On The Ground Looking Up

Samsung Galaxy Does A [Yawn] Flash Kick Event In London

I may have not seen a more staged "Flash" event in a long time, this time for Samsung in London. Yes, the ballers can juggle, but all of the product placement in the video, obviously hired bystanders and forced reactions just make me yawn at this one.

The Homeland Tour Teaser Video

Here is a little teaser video we created for the 5 city Homeland tour we recently completed for Showtime. If you have not watched the show, you should (no, we are not being paid to say that :), it is an addicting show. Enjoy

The Showtime Homeland Polygraph 5 City Tour

This past Friday we wrapped up a 5 city tour for Showtime's new hit show, Homeland.  As a mid-season promotion we had the benefit of not having to teach consumers about a new show, but instead we could hear their comments about the show, which were overwhelmingly positive. Such a strong response to the show meant that consumers were happy to engage in order to get more information, premiums and connect with a show they were passionate about.

For the tour we created 2 branded surveillance vans, as that one of the key thematic elements of the show. These vans were outfitted with live surveillance cameras, show footage and dynamic voice analysis graphics. This served as a backdrop and attention generator for the main activity, live polygraphing of consumers to see who was deceptive enough to beat our trained polygraph experts.

The tour stopped in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington DC and Philadelphia. T-shirts were given to those that took the polygraph, download cards were given to thousands of consumers and millions of press impressions were garnered (Extra!, LXTV and Elvis Duran's morning show among many others).

A video should be coming soon, but here are some of the photos from Instagram and a little something EXTRA (such a bad pun :)

It's Me, Mario!

 

Jack Daniel's Sets World's Largest Bottle Mosaic Record

Jack Daniel's is celebrating it's birthday by trying to break 7 world records in one day. I only saw this little bit here which was Jack himself as the world's largest glass bottle mosaic (was there a previous record holder) down at NYC's South Street Seaport. There was also the world's largest bottle of JD, which I assume will create another world record tomorrow for the world's largest hangover.

10 Years After — 3. Random Acts of Kindness and Gratitude Marketing

In the late 90s, with my last company, Eisnor Interactive, we started to execute campaigns, mainly for Internet start-ups at the time, that involved the idea of using generosity as a marketing vehicle. Random act of kindness as the industry deemed it. I distinctly remember the conversations I had with the transportation authority of San Francisco on behalf of the newly launched Cars.com. I was asking to pay for everyone’s tolls for a day in each direction of the Golden Gate bridge on behalf of the newly launched entity. Of course they had no idea how to do it back then and basically told us that their system had no way of not charging people. We ended up hiring cars and having them go through the tolls and give cash to the toll-takers for the 10 cars in back of them. They did this time and time again. 500 yards down, brand ambassadors held large signs telling people who paid for their tolls and we got some good ink on it.

Since then I have done wallet drops with random amounts of currency in them, given thousands of free metro rides for mobile New York and Chicago residents, helped old ladies across the streets and assisted new moms with their bags. I have also handed out $50,000 in $2 bills, bought people drinks over the Internet at Carribean islands and distributed $100,000 to a variety of charities and nurses as a thank you for doing the work they do. All of this has been done on behalf of brands and we never received a negative comment or article when doing things for other people, even if we did it for a bit of corporate attention.

And while at one point it seemed that this tactic has jumped the shark, it now it seems that these were only the tip if the iceberg in the branded give back. The Groupon and daily deal craze could be seen as companies foregoing dollars in exchange for loyalty (whether it works in the long run is another story). Others brands are trying to reward people for watching and participating in their advertisements. Social endorsement for reward is commonplace and brands recognizing their fans on their own media channels is growing ever more popular. Additionally, brands supporting causes has gone from a reluctant must-do to an enthusiastic love-to-do tactic In the last few years.  It seems that we have successfully transitioned a portion of our media thinking from a purely brand centric attitude to one where gratitude marketing is not only accepted, but encouraged. And I for one, thank you all for doing so.

Hyundai Goes All Inception And Drives Down The Side Of A Building

In a pretty creative use of projection, suspension and viral video creation, Hyundai gives us this little gem for the Accent from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Technically I am not sure I would call this projection mapping as they are not really mapping any surfaces, it is one flat wall, but the Inception-like 3D effects still work well.

What is the special sauce in this one comes around the :32 second mark where you see the car suspended and the Tron looking figure walking down the wall. The way they made the car appear to drive down the side of the wall works really well and i wonder if we will start seeing more 3D props coming into projection campaigns.

Below is the video and the making of.

See how it was done:

Durex Gives You 'Extra Time'

Thanks to the old condom makers for co-opting a perfectly clean activity and making it sexual. Yes I am talking about the additional time you get in the middle and at the end of Fútbol/Soccer games. And yes it is clever and smart so I don't have anything bad to say on this one, except that I wish I had thought of it.

Via and via and via

Start-ups Going Guerrilla At SXSW

Found this little report on CNN about how some start-ups are trying to stand out using non-trad guerrilla to get attention at SXSW2011.

The Student Interview - Question 2

As mentioned yesterday, here is the answer to the interviewer's 2nd question.

2: How far are your final projects from your original ideas? And what goes
into these transformations?

Any idea is unfinished when originally pitched. As they are chosen and you start figuring out the logistics it will inevitably change and/or be adapted to a chosen venue, business goal and desired final experience. We do our best to take the creative idea and look for the hooks that will get consumers, the press and any other target group to respond to the experience positively, while also staying true to the essence of the idea and the brand.

Solidarités International Gets All Wet

A clever campaign done for Solidarités International in Paris that uses creative rainfall to convey a message about preserving safe drinking water.  A very clever effect and technology. I am certainly putting this idea into the Interference/Supertouch thought stream for future use.

Around :35 it starts to get good

 

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