Brain Sells

Pixelator Turns Video Billboard Ads into Art

2008-04-28T01:11:00.000-07:00

Pixelator subverts outdoor video billboard screens by transforming them into a beautiful colorful array of 45 blinking, color-changing squares.

The displays are completely unauthorized performance art by people making a statement about advertising pollution in public space and the inaccessibility of these screens to artists or non-commercial uses..

Click here to see the video and learn how to make your own.

Pixel Art Meets Street Art

2008-04-28T01:07:00.000-07:00

This is a simple, wonderful mixture of Pixel Art and Street Art, found by PicoCool in NYC. Does anyone have more examples of pixel or virtual art invading physical space?

Internet Will Overtake TV as Biggest Ad Medium

2008-04-28T00:45:00.000-07:00

MSNBC reported last week that Internet ad spending will overtake TV in the UK by the end of 2009 -- becoming the biggest advertising medium in Britain, according to a report published by the IAB and PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

And who stands to gain the most with this growth?

Google of course.

Rory Cellan-Jones, a blogger for the BBC, calculates that Google will overtake the ITV television network as the biggest seller of advertising in the UK this year. (ITV sold about £1.5 billion of advertising last year.)

Morgan Stanley estimates Google’s total advertising revenue will be $21.9 billion globally. Excluding the payments it makes to companies that display its ads, Google’s total ad revenue will be $15.7 billion. Time Warner, the largest media company in the world, earned $8.8 billion in advertising revenue last year, and Viacom had $4.7 billion in ad revenue last year. No one comes close to Google.

ChasNote points out the above chart comparing 2006 to 2007 ad dollars in the US. Online growth is exploding while Broadcast TV, Radio and Newspaper drop.

More than just ad dollars following a trend or digital hype, the growth is being driven due to real changes in behavior: 1) Rising number of people online, 2) the introduction of cheap laptops and 3) the growing popularity TV shows on the Internet.

Art on Tokyo Construction Fences

2008-04-22T02:55:00.000-07:00

Readers of Brain Sells will know our fascination with all things Japanese, so after writing about Reverse Graffiti we had to share a bit about this construction site in Tokyo that has been turned into a canvas for great illustration.

I've been told that the average life of a building in Tokyo is just 17 years. With that constant redevelopment happening these white walled construction fences -- called karikakoi -- are a common scene. In Japan there is an effort o beautify these urban landscapes and surfaces, using them as canvases for installations, art, and illustrations.

Could brands do more with these spaces beyond plastering up wild postings and billboard ads? Could we create site specific installations that tie into the surrounding space? Could they be interactive in a useful way?

This reminds me of a project Goodby, Silverstein did for HP at the National Galleries in London during its East Wing refurbishment in 2003. Titled "The Adventures of Yellow", HP told the story of Van Gogh's Chair by printing out a massive 60 meter-long piece that was posted to the outside facade of the site. Every few months a new piece was created for another work of art from the Galleries based on a different color.

PingMag has more examples of creative uses of these spaces in Tokyo.

Reverse Graffiti

2008-04-22T02:50:00.000-07:00

This mural was created inside the Broadway Tunnel in San Francisco by British-based artist Paul Curtis using a technique called reverse graffiti or clean tagging. With the aid of San Francisco police and public works officials, Curtis spent the night blasting away at the years of grime with a high-powered water cannon.

This is a nice example of otherwise dead space being transformed into something enjoyable. Tide Detergent used this effect on sidewalks recently to demonstrate their cleaning power in everyday life.

Here's a link to more photos of this mural Flickr.

Unsnobby Coffee

2008-04-21T15:43:00.000-07:00

As someone fed up with people who order silly named drinks like "Tall Skinny Double Frappucino with Soy Milk, Whip & Pumpkin Sprinkles" from Starbucks, I smiled at this new campaign for McDonald's "UnSnobby Coffee".

The work plays goes after Starbucks, playing off their language, and positions itself as a real simple coffee and not yuppie-laden pretentious coffee drinking.

The site is simple and quick, it doesn't try to be more than it is or create some big fancy experience or story for something as simple as coffee.

It does feature a "Snobby Coffee Intervention" where you can fill a madlibs style form making fun of your friends Venti Latte Snobbery.

Flexible E-Paper Digital Bracelet

2008-04-09T01:22:00.000-07:00

China-based Chocolate Agency has created a concept piece of electronic jewelry-turned-interactive mobile device. The slap bracelet displays images and is powered by the natural movement of your arms.

The device is made from E-paper, which is a technology in development that allows for bendable, flexible, paper-like materials to display video and digital imagery.

Here's a short video of the bracelet concept. Source: PSFK

The Shortest PR Pitch

2008-04-09T01:15:00.000-07:00

This email was sent by a PR rep to a blogger to get coverage of a new BMW video. Instead of a long PR pitch about why the video or story is interesting, they kept it short and to the point: "Google Rampenfest". And the top organic result is the BMW website and video.

Source: Adlab

Adults Often Online When Watching TV

2008-04-09T00:53:00.000-07:00

Media multitasking — watching TV while surfing the internet — are common among online adults in the United States and Britain, finds a survey by Harris Interactive.

The survey found that its not an "either/or" between TV and the web. People use the web as an accompaniment to TV:

78 percent of US online adults have gone online while watching TV.
35 percent report doing so often or always.
62 percent look for content unrelated to what they're watching on TV.
25 percent seek info specific to programs, such as profiles of actor, products from ads or on a show, and upcoming events.

Mobile Phone Sommeliers in Japan

2008-03-26T01:41:00.000-07:00

Plans to launch Mobile Phone "Sommeliers" have been unveiled in Japan in an effort to guide customers through the complex maze of technology when choosing a new handset and plan. The effort would create a new breed of mobile phone experts who will need to pass exams to receive a license.

Japan is a fitting setting for these Sommeliers, being home to the most advanced mobile technology in the world, but this idea can also apply to brands in the US. With more choices in technology and more features, companies that can offer guides & services to help people learn and make more use of their products could achieve a higher level of loyalty and customer satisfaction.

The image above is of a new line of phones from Japan's Softbank & Samsung in a range of Pantone approved colors. Pantone has licensed its distinctive colors and brand perhaps too widely, but in doing so are creating more choice and options for personalization in a range of categories.

Source: Monocle

Big Fantastic Deal

2008-03-26T01:34:00.001-07:00

Domino's Pizza has created a new site that lets pizza lovers easily build their own pizzas in whatever strange combinations they'd like, such as 4 slices with mushrooms, 3 with pepperoni, and 1 with brie cheese, and have it delivered in less than 30 minutes for a flat rate of $10,99.

After selecting topics people can name their strange creation, adding it to a library of pizza permutations.

An interesting thing about this is that the Marketing is blurring with the Product. Domino's may not have been able to make such a custom pizza, but the marketing idea behind the effort and site was adopted by the company and became a real product service they could deliver on.

We Tell Stories

2008-03-26T01:33:00.001-07:00

Penguine Books is launching a digital writing project called We Tell Stories in collaboration with Alternate Reality Game designers Six to Start. Penguin has challenged some of its top authors to create new forms of story designed specially for the internet -- blending traditional story-telling, Web 2.0-style mashups, interactive games and classic novels.

The project begins this month with six weekly installments, after which a seventh game that will tie all six together.

Each story is based on a classic novel and written by a different Penguin author, including Booker-shortlisted Mohsin Hamid, popular teen fiction author Kevin Brooks, prize-winning Naomi Alderman and bestselling thriller author Nicci French.

"The stories couldn't exist on paper. But it's not a gimmicky thing. We pushed our authors to look at how viewers and readers are going to view them, thinking about different points in the story, and about how the mechanism in the story is going to effect their writing." said Penguin's publisher Jeremy Ettinghausen.

At the end of the project is a prize...Penguin's complete library of 1,300 books.

Principles of Innovation

2008-03-14T13:17:00.001-07:00

Google's SVP of Product Management & Marketing Jonathan Rosenberg speaks practically about the things he learned at Google about being innovative. A lot of it can be applied to advertising agencies and our clients. Here's a summary of his principles...

Network Effect:
The more you do something, the greater the value.

Example:
Colleges are great because they have great professors...great students come because they have great professors...great professors come because they want to be around great students...great alumni network form out of great students and so more students come.

Example:
Google users go where the information is, advertisers go where people are, we get more users beecause we have more advetisers because we can buy distribution because sites know we can monetize their content better and get more users.

Hiring Brilliant People
A's hire B's...B's hire C's and so on. You can train A's to hire A's, but you can't train B's to hire anything but second rate B's or Cs, because they are threatened by A's and can't understand them anyway. Maintain a high bar. Three person teams work better, small workspaces, don't hire specialists.

Ideas Come from Anywhere
Most companies say this but don't do it. They don't reward it. Have to be accepting and then implement a system to deliver against it. Trust people with everything. At Google everything we do is on our intranet. Product developent cycle is based on that openness.

Morph Ideas, Don't Kill Them
The underlying technologies are changing fast. We have to constantly be revisiting ideas that did not work and reapplying.

Example:
Blogs were originally about sharing information to reach niche communities, but now blog systems are the engine to publish information in Google Docs and Apps.

Example:
Convergence used to be about one device magical device that does everything...that didn't happen. Convergence us really in the cloud not the device...all of your data needs to converge, devices will diverge. Different things happened from the expectations, but its the same idea.

Users Come First, Not Money
Disinformation gets spread fast, but Truth travels faster.
People ruthlessly punish companies that do the wrong thing, and richly reward companies that do the right thing. (Steve Jobs is about the user. iPod based on one button, instead of Sony with a hundred confusing buttons.)

Don't say to us "I Think"...Show Us
Bring data we know to be true, not spun up. Two projectors in every meeting room. One for your idea or presentation, and one that shows actual source data. Argue everything based on data that everyone else in the room can argue against. Tell us with data what worked, not what you think will work.

Example:
Sardine fishermen go out to sea, get fish, then sell them in the market. The first one back gets a good price at the market, the last fisherman has a catch that spoils and races back out to sea to the next town that he thinks might have enough demand to sell his fish there. Someone gave them cell phones to call ahead and find out which town needs nore fish. The fisherman does not want ot think, he wants to know.

Iterating Products
Most talk about experimenting & iterating, few do it. Larry Page said to me: "When did the engineers do a better job of adding new features or doing it faster than what you put in your product plan brief and schedule?" Well never. Just get people working on a demo, see what users do and then iterate it form there.

Having Clear Vision
How many people worked for a company that had a missions statement? Everyone.
How many people remember their mission statement? No one.

Antibodies in Companies Try to Kill Big Ideas.
Most people in a company under promise, and over deliver. That's wrong. Creates fear, complacency and rewards mediocre work. Google looks at it differently. You are only expected to achieve a mark of 60% on your Objectives, but your Objectives must be big. People may not achieve the big goal, but reward people who do reasonably well, instead of them under-performing in hopes of maybe over-delivering and ending up just being mediocre.

Accept a Smaller Piece of a Bigger Pie
Writers Strike was basically about an increase in profits from 4 cents to 8 cents on DVD sales...they basically held up the world on the future of DVD royalties. But who even uses DVDs? Most people in this room are watching movies on their computer or on-demand. The writers were arguing a larger piece of a smaller pie that is turning into a crumb!

Feed the Winners, Starve the Losers
Most companies have General Managers that worry about their own area not the greater good. Take a portal like Yahoo. Distribution is on the homepage for every group...Weather, Fiance site, Sports, Career, etc. A group doing poorly and failing to get users will want to push more to get more exposure on the homepage so they can get more traffic. This is the opposite of what you should do. If the Career site sucks, no one is visiting it, but the Finance site is doing great booming, steer people there. Feed the winners, starve the losers. Its the difference between a general manager oriented company and a functionally oriented one.

Avoid Hippos
A hippo kills more people than any other animal. In business, hippos kill more products & ideas than anyone, A hippo is the highest paid person's opinion. Hippos say "I think..."
Eric Schmidt when at SUN needed a Workstation PC to complete an idea he had...he took one off the dock and unpacked it...it had 8 "Read Me First" documents! He put it on the wall and it was the company's org chart. 8 hippos insisted they have their own document in it.
If you can see a companies org chart in the box, don't buy it. Apple is an example of doing it right. Maniacal focus on the user.

Rewarding Innovation
Most companies have profit sharing...HP gives 6.5% to 8.5%...everyone gets about the same. Instead, pay the people that deliver more. The best guys in an investment bank make more, shortstops on a baseball team gets more, etc. At Google the guy who made Google News has made us lots of money, millions of dollars, so we pay him millions of dollars. Life is not fair...I'm not as pretty so I got less dates...I can't shoot slam dunks so I don't get to play in the NBA. Reward innovation.

Lawyers and Bureaucrats
A good one thinks through the implications of a problem in relationship to the business objectives. The bad ones are not flexible to what reality is.

Example:
At toll roads like the Golden Gate Bridge...you queue, you burn gas, you thrown money in a bin...you used to have to do the same thing when you drive back. But a toll one direction is better and they changed it. Who is gonna drive around the bay the other way just to avoid a toll!?

Example:
Software and downloads have an "I AGREE" form, filled with legal. Same with those long copyright & legal footers appended to the end of emails yous end from your company, it wastes bits. Lawyers insist on these things but they don't understand the online medium.

Example
At Starbucks you don't have to wait for the transaction to complete if you pay with a credit card...they process it as if it is going to go through. This way the line moves faster, and the transaction is processed in the background, and there's an alert a few minutes later if there is a problem with the card. I mean what is someone gonna do!? Is someone gonna get their Tall Mocha Frappuccino and run out of the store with a visa card that does not work? Ridiculous!

Bad lawyers and manager create a constraint set that becomes the null set, and then they optimize around that...wrong rules, not applicable anymore.

Learning to Learn
I can't articulate theories about economics from my college...but I did learn how to learn.

Cell Phone Disco

2008-03-14T00:01:00.000-07:00

Cell Phone Disco is an experimental installation that visualizes EM fields emitted from mobile phones. When EM waves are detected it flashes some of the thousands of LEDs on the surface. The surface is also a canvas for an inkless marker, whereby moving the phone close to the cells leaves a light drawing behind. The installation makes something in our environment that is usually hidden from our senses, visible & interactive.

Natural Born Clickers

2008-03-13T23:29:00.000-07:00

The click is dead...and the few people who do click on banner ads are not your best customers and do nothing for your brand.

So says new research by Starcom , Tacoda & ComScore, which calls into question click-through-rates as a primary source of accountability for Internet advertising aimed at brand building.

The Wrong People Are Clicking:

The study reveals that a very small group of consumers who are not representative of the total US online population is accountable for the vast majority of display ad click-through behavior:

"The study illustrates that heavy clickers represent just 6% of the online population yet account for 50% of all display ad clicks. While many online media companies use click-through rate as an ad negotiation currency, the study shows that heavy clickers are not representative of the general public. In fact, heavy clickers skew towards users between the ages of 25-44, households with an income under $40,000, spend less than non-clickers, and are more likely to visit auctions, gambling, and career site.”

No Corrolation Between Clicks & Brand Metrics:

"Starcom data suggests no correlation between display ad clicks and brand metrics, and show no connection between measured attitude towards a brand and the number of times an ad for that brand was clicked. The research presentation suggests that when digital campaigns have a branding objective, optimizing for high click rates does not necessarily improve campaign performance.”

CTRs are the wrong measure for brand-building advertising and consideration/preference campaigns online.

Source: ChasNote

The Synchronicity Photo Project

2008-03-13T23:22:00.000-07:00

Japanese art director Jun Tsuzuki run Synchronicity, an on-going project where people all over the world are asked to take a picture of what they are doing at a pre-determined moment in time.

The pictures, along with a brief explanation of the time and place they are taken, are displayed on the Synchronicity website as a portrait of the world at that exact moment. The project is simple but intriguing.

Source: Cool Hunting

Planting & Nurturing Your Marketing

2008-03-11T02:59:00.000-07:00

ChasNote points out a thought from Carat CEO Sarah Fay:

Sara likens marketing today to planting a tree — the beginning of a process that will grow and requires nurturing over time — rather than the old approach to marketing that, like a house, is finished and has begun its decay on its first day as a completed structure with dry paint.

What a marvelous metaphor. Brands and their marketing are not singular, linear, solid, complete, perfected objects. That's not how consumers experience them.

Tokyo Sample Lab

2008-03-11T02:44:00.000-07:00

The Sample Lab, which opened last year in Tokyo's Iceberg Building in Harajuku, is a members-only space that invites consumers to sample and test new products.

Members pay an annual fee and gain entrance to the lab by showing a QR code stored on their mobile. The store has shelves filled with different kinds of merchandise and features a room to sit down to try out beauty products.

Many consumers are happy to pay to be the first to try out a new product, and to spread buzz. Moreover, creating a dedicated space for trying out new products makes it easier to collect feedback.

Could Ad Agencies create dedicated spaces like this for their stable of brands or use retail space as a dedicated on-going live consumer research tool or as an incubator of marketing ideas & new products?

Interactive Talking Paper

2008-03-11T02:26:00.000-07:00

The Paper Four project in Sweden has developed a prototype digital paper that uses embedded sensors to detect touch, and when you graze over a certain spot, it actually talks back to you via "printed speakers."

The device combines paper with "printed graphic codes and electronically conductive ink that is sensitive to pressure." This could become an practical mass use format for interactive outdoor advertising.

Source: Engadget

Playfully Addictive Site for Kids from Innocent Smoothies

2008-02-19T03:58:00.001-08:00

We at Brain Sells are already fans of Innocent Smoothies' smart scrappy marketing, and here's a new example of a site designed for kids from the healthy UK smoothie maker.

The site is made up of simple movable panels with small fun gems in each of them -- from recipes, games, photos, to a contest with kids artwork on the packs and even stuff for adults.

Thanks to IF! for finding this.

Super Bowl Advertisers Fumble Online

2008-02-18T22:06:00.000-08:00

Some of the biggest brands in the world vied to capitalize on buzz created by Super Bowl ads, but most failed to successfully link TV ads to their online presence, according to Reprise Media, which measures how prepared brands are to capture online interest and buzz.

Among this year's key findings:

6% of Super Bowl advertisers put a call to action in their commercials.
28% of brands purchased ads against Super Bowl-related keywords.
93% of advertisers did not buy search placement for concepts related to their ads — terms related to spokesperson, mascot, celebrity or tagline.
No Super Bowl ads pointed to a social media presence on MySpace, YouTube or Facebook. Less than one-fifth showed Super Bowl-related content on social networks.
Advertisers are getting better at including the relevant URL in their ads...with 84% displaying a URL in their commercials.

This year's game was the second most watched program, ever. TV is not dead. But why would a company spend $2.7 million for :30 seconds on TV and not try to make the most of the buzz online? What about the rest of the year?

Have a look on Google Trends for any brand in the Super Bowl and there is a huge up tick in search volume during the game. Are brands taking advantage of this sign of interest & intention?

Diesel's Liquid Space Runway Show

2008-02-18T21:17:00.000-08:00

Diesel’s Spring/Summer 08 runway show was entitled "Liquid Space". While regular human models paced up and down the runway, a host of CGI characters appeared in mid-air to interact with them within an underwater landscape. These animated holograms were entirely viewable from both sides of the stage.

You can view the video here, pretty stunning.

The experience was created by Barcelona 3D animation studio Dvein and Danish media production agency Vizoo.

What kinds of new experiences offline could we create by blending interaction between the live performance, digital art and online interactivity?

Innovative Minds Don't Think Alike

2008-01-28T01:19:00.000-08:00

A few weeks back the New York Times published a brilliant piece on the "curse of knowledge", a phrase that means that once you’ve become an expert in a particular subject, it’s hard to imagine not knowing what you do. When it’s time to accomplish a task those in the know get it done the way it has always been done, stifling innovation as they barrel along the well-worn path.

The article suggests this is why engineers often design things that are only useful to other engineers, or why business leaders face obstacles in conveying new ideas to the rank & file staff.

There are implications in the ad agency business as well...where media, technology and consumer behavior are all constantly changing. Agencies race to hire so-called "experienced" experts who only give the appearance of knowledge. Perhaps doing that actually limits innovation.

Chip Heath says in the article: “People who design products are experts cursed by their knowledge, and they can’t imagine what it’s like to be as ignorant as the rest of us.”

To innovate in marketing and creativity, people are badly needed who can think more contrarily and ask provocative optimistic questions -- and then translate those new ideas into simple, relevant, language for others.

Art, Community, Technology...in a Bank

2008-01-27T21:52:00.000-08:00

Portland-based Umpqua Bank have dropped the corporate-finance-dead-space theme so often associated with a trip to the bank and instead created their first Innovation Lab. The retail space is a high-tech, interactive, community hub, combining technology, art & entertainment.

Some of the features in the bank include immersive video conferencing, nine 50-inch high-definition touch screen displays, a digital community wall, customizable brochures printed on-demand, work spaces & banquettes with hidden laptops, a music portal and gourmet coffee shop. The lab also serves as an independent space for business meetings and social events, like a Nintendo Wii tournament.

Umpqua has partnered with local merchants in Portland to sell their merchandise inside the space, along with tech brands such as Cisco, Microsoft, an Lenovo who all provide elements of the experience.

Their own financial services are sold like colorful rich beauty products, in smart, simple packaging and language throughout.

Umpqua intends the space to be an ongoing experiment, updating it every quarter. The lab was designed by Ziba.

The Media Wanker

2008-01-22T00:02:00.000-08:00

This is sadly all too similar to how the advertising/media world really is! Hilarious...

iTunes Signature Maker

2008-01-21T23:54:00.000-08:00

iTunes Signature Maker analyzes your music collection and creates a short audio signature to represent who you are and what you listen to. The site analyzes your music collection and generates an short audio signature that represents all of your music.

Your iTunes signature can be uploaded onto your iPod, e-mailed to friends, or shared your blog or homepage. While its not very useful, more of a novelty, the idea of taking your personal content and transforming it into some kind of identifier or small chunk is interesting as more of our lives are digitized online.

A Hardworking Presidential Brand Identity

2008-01-21T23:25:00.000-08:00

Barack Obama has created a brand identity online that is very flexible and relevant to different groups. Here's some design examples of this flexibily for different constituencies & ethnicities. His campaign has also created an Action Center of tools, assets and advertising materials that individuals to help get the word out about Obama, create local events, or make marketing materials that are high res and highly relevant for different interests.

Brand design alone cannot make a presidency of course, policies and action matter, but it's encouraging to see design and brand innovation in an otherwise stale category, and by all measures Obama is supporting the brand with substance so far...

Making Virtual Objects in Real Life

2008-01-07T01:37:00.000-08:00

Fabjectory takes your virtual characters & objects and makes them into detailed, full color, real-life statuettes.

Users upload an image file of their virtual object, and Fabjectory (usig a rapid prototyping technique) will produce a physical version. For now they are only doing this for Nintendo Mii characters, Second Life Avatars and Google Sketch-up 3D objects.

While Fabjectory might just be making simple toys, it does show the potential of taking digital creations & assets and bringing them into the offline world with physical representations. As social networks increase in value in our lives and the web itself more personal to us, these bridges -- online & offline -- become more interesting.

Physical to Digital: Voice Visualizations & DNA Art

2008-01-07T01:24:00.001-08:00

Voiceprints uses specially-designed software to translate a person's voice pattern into an artistic visual design.

The technology analyzes frequencies to create an algorithm that organizes visual elements into a representation of your personal voice.

DNA11 Prints is another example of our personal physical markers being transformed digitally. A quick swab of your saliva provides enough genetic material to create artistic visuals of your DNA sequence.

Our digital world is being personalized rapidly with our content & interests, and increasingly so with our own physical attributes -- digital & physical blurring together. "The man is the machine, and the machine is the man."

HP Creates Tools to Clip & Print the Web

2008-01-06T22:05:00.000-08:00

Ever print something from a website and get a line of text straggling on another page? With ads everywhere? Formatted all wrong?

HP has developed Smart Web Printing, a technology that plugs into your browser and lets you "clip" an individual photo, block of text or other elements on a page, then pick and choose what you want to print and in what layout.

Its a simple way to pick and choose the content you want and organize it into a useful way for printing.

This is similar to HP Blog Printing available on a lot of blogs like TechCrunch and BoingBoing, that lets you choose and print nicely formatted the posts you want from any blog.

In both examples, HP is adding new functionality to web content that provides consumers with a beneficial tool, while extending its brand throughout the web.

You can learn more about how it works and download the free software for Web Print here and Blog Print here.

Disclaimer: HP is a global client of my employer Goodby Silverstein.

Free Air Guitar Outdoor Ad

2008-01-06T22:03:00.001-08:00

There is nothing digital or new media about this, but it made me laugh and I thought a creative use of outdoor, also right when the Guitar Hero craze seems to have hit its high.

Source: PSFK

Innocent Marketing: The Big Knit

2007-10-15T23:17:00.000-07:00

Every winter Innocent Smoothies in the UK asks people (and many grandmothers) to knit lots of little hats for their smoothie bottles.

Called "The Big Knit", these behatted bottles then go on sale in November and for every one sold Innocent will give 50 pence to Age Concern -- who will use the money to provide support to older people in winter including hot meals, blankets and advice on how to keep their houses warm.

Their goal is 400,000 hats or about £200,000. The project is both a goodwill effort and also a marketing one, built on their quirky, friendly brand and good for you products.

Innocent enables their customers with a lot of simple smart online tools to build the effort including:

a Flickr Group with hundreds of photos of hats submitted by people,
a How-to Guide to knitting hats with different patterns,
a blog called Knitter Natter,
a Hat-o-Meter tracking their progress that you can embed as a widget on your site,
a Hat of the Week contest for the best submissions,
a YouTube movie about The Big Knit.

Intel Imagines Future of Mobile Devices

2007-10-15T22:39:00.000-07:00

Intel released this conceptual video imagining what the future of mobile devices and computer technology may look like.

Fluid simple touchscreens, voice recognition, advanced GPS, ultra-thin design, and seamless movement between devices and locations --- people are connected to information, data and each other though "the cloud" that can be accessed from anywhere and any device.

This sort of video -- this peak into their own R&D focus -- helps reinforce Intel as being an innovative brand that's thinking about the future.

With something like the iPhone already here, this video isn't too unrealistic, if maybe some time away still.

Mobile Phone Video Projector

2007-10-10T01:59:00.000-07:00

Texas Instruments has demonstrated a new video projector that can be built into mobile phones and can project 15-inch wide full video onto most surfaces.

The device is based on TI's DLP mirror technology, used in their HD TVs, and is expected to be available early next year. This technology could create a new set of functionality for mobile devices, allowing for content to be shared with groups, meetings and presentations.

Source: PopSci

Threadless Creates a New Kind of Store

2007-10-10T01:27:00.000-07:00

Threadless has launched a new retail store in Chicago.

Anyone can submit a T-shirt design of their own to Threadless.com, where the submissions are voted on by the community and the most popular designs get made & sold on the site.

What's exciting about the new store is that it will not just be another touch point to sell their product, but will be an new extension of a brand that started out entirely on the web.

The store will have classes teaching design, host galleries of art with artwork from their community of users online as well as art created live in the store, and have real-world group critiques & feedback.

Threadless updates new T-shirt designs on its site weekly and has a unique story of how each design is made and chosen by the community. Most existing retail stores could not handle that pace of inventory change or give the right attention to how these shirts are created, which is central to what makes Threadless different. Creating their own store helps address that better.

Threadless is a great example of the positive effect possible when communities online are enabled properly, and an example of a new kind of business model firmly focused on the consumer first.

Fabrication: The Weave Mirror

2007-09-24T03:41:00.000-07:00

Interactive Artist Daniel Rozin's newest work, Fabrication, is on display at Bitforms Gallery in New York. The most striking piece is The Weave Mirror -- an display of 768 motorized C-shaped mirrors assembled on a flat surface that look like a big weaved basket.

As a person approaches, the surface comes to life and paints your portrait using a rotation in grayscale on each mirrored panel. The reflection on the surface can be seen in real time. A custom-built software is used that processes video signals and breaks up imagery geometrically, pixel by pixel.

The installation is another example of digital & physical worlds combining and creating something new.

Garden in Transit

2007-09-24T01:30:00.000-07:00

Starting this month New York's 13,000 iconic Yellow Cabs will be decorated in hand-painted, weatherproof images of giant flowers applied to their hoods, trunks and roofs.

The paintings, titled “Garden in Transit” are by children from the city’s public schools and hospitals, and originated with two brothers, Ed and Bernie Massey who founded the organization Portraits of Hope.

The group provides creative therapy for seriously ill and disabled children, and has decorated blimps, buildings, tugboats, airplanes and even Nascar racers since 1995 -- the taxicabs are the group’s latest effort.

The scale of this art project is immense and has required 7 years of negotiations with the city to use such an icon of the city as a canvas for the art project.

Wii Continues to Innovate

2007-08-13T00:01:00.000-07:00

Nintendo's Wii has leapfrogged its competition XBOX & PlayStation with its innovative game play & design. Now, Nintendo has announced Wii Ware, which opens up the gaming system to individual users, indie developers and large companies to create downloadable games & content.

Four smart things about this:

1) Unlike its competitors, Nintendo realizes it can't do it alone and has committed itself to being an open brand for its customers & partners.

2) This opens up the possibilities for other non-gaming brands & marketers to get involved and create all kinds of content for the Wii.

3) Zeus Jones suggests that it could become a place for brands to deliver services like H&M creating outfits for your Mii avatars or Nike creating workouts that use the Wii-motes to track your fitness performance.

4) Unlike the Burger King XBOX games, Wii Ware is wide open to users to create, The community is part of the branding and the experience -- instead of just receiving it one way.

Gmail Loves Threadless

2007-08-12T22:10:00.000-07:00

Google partnered with Threadless.org to create an innovative marketing program for Gmail.

Threadless is an online T-shirt store where people (professional illustrators & amateurs alike) submit T-shirt designs that are voted on by the community. Each week, the designs with the most votes get made and sold on the site.

Gmail & Threadless created a contest where people are asked to submit a T-shirt design that is inspired by the theme: "Connect!" The winner receives an iPhone and a free trip on JetBlue. The theme "Connect!" and prizes reflect what Gmail is about and designed to do.

Four smart things about this:

1) Google understood what motivates the Threadless community and matched that up with insights into their own Gmail target -- Consumer & Context.

2) Google went out to where their audience is and involved people with content they helped create.

3) Instead of of marketing to the community, Gmail became part of the community and did not force people to use Gmail logos or corporate branding.

4) The marketing ultimately adds to the experience on Threadless -- it becomes a service with usefulness.

Ashton Kutcher Builds a Better Phone Company?

2007-07-30T00:26:00.000-07:00

Ooma is a new company that lets people use their home phones to make and receive calls for free.

Users only pay for the hardware (a pricey $400) once and have free unlimited calling anywhere, forever.

All that is needed is a broadband internet connection -- Ooma plugs in to that and your phone. No phone line (or phone company) is needed.

The Ooma hardware is beautiful and functional. Answering machine, speaker phone, & conference calling are built in.

Users can add special ring tones and other features that have only been possible on cell phones.

The Instant Second Line feature enables you to pick up any phone in the house and place or receive a new call, even if another phone is already in use -- and it uses your same single number, so no second line/number is needed.

Ashton Kutcher -- of Demi Moore and Punk'd fame -- has also joined Ooma as Creative Director. Ooma's management has an interest mix of backgrounds from Cisco, Apple and Yahoo.

What Ooma is attempting is relevant to marketing for 3 important reasons:

We work with clients that directly or indirectly are in communications.
Ooma is bringing real innovation to the category. Instead of a better model of an existing phone company and competing on the same plane, they are drastically changing the user experience itself offering features never possible before, and through that redefining what a phone company should do. I compare this leapfrog in innovation similar to what Nintendo's Wii or Apple's iPhone have done in their categories.
More companies like Ooma are emerging that are tearing down walled-in legacy systems and are instead creating open networks, open devices, open content and open applications. Google is attempting this with its entry into the mobile carrier space. Its threatening to existing companies and business models, but its resulting in a better experience for the customer. This is happening in most categories to some degree, fueled by the open access and power of the web.

Perhaps the most important aspect of "new marketing" is usefulness, and anything that thinks about the customer first will be useful and a good thing.

A Personal Assistant for the Rest of Us

2007-07-30T00:05:00.000-07:00

Sunday is a new company offering 24/7 personal assistance over the internet.

For $29 for 30 task requests, users can simply write an e-mail to Sunday to have any task taken care of. You can send your travel itinerary and they’ll book you flights or find a hotel with specific amenities and rates. You can give them the name of your dentist and get an appointment, make dinner reservations or track down tickets to a sold-out show.

For $20 per hour, you can have someone run your errands, pick up groceries and - my favorite - even wait on line for you at the DMV.

Sunday’s agents can also give you a wake-up call in the morning, tell you the weather, and send you an e-mail in the middle of the day to update you on sports scores.

Could brands offer this as a personal service to their loyal customers? Integrating their own best service or product features?

Tapping into Facebook's 25 Million Users

2007-06-26T22:56:00.000-07:00

As Facebook booms in popularity, the social networking site continues to add innovative features to keep its momentum going.

They've now launched a research too that allows anyone to run a flash poll across the Facebook network.

You get to ask a single question and provide up to 5 multiple choice answers. You can also choose your audience by interest, age, gender and location.

This isn't scientific research but its an interesting way to get the pulse on an idea from the 25 million-person Facebook community.

Its also an important sign of the tremendous capabilities that these new web tools can give individuals.

Source: Three Minds

Stairway to Heaven: Louis Vuitton Rome Store

2007-06-26T22:33:00.000-07:00

Retail design is as interesting an opportunity to create new experiences for consumers as any new media form.

Louis Vuitton has opened a new store on Rome's Via Condotti that uses conceptual architecture to make the stores a unique showcase of luxury.

The front entry features a plasma screen staircase that plays technicolor tricks on the eye. Over the course of just a few minutes, the stairs can transform themselves into cascading water, trailing vines, or even a classic Louis Vuitton trunk.

The store’s design is based on a concept developed by architect Peter Marino.

3D Holograms on Your Mobile Phone

2007-04-18T01:43:00.000-07:00

NTT-DoCoMo has unveiled a real 3D hologram from their R&D Lab in Japan. The company expects in 3 years the technology will be in mobile phones allowing people to communicate with life-size 3D hologram projections. (Princess Leia?)

The New Luxury: 20 Limited

2007-04-17T22:35:00.000-07:00

20 Ltd is a new online twist on luxury. The web retailer offers exclusive limited-edition product collaborations with a rotating group of 20 hand-picked luxury brands.

Editions of items, like an op-art Pucci rug, an Opus foosball table (pitting good vs evil with players like Gandhi and Hitler), a Solange pot leaf-shaped ring, and a Zaha Hadid designed Alessi piece are each limited to different quantities.

When one item sells out a new product takes its place from the next set of 20, with the total number of products available never more than 20 at any given time.

20 Ltd. keeps the focus on authenticity and genuine passion for items that are "created because someone wanted to create it not just to sell it".

Source: CoolHunting

Brands Get Interactive with HD-DVDs

2007-04-15T18:23:00.000-07:00

HD-DVD disc format offers more than just "the look and sound of perfect" but also a new level of interactivity.

Brands are taking advantage of this and creating interactive content that blends into the narrative of the discs. In "Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift", Progressive Insurance estimates the cost of damage done to the cars in the movie through an on-screen tally.

Consumers won't stand for interruptive advertising in their movies, but the challenge is to weave useful tools or entertaining bits into the story that are very relevant.

Source & More Examples: Gizmodo

Social Retailing: "Fitting Rooms Meet Facebook"

2007-04-15T18:06:00.000-07:00

Social Retailing is a trend that lets people go shopping with their friends, remotely.

A New York-based designer has come up with a mirror for fitting rooms that sends a live video feed to any computer, cell phone, or e-mail account elected by a shopper.

The technology connects peoples shopping experience in stores with their network of friends online for advice and input.

For example, a mother in Paris could see her daughter trying on wedding dresses in New York, instantly.

More elaborate interfaces will display comments from friends or a chat room of people, let people make suggestions of other products in stock, and send images of products to your home email to view later.

This is also an example of how social networking is more than an website based thing like Facebook or MySpace, adn rather about connecting you to people wherever you are.

Virgin Galactic Releases Video Experience

2007-02-26T01:55:00.000-08:00

Virgin Galactic has created this beautiful CGI video imagining the travel experience & interior design of its forthcoming travel service to outerspace.

In an environment of hyper-luxury brands, Virgin Galactic will be stand out as a coveted
experience for a spare few with $200,000 to spend on a seat, as well as generate a lot of attention for Virgin's other services and brands for the rest of us.

VW Creates a Rabbit Widget

2007-02-26T01:21:00.000-08:00

VW has created a well designed Widget as part of its campaign for the new Rabbit hatchback. The widget displays free events in your city -- such as gallery exhibits, concerts, readings and other events.

The idea is that the Rabbit Widget, like the Rabbit Car, will stretch your budget and save you money.

Its also another example of a "Brand Utility" -- brands providing a useful service to consumers, translating an intangible proposition into something real with relevant meaning and usefulness.

The simple widget can be added to Apple's Dashboard or various Personalized Homepages. You can download the widget here.

Sundance Cell Phone Cinema

2007-02-20T12:29:00.000-08:00

So you've got a new mobile phone that can play video, now what?

Robert Redford's Sundance Institute has released five short films that can be downloaded directly to mobile phones.

The quality of the films is a big difference over existing mobile video content, which is mostly recycled TV content. The films are produced specifically to play on a small mobile screen.

One of the films is directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, of “Little Miss Sunshine” fame.

"What's great about film is that you share it with an audience. The idea that people will share these short films with friends is the part most appealing to us," said Faris.

For more info on the films and how to get them click here.

Hip Vending Machines

2007-02-20T00:31:00.000-08:00

Why can't a vending machine be a brand experience?

This example shows that with a bit of design and creativity, something as mundane as a soda machine dispenser can become a useful & unexpected bit of experiential marketing.

With something displayed so well, who wouldn't buy a can of soda to see what happens?

The YouTube Presidency

2007-01-25T23:42:00.000-08:00

Barack Obama announced through online video his forming an exploratory committee for the 2008 presidential election. Obama has also inked a deal with Brightcove, an online video service, to createa an Obama Channel online with ongoing campaign videos and a syndication function that will allow bloggers and Web sites to publish campaign clips.

Internet video can be a major tool for candidates in the 2008 elections, but it has to be relevant and appropriately created for online.

...just as Kennedy defeated Nixon in the first TV debates by understanding what works in this new medium.

John Edwards YouTube posting of the announcement of his presidential bid had a "look I'm hip to this Internet thing" feel to it.

Think of the Swift boat controversy around Sen. John Kerry's presidential bid. What if that video message could've been shared as easily as online video is today, instead of mostly through expensive TV time? Attack ads go viral.

MINI Shows Up in Airport Baggage Claim

2007-01-25T23:36:00.000-08:00

A Madrid airport recently featured a MINI wrapped in plastic and shipping packaging waiting for its loving master in the baggage claim like any other piece of luggage.

The unexpected outdoor ad had the tagline "It comes with me" and was to demonstrate obsessive love of the zippy little car by suggesting somebody brings it everywhere, even onto the plane.

Source: AdRants

Vending Machines as Brand Statement

2007-01-24T00:00:00.000-08:00

Vending Machines in the US are on the rise for everything from inexpensive fast food to high end electronics, such as Apple iPods.

If done creatively, vending machines can be micro pop-up brand experiences. Regardless if people purchase product from a vending machine, the design, interface and presence can reinforce the brand.

This video shows vending machines for products as varied as iPods, Motorola phones, books and Nike soccer balls.

Speed Through Airport Security

2007-01-23T07:22:00.000-08:00

CLEAR is an independent company that pre-screens travelers with the TSA and Homeland Security and allows travelers to quickly get through airport security by showing their ID card along with an Iris Scan or Fingerprint. The service costs $100 a year.

We're approaching a world where giving up personal info means more personal convenience. The more you give, the more you get.

MTV's LED Street Art

2007-01-22T00:03:00.000-08:00

For the holidays, MTV Australia sent out to the streets of Sydney a team armed with multicolored LED lights with magnets who covered a prominent building with these small lights. This is an example of street art-evolved in a digital age and the effect that's possible of a flash mob converging to reshape the image of a popular city center icon.

Google Launches Experimental Search Engine

2007-01-21T18:13:00.000-08:00

Google has launched an unbranded, experimental search engine website called Searchmash to test new features that could one day show up in its current online search engine.

The SearchMash homepage gives no indication that its from Google. To see the connection, one has to go the privacy page.

The site uses AJAX technology and seamlessly integrates image search, blog search, Wikipedia and even video search into one page so that you don’t need to do separate searches on each search engine. Whats more, the videos can be played directly within the search page itself.

Google has created a better search engine than Google!

A Google spokeswoman said in an email hat the site was launched recently to test possible features for the regular search engine. The site does not include Google branding, so the company can gather more objective data bout users, the spokeswoman said.

Apple Experience Design

2006-11-28T00:46:00.000-08:00

If God is in the details then its no wonder Apple Stores have become temples of cool. Apple created these marvelous interactive 3D video pillars throughout their Tokyo Ginza Store, which give a virtual tour and explains the contents of each floor.

...Tron meets Jonathan Ive.

Also, Daisy Uffelman at Goodby Silverstein pointed out to me that Apple has smartly kept its brand experience consistent even inside the cluttered disheveled hole of CompUSA, by creating slick "shop-in-shops" inside the retail giant that closely resemble the real Apple Stores.

Apple has also been rolling out tiny 750-sq foot Mini Stores. These remind me a bit of the Oxygen Bar craze...in case you need a quick hit of the Apple drug!

Is "Old Media" finally waking up?

2006-11-28T00:06:00.000-08:00

Over the last month "Old Media" has made some pretty big strides towards "New Media" and might be finally waking up to the future. Here's a few such headlines:

Four Trends Influencing This:

Alternative distribution platforms now matter.

Consumers are now part of the news team (citizen journalism, social commerce, collective intelligence, etc).

Talent is everywhere (especially at the end of the long tail).

Boundaries are blurred (clients as media company, media company as ad agency, ad agency as record label, etc).

Source: Influx Insights

VW Touareg Tows a Boeing 747

2006-11-26T16:19:00.000-08:00

VW's standard production Touareg SUV has succeeded in towing a Boeing 747 weighing 155 tonnes. Watched by VW engineers, press and bemused passers-by, the Touareg completed seven complete runs on the runway at Dunsfold Aerodrome outside of London.

Brands can use the internet to get a stunt like this a lot more buzz. A missed opportunity would have been to put a video of the event up on YouTube.

Source: VW

"Casino Royale" a Hit for Product Placement

2006-11-26T16:07:00.000-08:00

Bond is back...and so are many of the brands that have been featured in previous Bond films, some as far back as the first film, 1962's "Dr. No."

Along with their prominent placement in Casino Royale, six brands -- Heineken, Ford, Smirnoff Vodka, Sony computers, Sony Ericsson phones and Omega watches -- have spent more than $100 million on promotional support for the latest movie, according to Reuters.

Bond was one of the earliest films to incorporate product placement. In Casino Royale the studio has approached it differently with less brands that are more naturally integrated into the story and who are doing their own efforts to promote the film.

Burger King To Go...On Your Mobile

2006-11-26T12:19:00.000-08:00

Burger King has created a mobile version of their website that can be viewed over any mobile phone or PDA at http://wap.bk.com

This simple mobile site lets people locate a restaurant, download a wallpaper, get nutrition info and check on scores of BK's racing team.

A brand can connect with its audience effectively through mobile if they offer a useful service quickly that's on-the-go and locally relevant.

Interactive Video Projections

2006-11-18T01:15:00.000-08:00

"Interactive" doesn't just mean online. Here's a video technology that lets someone move the actual video being projected on any surface around through motion without ever touching a physical surface.

More immersive brand experiences can be created when you think of video in new ways beyond the typical rectangular box.

The technology is created by Human Locator.

Wearable Wi-Fi Flower

2006-11-18T01:00:00.000-08:00

Hotspot Bloom is a wearable technology -- a brouch designed like a flower that glows and changes color to show the strength of the nearest wi-fi network.

So as a person walks through an area of Manhattan for example, the flower will glow from red-to-blue on a hot-to-cold scale.

In an iPod culture where white earphones give you street cred, there's a growing trend of making wearable technology that is both useful and aesthetically appealing.

Charmin Branded Utility

2006-11-18T00:51:00.000-08:00

Charmin (yes the toilet paper) is offering free clean toilets to tourists in a special branded space in Times Square.

The NY Times has an article on this and its getting a lot of press and coverage on blogs as an example of "Branded Utility".

The advertising message is anexperience and the brand is actually bringing a useful service for the consumer.

PlayStation 3D Photo Slideshow

2006-11-15T00:51:00.000-08:00

The new Sony PlayStation 3 has a slideshow feature that displays photos on screen in 3D, life-like and textured like a real paper photograph.

This technology could be used on websites, in online ads and in Flash easily.

VW Polo Outdoor Stunt

2006-11-15T00:43:00.000-08:00

This was a cool stunt for the VW Polo in Europe.

The car had what appears to be a giant brick on top of it while parked around town in normal everyday spaces.

The tagline for the Polo is "Small, but tough".

Get Some Coke With Your Phone

2006-11-15T00:21:00.000-08:00

No not that kind of coke!

People can now easily buy a can of Coca-Cola by just waving their mobile phone over a vending machine.

Coca-Cola is modifying its 200,000 vending machines in Japan to accept Sony's mobile phone payment system called Felica and will soon bring this technology to the US.

Name Your Porsche

2006-11-14T23:34:00.000-08:00

Porsche is giving owners a chance to add a little personality to their new cars.

Where the model type normally goes on the back of the car, you can now opt to have the wording of your choice in the same style of lettering.

Instead of Cayenne or Boxter you could have your name, a girlfriend or wife, a company, or a phrase like "My Seventh", "Not Leased", "Follow me" or anything at all.

With its own wording, a Porsche becomes a little more exclusive.

Adidas & IBM Join Second Life

2006-10-22T20:10:00.000-07:00

Adidas and IBM have joined the Second Life Community, which now has over 1 million users.

At the Adidas virtual store, people can buy the new A3 sneakers for their Avatar, which gives users the ability to jump high in the sky. More than just having a presence in Second Life for the PR, Adidas is using their space to find out what their brand positioning & tagline of "Impossible is Nothing" means to people in Second Life where anything is possible (virtually).

IBM is using their virtual space to hold corporate meetings & research with people across the globe. IBM researchers are looking at the business impact of virtual worlds & massive multi-player online games.

Paris Hilton Gets Punked

2006-10-22T19:59:00.000-07:00

Hundreds of Paris Hilton albums have been tampered with in the latest stunt by "guerrilla artist" Banksy.

Banksy has replaced Hilton's CD with his own remixes and given them titles such as Why am I Famous? He has also changed pictures of her on the CD sleeve to show the US socialite topless and with a dog's head.

A spokeswoman for Banksy said he had doctored 500 copies of her debut album Paris in 48 record shops across the UK. But he left the original barcode so people could buy the CD without realising it had been interfered with.

Banksy is notorious for his secretive and subversive stunts such as sneaking doctored versions of classic paintings into major art galleries.

Source: BBC News

Mix & Match Outdoor Ad

2006-10-22T19:49:00.000-07:00

This is just an interesting use of a bus for an outdoor ad. The ad is for a matchmaking service in Auckland, New Zealand and uses the back of buses to create messages. Supposedly in this part of town it is very common to see buses next to each other in traffic.

Interactive Movie Theater Experience

2006-10-17T00:21:00.000-07:00

Fiat in Brazil has created an interactive movie theater experience to promote a new light offroad vehicle.

Movie goers will see a short film that plays before their feature movie. Using an SMS Text message from their cell phones, people will be choose how the film unfolds and create one of 16 different versions as well as how it ends.

The short film plays in segments between the previews and was directed by Fernando Meirelles who directed the movie "City of God".

HP Memory Spot

2006-10-16T22:46:00.000-07:00

HP Labs has created a tiny wireless chip called the Memory Spot. The device is the size of a grain of rice and can hold up to 4MB of data, sound or video. It can wirelessly transmit that to a mobile phone, PDA or other handheld device.

The chip needs no battery and is so small that it can be built into almost any object. Some uses could be:

Product packaging & users guides
Advertising
Perscription drub bottles
Tagging patients' wristbands in hospitals
Adding sound and video to postcards, photos and books

HP expects each spot to cost about 10 cents and will be commerically available in two years.

World of Warcraft - $1 Billion Dollar Franchise

2006-09-07T00:05:00.000-07:00

The online game World of Warcraft made the front page of The New York Times.

The game is making $1 billion dollars in revenue and has 7 million paying subscribers. That makes it one of the most lucrative entertainment media properties of any kind.

Millions of players log-in online from anywhere and simultaneously occupy and interact with each other in one vast 3D virtual world.

Brands like Coca-Cola have also done co-promotions & advertising with the game.

World of Warcraft was started only two years ago and has broken down cultural and physical barriers to connect people all around the world. Online gaming like this has appealed to a diverse lot of people in different countries, ages, genders and professions. (Not just tech heads).

Source: The New Times Times

YouTube Success Rockets Band to Fame

2006-09-06T23:57:00.000-07:00

You may not have heard of OK Go, but the Chicago rock pop outfit just made history. The band's ultra-low-budget clip for the song "A Million Ways" recently became the most-downloaded music video of all time with more than 9 million downloads.

OK Go's treadmill video for 'Here It Goes Again' was another viral hit with 1 million views in its first month and earned them an appearance on MTV's Video Music Awards and on Letterman.

Filmed in lead singer Damien Kulash's backyard, the video features the band performing an elaborate choreographed dance over one continuous take.

The video proved so popular that fans across the globe began to submit unsolicited copies of their versions of the dance video to the band.

The outpouring of video tributes prompted OK Go to conduct a contest with YouTube to select their favorite fan film and invite the lucky winner to perform the dance with them onstage at an upcoming concert.

From backyard broke to MTV mania...thanks to "push button publishing".

Source: AdAge

Tokyo Media Immersion Pods

2006-09-05T01:57:00.000-07:00

The latest technology trend in Tokyo are private rooms called Media Immersion Pods. For a rental fee, customers can check in to a technology room for as along as they like. Once inside, every aspect of technology is available to them from the Internet and DVDs to satellite TV to Sony Playstation.

If the pod renter becomes overwhelmed by technology, there is also a nearby library with books and magazines to take back to their pod.

These media immersion pods are quickly becoming a desirable place to escape to. Young people are meeting their friends there to surf the net and play video games; business men are checking their stock and email; many couples go to flirt; and many are even staying overnight. It is accepted that what goes on in these pods is private, making them a popular place for personal matters.

Source: TrendCentral

Magazine to Test 3D Ads in PDFs

2006-09-05T00:36:00.000-07:00

MAKE, the magazine dedicated to DIY technology projects, and music magazine FADER, have begun distributing their content in iTunes in PDF format. (Once a user subscribes to the magazines through the iTunes Store, new issues are delivered as PDFs right inside iTunes.)

Now, however, MAKE plans to begin running ads inside the PDF issues that will use 3D technology to bring the ad to life, as well as other interactivity that can't be replicated in print. The ads should begin appearing in this month's PDF issue.

Source: Micro Persuasion

Create Your Own "Top 5 List" T-Shirt

2006-09-04T22:52:00.000-07:00

Social networking sites like MySpace & Friendster have made it common place to have our lives, interests, likes & dislikes broadcast out to anyone willing to listen. One group has extended this idea offline in the form a T-List.

A T-List is a T-Shirt with your "Top 5 list" printed on it. It could be your "Top 5 Artists", "Top 5 Films", or "Top 5 Overrated Bands". You can easily create your own personal list and choose a design on their site.

The group's goal is to "become part of the vernacular" and create conversation about your interests with people offline as you might online.

Your Digital Wallet

2006-08-30T00:12:00.000-07:00

With new technology called "near-field communications" (NFC), you could use a mobile phone to make purchases, buy tickets, store receiepts, use gift crds & grocery cards, or even download a movie trailer from a poster.

The technology uses RFID, chips with radio tags built into mobiles phones.

In April, the regional transport authority for Frankfurt, Germany said it had successfully completed a 10-month trial of NFC technology in which commuters could use their cell phones as mass-transit passes or to buy tickets directly.

Similar technology is used in electronic highway toll systems, such as Fast Lane Pass, but this will be a true integration with people's mobile phone.

Source: Technology Review

Vivendi Universal Backs Free Music Offer

2006-08-29T22:00:00.000-07:00

Vivendi Universal, the world's biggest music group, has signed a deal to make its music catalogue available on a free legal downloads service called Spiral Frog.

Under the agreement, Spiral Frog will offer Universal's songs online free in the US and Canada. The NY-based start-up will launch its service in December and under the agreement will offer Universal's songs online free.

Spiral Frog will make its money by offering ad-supported legal downloads of music & video content licensed from major & independent labels.

The company will take on market leader Apple's iTunes service, which charges 99 cents per song in the US.

"Offering young consumers an easy-to-use alternative to pirated music sites will be compelling," Spiral Frog CEO Robin Kent said.

MySpace Magazine

2006-08-28T00:43:00.000-07:00

MySpace is actively considering whether to launch an ink-on-paper magazine to complement its insanely popular online site. The editorial mix would likely cover standout MySpace members and their interests in music, comedy and social scenes.

MySpace is looking at potential business models for a print version, the most likely of which would see a MySpace Magazine published by the crew at NYLON magazine -- the hip music and fashion title edited by Marvin Scott Jarrett.

Nylon and MySpace have worked together before -- the two partnered in May to bring the magazine's 7th annual "Music Issue" online with interactive features.

Source: AdAge

MTV Flux

2006-08-28T00:30:00.000-07:00

MySpace is MTV for the web. Now MTV wants in. MTV Flux is the music brand's attempt at building a social network, launched earlier this month.

MTV Flux is planned as a tie-in with the soon-to-launch Flux TV channel, allowing users to upload videos and see them on TV (just like the US cable channel Current TV).

Users can also create an avatar and profile page, upload images, add friends to your network, write a blog and post to the message boards. Users can build their own Manga-style Avatar to represent them - it seems the idea is to create merchandising opportunities for these avatars and to use them on mobile devices.

Adidas & Toyota Enter Second Life

2006-08-28T00:18:00.000-07:00

Two more big brands are creating a presence inside the virtual online world of Second Life:

Sneaker maker ADIDAS has plans to reach out to SL residents with products in the virtual world to get feedback on what the Adidas and Reebok brands mean to them.

The Adidas catchphrase “Impossible is Nothing,” for instance, will become a means of finding out just what “impossible” means to the SL market segment — where the word has an entirely different meaning from anywhere else.

Prototype shoes may also be released in the virtual world, and it’s possible that residents may even be able to alter these designs as part of the feedback loop.

TOYOTA also announced it will give residents virtual versions of its cars, namely of the youth targeted SCION brand. Virtual product placement.

UNIQLO Cargo Container Pop-up Stores

2006-08-28T00:11:00.000-07:00

Japanese low cost casual wear company UNIQLO will deliver pop-up retail stores constructed from a ship's cargo containers to various locations in Manhattan during Labor Day weekend. The exterior of the container stores is made from corrugated metal, while the inside is fitted with shelves.

The container stores, which are arriving from Tokyo, will be transported from the pier on flatbed trucks, then lifted by cranes and placed on streets throughout New York. Merchandise in the container stores will vary to reflect the demographics of each neighborhood.

The stores will be a precursor to the October opening of UNIQLO's 36,000 sq ft flagship store in SoHo.

Source: PSFK

Levi's Jeans Designed for the iPod

2006-08-28T00:03:00.000-07:00

Levi's announced its new line of RedWire DLX Jeans, which are designed for iPods. The jeans feature a built-in iPod docking cradle pocket, joystick controller and retractable headphones.

...designer denim for the digerati.

A white leather patch and joystick, bluffed back pockets with hidden stitching, and minimalist buttons and rivets allude to the iPod’s famously pure design. Fashion & technology fused as one.

A special joystick is built into the jeans’ watch pocket, with four-way controls to allow the wearer to play, pause, track forward, track back and adjust the volume control without ever removing the iPod from the pocket. An iPod docking cradle is housed within a side pocket. Levi’s designed the pocket so that the iPod bulge is “virtually eliminated.”

GM Engages Audience Through Flickr

2006-08-27T23:55:00.000-07:00

GM is engaging its audience by publishing photos on popular photo sharing site FLICKR.

Their marketing team is pushing lots of great unique rarely seen photos to a public Flickr gallery and pulling in photos from the gearhead community too. The photos are more than "car porn" but unique and rarely seen photos covering car events, retro cards, new models and futuristic prototypes.

Other companies could share some of their corporate visual content with the outside world. The reality is that people are going to take a brand's online content anyway, so why not do it in a way which engages your fan base, encourages participation & community, and rewards good judgment & creativity?

[Source: Metacool]

Brooklyn Superhero Suppy Co.

2006-08-27T23:46:00.000-07:00

Aspiring superheroes can re-stock their secret underground lair, trick out their utility belt and even purchase anti-matter at the Brooklyn Superhere Supply Co in Park Slope. It’s like Costco for Superheroes.

But despite the grappling hooks and underwear-on-the-outside costumes, the true genius of the operation is tucked behind the store, hidden behind a secret bookshelf...

The not so discreet superhero retail store is actually a front for an after school tutoring facility known as 826NYC. Modeled after 826 Valencia, a nonprofit writing lab and tutoring center in San Francisco, 826NYC is dedicated to helping students, ages 6-18, develop their creative writing skills.

The overwhelmingly enticing storefront is the perfect incentive to get kids to stop by and see what the center has to offer. Its a unique brand story that draws people into a compelling & meticulously detailed experience.

[Source: PSFK]

Bus Sides Change Based on Location

2006-08-27T20:08:00.000-07:00

As part of a campaign for local search engine Yell.com, the company is running special video ads on the sides of buses that use GPS to change the advertising message displayed based upon the bus's location or the area its traveling through.

The approach delivers local information that's relevant to a person's location, which is the business premise of Yell.com. Its a smart use of outdoor to be very localized and could be used for contextual campaigns.

IKEA Makes "Everyday Fabulous" for New Yorkers

2006-08-20T21:52:00.000-07:00

New York City is such a wonderful urban tapestry of cement to play on. IKEA made "everyday fabulous" for New Yorkers when it went design-crazy on the city in preparation for Design Week.

Some of the 650 colorful outdoor "stunts" over the five-day period included placing sofas and curtains in bus shelters, putting blankets and picnic baskets with bottled water in parks, placing pillows on the bottom of slides to protect kid's bottoms, framing a missing cat flier, adding padded park benches to Union Square, and oven mitts were placed on the No. 6 train.

"Good design can make the everyday a little better," said the tag line. Deutsch created the campaign. More photos at the link.

The Comfort Sphere

2006-08-16T13:22:00.000-07:00

Inspired by Eero Aarnio's "Ball Chair" from 1963, the Comfort Sphere is a new concept in exhibition space that creates an intimate presentation space with the latest hi-fi equipment. Once you sit in it, a curved metialic arm wraps around you and displays high-end audio and visual entertainment. In this all consuming space the senses are literally seduced.

The Sphere was created by Volkswagon for tradeshows and a winner of the Red Dot Design award.

Exhibits, retail spaces and tradeshows are becoming more important as brands are creating more immersive and personal experiences.

Lonely Girl Phenomenon

2006-08-16T12:27:00.000-07:00

16-year-old Bree is the reigning queen of the personal confession video on YouTube, with a million cumulative views of the dozen or so webcam confessionals she has uploaded in the last month.

She goes by the handle "Lonelygirl15", she's telegenic and its mostly sincere ramblings about feeling different, parent problems, and a burgeoning interest in boys. Then there are thousands of video responses and tens of thousands of comments that showcase a mixture of sympathy, creativity, and teen sarcasm.

Her "15 megabytes of fame" is almost over but her success underscores several truths about speaking to a youth audience through video:

• Authenticity is paramount for teens: The debate rages about whether lonelygirl's videos are a true bedroom production or are professionally produced. Dozens of viewers have offered detailed theories of a marketing hoax. But regardless, it's the feeling of looking right into her life that has viewers fascinated.

• Peer interest and approval creates an exponential effect: The community component of YouTube is an overlooked aspect of the site's success. So much attention is paid to the quality of content. But real stickiness comes from generating video responses, comments, and subscriptions. Even in her choice of name, lonelygirl's musings invite the community to participate.

• Gen Y girls embrace technology, particularly when it creates opportunities for social connection: It's time to stop thinking of boys as the leading adopters of consumer technologies. Teen girls are constantly linked to their friends, by text message, IM, their cell phone, their MySpace page. Today's L.A. Times reports that girls ages 12 to 14 are more likely to multi-task than boys of their age group, and are the most enthusiastic about viewing content on iPods, laptops and cellphones.

[Via Three Minds]

Ralph Lauren Offers Literal Window Shopping

2006-08-16T12:18:00.000-07:00

Polo Ralph Lauren has unveiled a unique way to shop in at its stores, allowing customers to complete purchases by interacting with and tapping a glass window of the building, and is testing the idea at the flagship location in New York.

A projector beams 67 inches worth of Ralph Lauren's latest threads onto the store's window, while a "thin touch foil" mounted on the glass powers the touchscreen. Apparently customers can shop around the clock by just tapping images of the clothing they want and swiping their credit cards on the wall-mounted card reader.

The company plans to keep the display up and running through September 10th, after which a decision will be made based on its success (or lack thereof) to either nix the windows shopping experiment or introduce it into more stores.

This may be the perfect way to capitalize on impulse buying, access other information, pre-order things and access all sorts of other experiences at retail. Who says retail marketing can't be sexy?

[Via Engadget]

Website DNA as Art

2006-08-16T12:17:00.000-07:00

Above is Brain Sells as Web DNA art. You can input the URL of any site and get back a graphical representation of its "DNA". Its inspired by a company that creates amazing artwork using human DNA. Web DNA is based on the codes, script, tags, flash and images on your site and in your programing code. Not sure what any of that means but its pretty cool to compare sites.

Book: Convergence Culture

2006-08-08T04:15:00.000-07:00

Henry Jenkins, director of MIT's Comparative Media Studies Program, has written a new book: "Convergency Culture" about the intersection of new & old media and individual & corporate media.

He takes us into the secret world of Survivor Spoilers, where avid internet users pool their knowledge to unearth the show’s secrets before they are revealed on the air. He introduces us to young Harry Potter fans who are writing their own Hogwarts tales while executives at Warner Brothers struggle for control of their franchise. He shows us how The Matrix has pushed transmedia storytelling to new levels, creating a fictional world where consumers track down bits of the story across multiple media channels.

Jenkins argues that struggles over convergence will redefine the face of American popular culture. Industry leaders see opportunities to direct content across many channels to increase revenue and broaden markets. At the same time, consumers envision a liberated public sphere, free of network controls, in a decentralized media environment.

Tech Replaces Diamonds as Girl's Best Friend

2006-08-08T03:15:00.000-07:00

Diamonds are no longer a girl's best friend, according to a new U.S. study that found three of four women would prefer a new plasma TV to a diamond necklace.

The survey, commissioned by cable television's Oxygen Network found the technology gender gap has virtually closed with the majority of women snapping up new technology and using it easily.

Women were found on average to own 6.6 technology devices while men own 6.9, and four out of every five women felt comfortable using technology with 46 percent doing their own computer trouble-shooting.

The "Girls Gone Wired" survey of 1,400 women and 700 men aged 15 to 49, which was conducted by market researcher TRU, found that given the choice, women would opt for tech items rather than luxury items like jewelry or vacations.

The study found 77 percent of women surveyed would prefer a new plasma television to a diamond solitaire necklace and 56 percent would opt for a new plasma TV over a weekend vacation in Florida.

Even shoes lost out. The study found 86 percent would prefer a new digital video camera to a pair of designer shoes.

The study found over the next five years women see themselves increasing their activities in six tech areas: digital cameras, cell phones, e-mail, camera phones, text messaging and instant messaging.

(From Reuters)

Why Toyota Yaris is Doing So Well

2006-08-08T01:20:00.000-07:00

The Toyota Yaris is the hot new car on the radar, making waves among young consumers for several reasons:

1) CREATIVE MARKETING: Our panelists love the TV ads, which veer from traditional car commercials with Pixar-influenced animation. They are fun and creative, yet their message is straightforward: Yaris is inexpensive, Yaris is mp3-ready, Yaris is fuel efficient.

2) COOL VALUE: Fuel efficiency is becoming a key selling point for young people strapped for cash – when asked “what you would buy with $25 for your room,” some panelists respond “I’d put it in my gas tank.” The Yaris’ low price point and fuel efficiency bring value to their stylish approach, which includes promotions that connect with local arts communities. The YarisWorks website invites consumers to submit photos of creativity in their everyday lives (e.g. tattoos, gardening) – the photos are displayed on the site and the top 20 entries from select cities were displayed in local gallery openings. Yaris is taking cues from the Scion’s successes; panelists have mentioned attending similar events sponsored by Scion.

3) ENVIRONMENTALISM: For some, buying a small, fuel efficient car is an environmental decision. Green blog Treehugger suggests Yaris as an affordable alternative to hybrids (touting it as “one of the first cars in the small car revival”) saying at nearly half the cost of a hybrid, it’s an accessible alternative for young treehuggers. In response to the Treehugger review, Yaris owners replied by pointing out that the $150 saved in gas for a month is half of their car payment – not a bad payoff for environmental foresight.

(From a press release from Zandl Group)

Google Wins Advertising Deal with MySpace

2006-08-08T01:07:00.000-07:00

Google today outbid Yahoo, Ask and MSN to win a deal with News Corp for $900 million over three years that will allow Google to place text & video ads throughout MySpace as well as handle all search on MySpace and other News Corp sites.

The deal is a shiny payoff for News Corp's aggressive strategy for internet acquisitions. News Corp bought MySpace for $649 million.

MySpace had 50 million users in June of this year and as of today it has reached 100 million users.

Indeed, the sheer size of the MySpace audience presents a challenge for potential providers of advertising. There are so many pages on which to display ads that there may not be enough demand for them from advertisers, leading to low prices.

Eric E. Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, said the company had decided that it would not display ads on every page.

“We are not going to cover MySpace with ads,” he said, noting that Google carefully analyzes what sort of ads encourage users to click on what sort of pages to produce the most revenue.

“It turns out the right answer is to show fewer, better ads.”

Google & XM Satellite Radio Partnership

2006-08-03T03:08:00.000-07:00

Google is set to enter the satellite radio business following a deal with XM Satellite Radio announced today.

According to a joint-press release "Google's technology automatically schedules and inserts advertising across XM's non-music commercial channels, helping to increase revenue with a wealth of new advertisers, while decreasing the costs previously associated with processing advertisements."

Also announced today was that Google & Firefox have signed a distribution deal with RealNetworks to distribute the Firefox browser software and Google Toolbar through RealPlayer.

Walk Through Your Photos in 3D

2006-08-03T02:54:00.000-07:00

"Ever wondered what it would be like to walk through your digital photos in 3D or see what hundreds of other people shot at the same location?"

That's Microsoft's one liner about their new program Photosynth currently in-development. The program combines your digital photos with 3D virtual world mapping.

In the video they show an example of a series of standards photos of St. Mark's Square in Venice. Photosynth stiches those photos together into a 3D virtual space, which you can zoom through.

There's also "collective intelligence" and collaboration bit to ths in that it can creates these worlds through not only your photos but from the photos of thousands of other people all over the world.

This program could hit hard against Flickr's community/collaboration and even Google's satellite mapping technology.