London

Tropicana Fights the Monday Blues With a Giant Sun in Trafalgar Square

January 24, 2012 By Randy Matheson Leave a Comment

Back in 2005, University of Cardiff psychologist Cliff Arnall calculated that January 23 (today) was the most depressing day of the year. Turns out the psychologist had created his formula as part of marketing campaign for a travel agency.

Around these parts the days are slowly and surely getting longer; temperatures for the most part are above zero during the day, and no significant snow has (knock wood) been forecast for the near future.

To combat the effect of short winter days Tropicana lit up London’s Trafalgar Square this morning starting at 6am. The early sunrise was part of Tropicana’s ‘Brighter Mornings’ campaign and a special man-made sun thanks to London artist collective Greyworld.

The sun brightened up the Central London morning with the equivalent light 60,000 lightbulbs, and will stay lit until 7:33 this evening providing an extra 3 hours of daylight. Tropicana even provided sunglasses and deckchairs for Londoners to sit back and enjoy the extra daylight.

Filed Under: Advertising & Marketing, Experiential Tagged With: London, Trafalgar Square, Tropicana

Evian Invites Londoners to Pop-Up Chalet for Cocktails and Puppies

January 12, 2012 By Randy Matheson Leave a Comment

First off, not to pick apart the Evian Alpine Experience, but shouldn’t the puppies be Saint Bernards? Little brandy barrels around their next filled with Evian would have been awesome. However, those Husky pups look pretty darn cute.

Evian UK is bringing the sensations of the it’s mountain source to the south bank of the Thames today (January 12) by creating an Alpine Experience in a pop-up Chalet. Again I am not an Alpine expert, but this which surprisingly like a pink shipping container.

Londoners used the Evian UK Facebook page to win a 45 minute slot inside the ‘chalet’ where they could nibble on treats, enjoy a ‘snow-melt’ cocktail and of course play with puppies.

Filed Under: Advertising & Marketing, Experiential Tagged With: Alpine, Alps, Evian, facebook, London

Red Stripe Hires Designers to Create Incredible Sound Sculpture Using 5000 Beer Cans

November 20, 2011 By Randy Matheson Leave a Comment

Red Stripe Lager UK commissioned sound artist Yuri Suzuki and designer Mathew Kneebone to create a sound sculpture as the first project in the ‘Make Something From Nothing’ campaign. The 2.5 metre tall sound sculpture is constructed from thousands of Red Stripe cans that were partly collected at the Notting Hill Festival back in August. The video above shows the sound sculpture being demonstrated by DJ Al Fingers, singer/songwriter Gappy Ranks.

Yuri’s sound sculpture is inspired by the DIY spirit of the Jamaican DJs of Red Stripe’s homeland, who first created portable sound systems (a generator, turntables and massive speakers) in the late 1950s. They would load the systems onto trucks and drove to street parties. These DJs began playing American R&B records, but soon began producing their own recordings of local Jamaican music which eventually evolved into ska, reggae and dub, making them an essential part of music history.

The Red Stripe sound sculpture was unveiled at the ‘Make Something From Nothing’ launch event in London’s Village Underground on November 16.

Filed Under: Advertising & Marketing, Digital Culture, Experiential, Food & Drink, Music Tagged With: DJ Al Fingers, Gappy Ranks, London, Mathew Kneebone, Red Stripe Lager, Yuri Suzuki

Reebok Promotes CrossFit With the World’s Largest Piece of 3D Street Art

November 19, 2011 By Randy Matheson Leave a Comment

Thursday, November 17 was Guinness World Record day, and street artists 3D Joe and Max teamed up with Reebok CrossFit to create the largest and longest piece of 3D artwork in London’s West India Quay at Canary Wharf. The artwork features cliffs towering over a deep canyon and took nearly a week to produce and the artists and their crew used 100 paintbrushes, 20 rollers and 50 buckets of paint.

3D Joe and Max have traveled around the world creating breathtaking examples of 3D street art, check out their portfolio for several examples. In the end, the Reebok CrossFit artwork at Canary Wharf claimed two Guinness Records for both the largest (3807 square feet) and longest (350 feet) piece of 3D artwork.

The fact that it was produced for a Guinness World Record attempt is nearly irrelevant, the results are impressive and the scene at 1:01 with kids tossing balls back and forth across the canyon literally made my knees go weak.

via Great Ads

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I am a Nova Scotia raised Creative Guy, currently Director of Emerging Media at Delvinia, a Digital Strategy & Customer Experience Design Firm in Toronto. I’m a huge fan of the creative use of digital technologies in social media, marketing, sports and entertainment. I use this blog to share the more interesting examples that I find. If you’re in need of a break, join me over at Madtini.com for a cocktail.

Filed Under: Advertising & Marketing, Art & Design, Experiential, Sports Tagged With: 3D street art, cross-fit, London, reebok

Ginger Joe Beer Creates a Big Hairy Deal With London Billboard

November 16, 2011 By Randy Matheson Leave a Comment

While I have my suspicions that any actual ginger-haired souls were actually shorn of head hair, eyebrow, “love rug” (dramatic pause) or god forbid, hair from anywhere else to create this hairy orange billboard for Ginger Joe, these ads still send a shudder down my spine at the thought. Ginger Joe beer was first launched in the UK back in March as the little brother brand to Stone’s Ginger Wine.

In October, Ginger Joe launched a huge billboard in the Shoreditch area of London that featured the brand’s iconic orange moustache and a QR code that directed users to the Facebook page where they could use the ‘Tache Yourself’ app to add a Ginger Joe moustache to their profile picture.

In late October, the message changed to a thank you message for everyone “who donated for the making of our big hairy poster” and an invitation to go to the Facebook page and claim one of 20,000 free bottles of Ginger Joe.

Watch the videos:

The campaign was created by London agency DHM, the PR handled by Frank.

Filed Under: Advertising & Marketing, Out of Home Tagged With: beer, Ginger Joe, London, UK

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

Chelsea Footballers Get Their Kicks Battling Space Invaders

October 6, 2011 By Randy Matheson Leave a Comment

Let’s hope if 8-bit pixelated aliens ever do attack the earth in nice organized rows, that we’ll have more than professional football players to protect us from certain doom.

Four members of Chelsea FC; David Luiz, Branislav Ivanovic, Paulo Ferreira and Nicolas Anelka, were challenged by online sports book provider 188Bet to battle a building-sized version of the classic 1980s video game. The video game was projected on to a warehouse wall in Battersea, London and the four footballers took turns kicking balls at the attacking aliens.

We’ve seen a lot of these 3D projections over the past few years, but few have featured interactivity from real world objects. This example raises the ante for other projection installations.

Nicolas Anelka came out on top and won £1,500 to donate to a charity of his choice.

Filed Under: Advertising & Marketing, Out of Home, Sports Tagged With: 3D Projections, 888Bet, Chelsea, football, London, Space Invaders, UK

Blippar App Launches with Augmented Reality Game for Cadbury

August 30, 2011 By Randy Matheson Leave a Comment

Highly touted smartphone app Blippar has partnered up with Cadbury for a campaign in the UK to turn its chocolate bar packaging into an augmented reality game. The app uses image recognition to trigger a mobile experience (augmented reality in this example) and replace the needs for barcode, qr codes or other visual targets.

Simply open the app (it’s free and available for both iPhone and Android) and point your smartphone at any Cadbury chocolate bar including Dairy Milk, Twirl, Boost, Crunchie and more. If you don’t have a chocolate bar handy pause the video above at 0:11 and use the app on the screen (you may have to enlarge the video a bit, but it will work).

Once the app recognizes the packaging it starts up the Qwak Smack game. After making your choice it’s your task to click on as many of the ducks as you can in 20 seconds. The biggest challenge for me was holding the phone steady enough to click on the ducks.

The Qwak Smack game is part of the larger Cadbury Spots v Stripes campaign in the UK, in which participants play various games where they can earn points for prizes including tickets to events at the 2012 London Olympic Games.

The Blippar app is available as a free download in the iPhone and Android app stores.

Filed Under: Advertising & Marketing, Mobile Tagged With: augmented reality, Cadbury, Image Recognition, London, smartphone

Tropicana Fights the Monday Blues With a Giant Sun in Trafalgar Square

Evian Invites Londoners to Pop-Up Chalet for Cocktails and Puppies

Red Stripe Hires Designers to Create Incredible Sound Sculpture Using 5000 Beer Cans

Reebok Promotes CrossFit With the World’s Largest Piece of 3D Street Art

Ginger Joe Beer Creates a Big Hairy Deal With London Billboard

Chelsea Footballers Get Their Kicks Battling Space Invaders

Blippar App Launches with Augmented Reality Game for Cadbury

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