Porsche Reveals Secret Prototypes to Celebrate 50th Anniversary of the 911

Porsche Secrets

If you’re a fan of high-performance cars and the Porsche in particular, then you already know that 2013 is the 50th anniversary of the iconic 911 model.

In order to remain a leader in innovation, Porsche has produced numerous prototypes and race-specific models over those 50 years for research and development. The Porsche Museum in Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen features a collection of Porsche’s from throughout the car-maker’s history, but the six featured in the #911secrets campaign (according to the video) are being revealed to the public for the first time.

Viewers will be asked to answer three questions based on facts covered in the video clip that feature each car. It appears there is no actual prizes to win, just the satisfaction that you are a Porsche expert, or you were sneaky enough to login to the competition twice.

The cars include; the 911 Aerodynamic Concept, the 911 SC E. Africa Rally Car, the 911 Mid-Engine, the 911 V8, the first 911 Turbo, and the 911 San Remo Rally Car.

If you don’t do very well in the trivia competition (I only managed 72.767 seconds) you can always visit the Porsche China site and make beautiful music with Porsche 911 engines.

[via Porsche Facebook]

Germany

Pharrell Releases 24 Hour Long Interactive Music Video for ‘Happy’

Pharrell - 24 Hours of Happy

Michael Jackson may have been crowned the King of Pop, but he was also a leader in producing long-form music videos. Arguably his most popular video, ‘Thriller’ was nearly 14 minutes long. His videos for Bad was 16 minutes and Ghosts was an epic 39 minutes long. However artist, producer, fashion designer Pharrell has ‘upped’ them all and released a website featuring a 24-hour version of his song ‘Happy’.

The 24 hour video is made up of 360 back-to-back performances of the song, including 24 by Pharrell himself (one at each hour), but also features celebrities such as Odd Future’s Tyler, the Creator and Earl Sweatshirt, Steve Martin, Steve Carrell, Magic Johnson and Jamie Foxx taking their turn in front of the camera. The site features an ingenious form of navigation that allows you to jump to, and share any moment within the 24 hours.

The video was directed by We Are Social LA and produced by Iconoclast.

Here’s a more bite-sized 4 minute version of Happy for your enjoyment.

[via Mashable]

USA

Google Doodle Celebrates 50 Years of Doctor Who With Addictive 8-Bit Game

Google Doodle Celebrates 50 Years of Doctor Who

Productivity should pretty much grind to a halt today in any office that includes science fiction fans, thanks to a Google home page Doodle that celebrates the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who.

The doodle, which apparently is known internally at Google as the “Whodle”, features an 8-bit game featuring all 11 Doctors in the series.

As a Dalek rolls across the screen stealing the word ‘Google’, your mission is to guide the doctors through several dangerous environments to retrieve the letters while avoiding roving Daleks, Cybermen and Weeping Angels.

[via The Guardian]

USA

Coke Zero’s Ugly Holiday Sweater Generator Will Leave You in Stitches

Coke Zero - Ugly Sweater Generator

The ugly Christmas sweater has become as much a part of the modern holiday season as secret Santas, awkward office party passes and those reindeer antlers that people put on their cars.

What started as an ironic statement about ’80s holiday fashion has since gone mainstream now with dozens of online sites and trendy boutiques offering up the best of the worst ugly holiday sweaters.

Coca-Cola and it’s agency Droga5 have jumped all over the trend and have launched the Coke Zero Sweater Generator. Customize your sweater by choosing the color, patterns and decorative elements.

Whether you decorate your sweater with porpoises, snow cobras, dinosaurs or roasted turkeys, you’ll want to share your creation with your friends. The top 100 vote getters by December 1 will actually have their sweater produced just in time for the holidays.

[via Ad Age]

USA

Create a Melody of Roaring Engines Using Seven Generations of Porsche 911s

Porsche 911 Birthday Roar

2013 marks the 50th anniversary of the introduction of the Porsche 911, and to celebrate the event the automaker engaged creative agency Fred & Farid to create a fun interactive experience for their Chinese web site.

With game play similar to Guitar Hero, the numbers 1 to 7 on your keyboard control the engine sound of one of the Porsches. Match the sounds and you’ll progress through each of the levels. Each of the cars represents one of the seven generations of the 911 released since 1963.

[via Mdelmas.net]

China

Japanese Drivers Use Odometer Reading as Entry for Insurance Company Lottery

Sony Assurance Odometer Lottery

With Sony Assurance basing their auto insurance rates on the number of kilometers that their customers drive, they along with ad agency Frontage Inc. came up with a contest idea to make Japanese drivers more aware of the distance that they travel.

The Odometer Lottery was launched in August 2012 during the Bon festival, an annual tradition when Japanese make the journey back to their hometown to visit family.

To enter the contest, drivers simply took a picture of their odometer reading and uploaded it to an app on the company’s Facebook page.

Grand prize was a JTB travel gift worth 30000 yen with 50 second prizes of 2000 Amazon gift vouchers. In 3 weeks, the contest site had 14,887 visits and 546 entrants.

[via Ads of the World]

Japan

Dove Dupes Photoshop Users With Fake Beautify Tool

Dove Beautify Photoshop Actions

This is an example of a non-traditional ad initiative where the real payoff is really the PR generated from the idea of the concept, rather than the results of its exposure to its proposed targeted user.

The Idea: After nearly a decade of promoting real beauty, Dove wanted to reach out directly to the art directors, graphic designers, photo manipulators who use Adobe Photoshop to manipulate, retouch and create the perfect (yet unreal) look in photographs of models and celebrities.

One of my first creative industry jobs was to cleanup and retouch the photos of models for advertising and beauty product displays. The work included the usual cleanup of small skin imperfections, but also more elaborate manipulation including whitening of teeth, enhancing or changing eye colour, or in extreme cases the complete substitution of a limb if it happened to be positioned awkwardly.

The Toronto offices of OgilvyOne created a Photoshop Action called ‘Beautify’ (an Action is set of instructions that can be completed with a single click click) was posted to the tutorial and software sites frequented by Photoshop users.

When the file was downloaded, installed and then used in Photoshop it reversed the recent retouching work, and added the message “Don’t manipulate our perceptions of real beauty” to the image. The Photoshop user could simply select undo to return to their original work.

Did any designers get duped with this? Highly unlikely. Will this continue a discussion about the manipulation of images? Absolutely.

[via Ads of the World]

Canada

Foresters Insurance Challenges North Americans to Take Daily ‘Tech Timeout’

Forester's Tech Timeout Challenge

In a new year-long campaign launched February 5 ‘Tech Timeout‘, Life Insurance provider Foresters is challenging families (and I assume couples and individuals) to take a scheduled break from all electronic devices and spend time reconnecting with each other in more meaningful ways.

The campaign ad features people completely oblivious to other people and their surroundings, while distracted by their tech devices. The clips shows a man entering the wrong house, a girl runs into a light pole while texting, a wife pours steaming coffee into her husband’s lap, and a group of tennis players are oblivious to the game they are supposed to be playing.

The situations while outrageous, aren’t far from the truth. It’s behaviour that most of are either guilty of ourselves, or that we observe everyday.

In a press release to announce the campaign, George Mohacsi, Foresters’ President and CEO said, “Foresters purpose is to champion family well-being and we do that through quality life insurance, unique member benefits and inspiring community activities. We are always looking for innovative ways to help families spend time together and challenging them to ‘disconnect to reconnect’ is a simple way to turn our purpose into action.”

A recent Consumer Electronics Association study reported that the average US home has 24 different consumer media and communication devices, including multiple televisions, computers and smartphones and some believe the proliferation of these devices contributes to a sense of social isolation even when you’re in the same room with other people.

According to the Center for Digital Future, in 2008, 28 percent of people said that being wired has resulted in them spending less time with family members, a significant increase from the 11 percent reported in 2006.

In my opinion it’s like everything else, it’s about balance, and being aware that while technology can enable us to connect with like-minded people, friends and family on the other side of the world, it should not isolate ourselves from our relationships in the real world.

Whether you participate in Foresters’ challenge, do you think you could take a daily break from all technology devices?

USACanada

10 Most Viewed Posts of 2012

Top 20 Posts of 2012

These 10 postings received the most pageviews at RandyMatheson.com in 2012.

1. 2013 Volkswagen Jetta Ad: Missing Car Keys and the Guilty Bulldog

2. Banco Sabadell Celebrates 130th anniversary with Orchestral Flashmob

3. Nike’s Inspires Running Karaoke With ‘I Would Run To You’ Clip

4. Spoken-Word Version of Bohemian Rhapsody Rocks Vegas Hotel Ad

5. IKEA Hosts 5 Roommates at Apartment Built in Paris Subway

6. It’s Dance vs. Prance: Humans Battle Horse in OPI’s Nail Polish Dance-Off

7. Is It Real or Is It Fotoshop by Adobé?

8. Just in Time for Canada Day – the Molson Canadian Nation Canthem

9. St. John Ambulance Promotes First Aid Training with Dramatic ‘Helpless’ Ad

10. Belgian Financial Organization Promotes Safe Internet Banking with Fake Psychic Stunt

BC Dairy Association Launches Song Contest Judged By Cows

BC Dairy Association - Music Makes More Milk

Tom Hoogendoorn, his brother and families own Valedoorn Farms in Agassiz (just north-west of Chilliwack), British Columbia. Together they raise and care for 300 dairy cows, including 5; Daffodil, Jasmine, Rianne, Hester and Skylar; who will serve as the final judges in the BC Dairy Association’s Music Makes More Milk song competition.

Studies have shown that if cows like the music (classical in particular) being played in the barn, it may result in the production of more milk. Your mission is to create a song, using the online music composition application on the contest website, that the cows on Valdedoorn Farms will enjoy.

The top 15 songs will be voted on by the public until November 16, with the most popular tunes being played to the cows. A special ‘cow-cam’ will be available to watch the reactions of the bovine jury. In the final round, one finalist’s song will be played each day before milking. The amount of milk produced each day will be measured, with the song that resulted in the most milk being declared the overall winner.

The Music Makes More Milk competition was created by the Vancouver office of DDB Canada.

Canada