Volkswagen Surprises Pedestrians with a Beat Boxing Electric Vehicle

Volkswagen E-Up Beatbox

Over the years we’ve become accustomed to sound of traditional gas-powered vehicles, but electric vehicles run relatively silent at low speeds making them a potential danger to blind or the disabled. Earlier this year the US government required that all EVs produce some kind of sound until they reach 17 mph. Exactly what those sounds will end up being has been open to debate and creative thinking.

Interactive agency DDB Tribal used the silent-running Volkswagen E-Up to demonstrate one creative solution involving vocalist and beatbox artist Fatih Sahin.

[via Car Scoops]

Sweden

Australian Online Bookstore Creates Pop-Up Book Stop for Commuters

Bookworld Bus Stop Bookshelf

As part of a Christmas campaign, Australian online store Bookworld has created pop-up book stops at bus shelters around Sydney and Melbourne. Interested commuters were free to help themselves to any books that they wanted.

The campaign created by ad agency VCCP, hopes to remind Australians that Bookworld, with over 13 million books, is a local alternative to large international booksellers companies like Amazon.

[via mUmBRELLA] [photo via Twitter]

Australia

The Economist Promotes Hot Button Issues with Free Hot Potato Handout

The Economist - Hot Potatoes

Looking to promote their status as the go-to source for insight and opinion on today’s ‘hot potato’ issues, The Economist and ad agency BBDO New York have deployed a food truck to hand out free baked potatoes with all the toppings.

The bright red truck will be handing out the steaming spuds at hot spots in Boston and Philadelphia. Each baked potato comes labeled with a ‘hot issues’ such as same-sex marriage, gun control or North Korea.

[via PSFK]

USA

Luvs Provides Sleepless New Parents in Brooklyn a Break with #LullabyLift

Luvs #LullabyLift

Research (and who doesn’t love research) shows that new parents in the UK drive an average of 1,322 miles per year to get their babies to sleep.

Fathers admitted that they end up driving an average of 1,827 miles in the first year of their child’s life to get them to sleep. Over half of “all” parents admit that they used their cars as a “drop-off-to-sleep” vehicle at east once a week, with the average drive lasting 30 minutes. You can bet there were a few late-night drive-thru visits during those excursions.

According to the embedded video below, elsewhere in America parents are driving their babies around until they fall asleep. But in Brooklyn, NY, where people have a lot of babies but don’t have the same access to personal cars, the babies (and parents) are losing sleep.

Enter Luvs #LullabyLift. On the evenings of October 10 and 11 exhausted parents in Brooklyn, NY were invited to tweet to @Luvs with the hashtag #lullabylift, and Luvs would dispatch a special state-of-the-art Sleep Utility Vehicles, which was basically an Luvs-branded SUV from Cliqcar, a New York based car service.

At the end of the ride, which were set to last 20 minutes, parents received packages of new Luvs with Nightlock.

The campaign was created by Saatchi New York.

[via Creativity]

USA

Adidas and Dwight Howard Use Ball-Tracking Technology to Create Signature Shots

Adidas Dwight Howard 'Signature Shots'

At an Adidas promotional event during the NBA pre-season swing through the Philippines, Houston Rockets’ superstar Dwight Howard provided Manila basketball fans with a unique souvenir.

Fans were invited to play one-on-one against the towering Howard, while tracking technology traced the path of the basketball on its path to the net. The path was then printed and transferred to a souvenir t-shirt.

The Signature Shots campaign comes from the creative folks at TBWASantiago Mangada Puno.

[via Agency Spy]

Philippines

Honda Promotes Mobile App With Tribute to Aryton Senna Using Just Data, Sound and Light

Sound of Honda - Aryton Senna 1989

Sound by Honda is a mobile app created by internavi lab as part of Honda’s Dots (Design Our Transportation Story), a two way information and communications service. the app leverages the smartphones GPS and accelerometer allowing a user to experience the sound of several Honda cars including the Acura NSX-R, S800, Civic R, NII360 Town and the McLaren Honda MP4/5.

To promote the app Honda used telemetry data collected during legendary Honda/McLaren driver Aryton Senna‘s record-setting qualifying lap at the 1989 F1 Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka.

The data collected from the car’s onboard telemetry was used to create the experience of sound and light. Speakers and lights were placed around the Suzuka Circuit along the path that Senna’s car drove on that day, and once night fell the record-setting lap was brought to life using a trail of light and the scream of the Honda/McLaren’s engine.

[via Contagious]

Japan

Blinkbox Promotes Game of Thrones with Giant Dragon Skull on British Beach

Blinkbox Game of Thrones Dragon Skull

It’s not unusual for explorers to find ancient fossils in the area around Chartmouth on the south coast of England. The village is at the heart of the UNESCO World Heritage Jurassic Coastline, where nearly 185 million years of the Earth’s history is on display in rock formations.

But even the most experienced fossil hunter was forced to do a double take as a dragon skull the size of a bus appeared in the sand. The skull, measuring 40 feet long and over 9 feet tall, is a promotion announcing the arrival of the third season of HBO’ Game of Thrones on TV streaming service Blinkbox.

The promotion was created by London PR company Taylor Herring, and took three sculptors nearly two months to design, construct and paint.

[via Taylor Henning]

UK

Body Waxing Bar Takes Coupon Rip-Off Campaign to the Streets of Toronto

Fuzz Wax Bar - Street Rip-off

During the recent Pride Week festivities in Toronto, a Fuzz Wax Bar promotion proved to be real “rip-off”. Wax strips that doubled as coupons (with directions to the salon) were attached to the still-hairy (for the moment) bodies of a very brave male model. People passing by were invited to then “rip-off” one of the coupons for a 25 discount on their next waxing.

As seen in the video, the waxing strips are colour-coded based on the sensitivity of their location on the body.

Watching the clip brought back memories of watching Steve Carell’s famous chest-waxing scene in the 40-Year-Old Virgin. Unlike Carell’s movie character, the coupon-covered male model doesn’t resort to random obscenities or invoking the name of Kelly Clarkson.

The campaign was created and executed by Toronto’s Lowe Roche.

[via Media in Canada]

Canada

Ogilvy Deploys Purposeful Outdoor Ads to Promote IBM Smarter Cities

IBM Smarter Cities

IBM and the Paris office of ad agency Ogilvy & Mather have created a series of outdoor advertising with an added practical purpose. The colorful ad installations were constructed to include a bench, an overhang to provide shelter from the rain, and a ramp to help people more easily navigate stairs.

The campaign promotes IBM’s “People for Smarter Cities” initiative, which looks to bring people from around the world together to collaborate on solutions that improve the ways that cities function.

[via Gute Werbung]

France

AMC Celebrates Return of The Walking Dead with Zombie Finger Giveaway

AMC Walking Dead - Countdown

Busy commuters rushing through Toronto’s Union Station can’t be blamed for doing double-takes as they head for their trains.

A massive pair of dismembered hands have been installed as part of a campaign promoting AMC’s The Walking Dead, which returns for the remaining 8 episodes of Season 3 beginning this Sunday, February 10.

Each day one of the grizzled fingers will be severed, and go up for grabs to Walking Dead fans who tweet a picture of themselves in front of the hands using the hashtag #TWDFEB10.

The agency behind the countdown is Leo Burnett Canada.

Canada