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Volkswagen Canada Creates Art Heist Promo for 2012 Jetta GLI

October 15, 2011 By Randy Matheson Leave a Comment

The cool folks over at Toronto ad agency Red Urban are consistently hitting home runs with their work for Volkswagen Canada. Just last week I published a post about their augmented reality experience for the 2012 Beetle. The latest is the ‘Great Volkswagen Art Heist’, a bold experiential campaign unleashed across Canada for the launch of the 2012 Jetta GLI.

A few months ago Red Urban introduced the 2012 VW Jetta GLI with a TV commercial directed by Hubert Davis of Untitled Films. The shoot used a combination of traditional and long exposure videography to pain light trails using the headlights and taillights of a Jetta GLI. To see how they created the ‘Driving Beautiful’ ad check out the great ‘making of’ video.

Last week Volkswagen Canada began to reveal pop-up street galleries in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver where the public could find (and take) framed prints of the photography from the commercial shoot. The would-be thieves have been asked to post their ‘hot art’ in an album on the Volkswagen Canada page.

Follow the Volkswagen Canada Twitter page for next week’s locations.

Filed Under: Advertising & Marketing, Automobiles, Experiential, Out of Home Tagged With: facebook, montreal, toronto, Untitled Films, Urban Red, vancouver, Volkswagen Canada

Nice Rack! UK Fashion Retailer Promotes Fall/Winter Collection with Rutting Season Photo Contest

October 10, 2011 By Randy Matheson Leave a Comment

London fashion retailer Ted Baker is promoting its ‘Worn to be Wild’ autumn/winter collection with the ‘It’s Rutting Season’ campaign. Where I grew up the fashion choice during Rutting Season was as much eye-catching hunter’s orange as you could find.

Participants are asked to visit Ted Baker stores in Glasgow (Sat Oct.15th), Manchester (Sat Oct.15th) and London (Sat Oct.22nd) to try on an item from the collection. Oh, there’s one more thing; you have to wear a deer mask and have your picture taken to participate. It is a celebration of rutting season after all. The photos will be taken by a different fashion blogger in each city using the iPhone Instagram app.

You can check out the photos using Webstagram, or on Ted’s Rutting Gallery on their Facebook page.

The photos are then posted in the Rutting Season gallery where participants tag themselves, then share the photo with their Facebook friends. The stag and doe in each city with the most Likes, each will receive £500 worth of Ted Baker vouchers.

The campaign was created London agency Guilded Collective.

Filed Under: Advertising & Marketing, Social Media Tagged With: clothier, deer, facebook, fashion, instagram, London, rutting, Ted Baker

ABC’s Pan Am Social Media Efforts Help Show Take Flight

September 24, 2011 By Randy Matheson Leave a Comment

It’s the traditional fall TV premiere season and the networks are pulling out all the stops to promote their new crop of shows. Audiences are by no means guaranteed anymore as the TV viewing public is faced with hundreds of options in each time slot, as well as other activities such as video games, internet content and especially social media to distract their eyeballs. TV shows hoping to connect with an audience in 2011 must look to social media to not only promote, but to provide a second and third screen experience on laptops, mobile phones and tablets.

In January, 2011 Neilson and Yahoo revealed survey results (to little surprise) that indicated that 86% of mobile phone users use the internet on their device while watching TV. Of those people, 33% were using mobile apps, 37% were browsing the internet and 40% were interacting with their friends on social networks like Twitter and Facebook.

Pan Am debuts this Sunday
Sunday marks the premiere of ABC’s highly-anticipated and heavily marketed show Pan Am (I even received a physical postcard in the mail, the ‘real’ mail!). The show is based on the experiences of Nancy Hult Ganis who worked as a Pan Am stewardess for the airline from 1968 to 1975. However, the show will first go back to the year 1963, touching upon the music and style of that time, as well as the significant political and cultural events.

ABC’s offcial Pan Am website features video, photos, cast bios and a discussion area featuring user and official tweets and Facebook status updates. The site links to their social media outposts on Facebook, Twitter and Pandora as well as partner sites such as Jetsetter.com

Your Facebook Flight Crew
The ‘My Flight Crew‘ application on the show’s Facebook page allows fans to create their own Pan-Am ID (despite my best efforts, mine looks super-creepy), choose a destination and assemble a flight crew including their friends to unlock exclusive content.

Pandora Pan-Am Station
My favorite part of the show’s social media effort is the Pandora Pan-Am Station, featuring selections of great pop, soul and jazz music from the 60s including Tony Bennett, Ricky Nelson, James Brown and of course the iconic Frank Sinatra. It’s been playing all morning and I haven’t hit the skip arrow on any of the tracks.

Tweet Powered Flights
Fans of the show can enter to win an exclusive Pan-Am travel bag by sending a tweet with the #PanAm hashtag on the Pan Am Tweet Flight site. Each tweet advances the airplane 1000 feet towards its stop on a trip around the world, awarding prizes at random intervals. Each week sees the flight heading off to a different destination from a short London to Paris jaunt to a long haul to Hong Kong.

Unlock Limited Stickers on GetGlue
Earn exclusive stickers on GetGlue by checking in to the show. It seems odd to let users ‘check-in’ to the show before it airs, but over 55,000 GetGlue users have done just that. FYI, yes GetGlue does send you actual stickers if you want – when you have unlocked 20 stickers you can make a request to have physical stickers mailed to you.

Travel Deals
If you’re feeling the itch to travel the one of the exotic locations featured on the show, starting Sunday at 11pm EST travel site Jetsetter.com will begin to offer weekly deals based on the episode.

Travel Accessories
If all this Pan-Am content makes you want to take on a stylish retro look when you travel, check out US retailer Brookstone’s stylish bags and accessories.

It’s good to see the efforts that ABC is putting into social media to promote the show. The Pan Am brand has a nostalgic appeal to a 1960s lifestyle and style that has already been proven successful to shows like Mad Men.

Filed Under: Social Media, Television Tagged With: ABC, airlines, facebook, pan-am, twitter

Glamour Uses SnapTag Technology in September Issue

September 12, 2011 By Randy Matheson Leave a Comment

The September issue of Glamour features an issue-wide test of SnapTags; Spyderlynk’s 2D mobile barcode technology used by such companies as Toyota and Office Depot. SnapTags are featured on 25 pages of the issue including ads for Lancome, Bebe, Land’s End and Smashbox as well as special deals on Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein and French Connection.

Other SnapTags will link users to exclusive sessions featuring cover model Rihanna, Andy Cohen, Kate Bosworth and the Kardashian sisters, where they’ll answer questions on the Glamour Facebook page.

To scan and manage all the scans, readers are instructed to download the Glamour ‘Friends & Fans’ Android or iPhone app. The app contains instuctions, the SnapTag scanner and an special section to save the links to coupons and content for future reference.

A quick flip through the magazine (you know I’m always looking for style tips) shows that other advertisers are also using other 2D mobile barcode technologies including Tissot, MissMe.com and Merle Norman who are using QR codes. Garnier, Style & Co and Revlon are using Microsoft’s Tags to link users to additional content.

Glamour explains they don’t have plans to extend the use of the SnapTag in the October issue. It’ll be interesting to see if this use of 2D barcode technology will help push it to more widespread use by the public.

Filed Under: Mobile Tagged With: 2D barcode, facebook, Glamour, mobile, Rihanna, SnapTag

GE’s Facebook Air Show Features 3D Printed Planes

September 1, 2011 By Randy Matheson Leave a Comment

Each year since 1970 the Wisconsin town of Oshkosh has served as host for the EAA (Experimental Aircraft Association) AirVenture, America’s largest gathering of aviation enthiusiasts and aircraft.

This year’s EAA AirVenture took place July 25 to 31, however sponsor GE is hosting their own unique version of an Air Show on their Facebook page.

They’ve even asked their fans to request what type of aircraft they want to see at the air show. Their fans have responded, requesting everything from a flying saucer to the plane of the Red Baron. To bring the air show to life GE partnered with agency Evolution Bureau to actually create the various aircraft using a MakerBot Thing-o-matic 3D printer.

The Makerbot Thing-o-Matic uses a form of additive manufacturing creating a three dimensional object from a CAD file laying down successive layers of material with each pass. We had one of these machines in our boardroom for a Lunch & Learn session back in the spring and it was amazing to watch it build an object right before our eyes.

The videos that Evolution Bureau produced for the GE Air Show look like everyone had loads of fun playing with the toy planes. I love seeing the green spaceship life-off with the cotton batting trailing behind it looking like smoke. I can’t wait to see the collection of helicopters coming up next week.

Aug 4: Lift Off: Flying Saucer, B-2 Spirit & one of those planes that land on water
Aug 18: The Final Frontier: Spaceships!
Aug 25: P-51 Mustang, B-17 Flying Fortress and the Red Baron

Filed Under: Art & Design, Social Media, Technology Tagged With: airplane, facebook, flying saucer, GE, Makerbot, Oshkosh, rocketship

Fire & Rescue NSW Honours Everyday Heroes On Digital Statue

August 29, 2011 By Randy Matheson Leave a Comment

Fire & Rescue NSW has partnered with Insurance Company GIO to launch a new campaign on the FRNSW Facebook page as part of their 2011 Winter (yes, it is winter down under) Fire Safety strategy.

Members of the public who take part in the eight question Home Fire Safety Audit can have their picture projected on the face of a 3 metre fireman statue that will appear in several places around Sydney.

People who complete the audit will be receive a notice when and where their face will appear. Along with the honour of appearing on the statue, people receive a list of practical fire safety tips as well as a reminder in 12 months to take the audit again.

I was quite surprised that the audit evaluated me as a ‘High Fire Safety Risk’, so looks like I have some work to do.

My top 3 recommended action items are:

Testing and cleaning my smoke alarm
Not to leave my dryer unintended, clean the lint, etc.
Clean the filters in my bathroom and kitchen exhaust fans

The campaign is supported by banner ads and eDMs, and will run to September 15 with a goal of 15,000 fire safety audits. The campaign was created by Sydney agency MercerBell.

Filed Under: Advertising & Marketing, Experiential, Non Profit, Social Media Tagged With: Australia, facebook, Fire & Rescue, MercerBell, NSW, Sydney

National Geographic Launches Remember 911 on Facebook

August 8, 2011 By Randy Matheson Leave a Comment

For those of us here in the North America there have been few events in the past few decades that have affected our lives as much as the events that occurred on September 11, 2001. In a little over a month it will have been 10 years and we will again remember exactly where we were that September morning.

The National Geographic Channel has launched a special Facebook application to collect the stories of what people were doing that day. Right now there are 338 stories from people as far away as Australia and those who were only a few blocks away from the three sites.

Where was I on September 11, 2001

I had been working at home in Port Credit that day on some freelance web design work with several companies in Manhattan. I was eating breakfast and had heard that a small plane had struck one of the World Trade Center towers. It soon became evident that it was actually more serious than anyone thought as a second plane had struck the tower while I watched. The next few hours were a blur as a plane hit the Pentagon, another plane crashed in rural Pennsylvania and then the collapse of the two towers.

While I did not know any of the people who lost their lives that day, the horror of the events of that day will never leave my mind. It’s amazing to consider how the events of that day changed our lives. From simple things like not being able to fly with fingernail clippers to terrorist bombings in Europe to the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Where were you when you first heard about the events of September 11? It’s interesting the memories of people who were still in school at the time. Check out their stories on the Remember Nine Eleven Facebook application.

The site was produced by Neo Pangia, who have produced several other projects for National Geographic in the past.

Filed Under: Digital Culture, Social Media Tagged With: 911, facebook, National Geographic

Volkswagen Canada Creates Art Heist Promo for 2012 Jetta GLI

Glamour Uses SnapTag Technology in September Issue

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