned down.
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+ Pool: Designers and architects are coming together to support the + pool - a pool floating in the rivers of NYC. The pool, which will use filtered water from the rivers, will be shaped like a plus sign to accommodate multiple activities simultaneously.
Cupcake Tree: To encourage children and parents to bake, UK-based agri-processor Tate & Lyle held The Mad Artist Tea Party - kids got to pick cupcakes from trees (our dream come true!)
Oatmeal: It’s What’s For Breakfast: Swedish designer Niklas Hessman created concept packaging for a Swedish line of oatmeal. Hessman takes “breakfast” literally, having the eater break the package in half.
Food Wins!: To promote the launch of Man v. Food in London, 10 chefs took a week to prepare a huge picnic. In Kensington Gardens, sausage the size of a cricket bat and eggs bigger than footballs sat atop a larger-than-life plate. Food: 1, Man: 0.
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Flirting 101: Germany’s Potsdam University will be offering an “instruction in flirting” class for it’s IT students. Students will be taught the apparent art of flirtatious text messaging, how to impress at parties, and how to deal with rejection. This master’s course is a part of the Socially Awkward degree program.
Money Tree: Online banking site RaboDirect of Australia put together a money tree in Sydney - $5 bills were dripping from tree limbs and almost 100 people passed by without even realizing. Get your head in the game, mates!
It’s the End of the World As We Know It: The world’s strongest beer is also the weirdest. Scottish brewery BrewDog has released “The End of History” - a 55% ABV kept in - what else but - a taxidermied squirrel.
Wrap It Up: We love this packing tape printed with hinges - shipping next fall, it will make your boxes looks like they are sealed with hardware.
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From Flying Donkeys to Live Billboards and Street Teams, Think Through Guerilla Marketing
Not every PR or advertising stunt is a good idea, and this is perfect evidence of just that. Last week, some not-so-brilliant businessmen from the Sea of Azov on Russia’s coast thought a flying donkey would make for a good parasailing advertisement.
While the video has received a great deal of attention from the media and in online circles, it is not the type of attention that was anticipated and it has landed them in hot water with Russian police and animal cruelty groups. Once the police learned of the “flying donkey,” they launched a full investigation into the incident.
According to the Associated Press:
“The donkey screamed and children cried,” regional police spokeswoman Larisa Tuchkova told AFP. “No-one had the brains to call police.”
Instead, she said, people reached for their cameras and bombarded a local newspaper with phone calls….
“The donkey landed in an atrocious manner: it was dragged several metres along the water, after which the animal was pulled out half-alive onto the shore.”
Dirty Water: Over the weekend, UNICEF kicked off World Water Week by placing a vending machine in Union Square stocked with “Dirty Water” to raise money and awareness about the unclean water that millions in developing nations drink. They bottled up “hepatitis,” “malaria,” and “typhoid” - to name a few - and tried to sell it on the streets.
3D TV: Samsung recently completed a projection mapping campaign in Amsterdam to promote their new 3D LED TVs. The chosen shapes (a hand, a cracked building) were projected onto a historic building in the city where it appears to have stopped onlookers in their tracks.
Dumpster Pool: The city will be placing dumpster pools on Park Ave between 40th and 41st this summer to cool things down for New Yorkers. The “pools” are coming from last summer’s invitation-only pool parties in Gowanus and will be available to anyone who waits in line for a bracelet.
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We all say that we’re going to get out of the office more for good weather breaks and leave on time when the warm weather is around. Finally someone has created an entire project out of coercing NYers out of their offices and into the summer sun for a much needed break. Rejuvenate our workday energy levels? Count me in!
This “Take Back Your Lunch” project that kicks off tomorrow in Madison Square Park certainly has piqued my interest; and after working remotely last week from the free WiFi-filled Union Square in San Francisco, I have to say… I accomplished more and felt better about doing work having been outside most of the day while doing it.
Just like everyone needs vacation, we all need a lunch/energy break that doesn’t involve the stale air of our air-conditioned offices, desks, emails and computers.
I dare all NYC FourSquare users (and M Booth DigiSquad members) to do this over the next few weeks. See if you can get a Swarm badge in Madison Square Park! The Shake Shack line is going to be impossible on Wednesdays this summer.
Say Cheese: The same man took my school pictures every single year until I was 18. Every year, he’d pinch my cheeks and tell me to say “peaches,” and every year I’d get the same awkward photo on a standard blue background (except in 3rd grade, when I opted for lasers and a hand pose — $3 extra). Challenging the school photo convention is Stomping Ground, based in Brooklyn but operating nationwide, which takes school pictures your parents might actually want to put on the mantle.
FUNiture: Please excuse that terrible introduction, because this space-saving Italian furniture is legitimately incredible. Multifunctional and sleek, Resource Furniture might be amazing enough to make you want to downsize to a 200-square-foot studio.
Bus Stop Fries: To promote Austria’s Kelly’s French Fries – which touts crisp fries made in the microwave – the brand launched a small-scale but buzz-building sampling campaign. They installed a microwave in a bus stop and had two gents stand there making and handing out fries all day. I’m not sure that I’d eat fries that a stranger made in a bus stop – okay, that’s a lie, I did that last week.
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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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A previously reported Monday, JetBlue hosted a Twitter-based “scavenger hunt” today for their followers in New York to celebrate the airline’s 10th Anniversary. Wow, has it been 10 years since I first flew them on a marine biology trip to Florida in high school!?
Usually a scavenger hunt involves something along the lines of clues leading to more clues that lead to your final destination/find…not simply, “We’re here at X street now, bring us a birthday card!” Nonetheless, the airline gave out 1,000 free tickets today on the streets of NYC, which is a pretty sweet deal and a great example of the guerrilla work brands can accomplish by docking their efforts successfully online.
Most Snuggies in a Single Room: Not only do they have LeBron (we say this like we know what we’re talking about), but the Cleveland Cavaliers want to have a Guinness World Record, too; this Friday, the Cavs are giving out Snuggies to every audience member in attempt to set “the largest gathering of people wearing fleece blankets” record. Total bummer alert: the people have to give the Snuggies back! What are you going to do with 20,562 gently-used Snuggies, Cavs?
Word Nerds, Read On: The American Dialect Society voted on the words of the year and the decade…yawn. But they also voted on the most creative word of the year: Dracula sneeze (def: covering your mouth with your elbow when sneezing), most unnecessary word: sea kittens (def: a fish), and they weigh in on the twenty-ten vs. two-thousand-and-ten controversy (spoiler alert: twenty-ten wins). You can read all about it here.
The Type is IN: Check out this series of typefaces created in honor of Project Runway. Our favorite: “Where’s Andrae?” In fact, we love it so much, we want to take it on a date to Red Lobster.
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