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Volkswagen Sweden Promotes 2012 Beetle Turbo With Real Bug Racing

May 29, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Volkswagen Bug RunIt’s Pistol Pete and Retox Robert neck and neck coming into the final corner, but don’t look now folks here comes Shitty Bill!

No, that’s not the running commentary from an alternative Kentucky derby, but it could be how Jack and John call the final race of Volkswagen Sweden’s BugRun this Friday.

What’ the heck am I talking about? Well, to promote the 2012 Turbo Beetle, Volkswagen Sweden is hosting a series of races using Beetles. But, the racing won’t be done with cars, but with real live beetles.  The beetles used in the race are one of the most common species in the Swedish forests. They even have a full-time handler, Magnus Forsberg, who makes sure the bugs are comfortable and fed. After the completion of the final the beetles will be released exactly where they were found.

Each day 8 of the beetles will compete in qualifying rounds, with fastest bugs meeting in the final Friday.

Residents of Sweden and Denmark can even place a ‘real’ bet on their favorite bug using the popular betting site Bettson. Prizes for participants who score the most points by guessing winning bugs and their times include trips to Swedish Touring Car Races, an Arsenal game in London or a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1.

The Bug Run was created by DDB Stockholm.

Sweden

 

Filed Under: Advertising & Marketing, Automobiles Tagged With: , ,

If You’re Drunk Enough to Sing Karaoke, You Might Be Too Drunk to Drive

May 26, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Karaoke BreathalyzerI admire anyone brave enough to get up and sing karaoke, whether they have been enabled by some liquid courage or they actually have singing skills worth sharing. Singing in the shower? That’s more my style. I can only hope that my building neighbours enjoy my unique take on 80s classics like ‘Living on a Prayer’ and ‘The Safety Dance’ at 7am.

But this promotion is not about bad singing, it’s about raising awareness about the issue of drunk driving. The folks that previously brought you the creative ‘$73,000 Bar Tab‘ and ‘Drunk Valet‘ experiential campaigns, Sao Paulo’s Bar Aurora and restaurant Boteco Ferraz present their 2012 drunk driving awareness campaign ‘Karaoke Breathalyzer’.

To ‘alert’ the would-be singers (why, oh why do they choose Bohemian Rhapsody?) aware of their ‘condition’, they rigged-up the karaoke microphones with breathalyzers. When each song ended, the screen would show their blood-alcohol reading instead of their karaoke score.

The campaign was created by Ogilvy, Sao Paulo, with the video clip produced by Bossa Nova Films.

Filed Under: Advertising & Marketing, Food & Drink Tagged With: , , ,

Holographic Lingerie Model Struts Stuff in Paris Shop Window

May 26, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Empriente lingerieAt Empreinte l’Atelier lingerie, curious passerby are being stopped in their tracks by what appears to be a lingerie model in the shop window. The masked model appears in the Paris store window in a burst of stars, strikes a pose or two and then disappears again.

The technology used is likely very similar to that used to create the illusion that the late rapper Tupac Shakur was performing onstage with Snoop Dogg at Coachella. It that case, animation created by Hollywood special effects studio Digital Domain, was projected onto an angled sheet of mylar foil, known as Musion Eyeliner. These experiences are best described as a ‘holographic illusion’ rather than a hologram.

These illusions are actually an updated adaption of a 19th century magician’s trick known as ‘Pepper’s Ghost‘, which used hidden rooms, reflections and special lighting to achieve it’s effect.

Filed Under: Advertising & Marketing, Experiential, Retail Tagged With: , ,

KLM promotes ‘Meet & Seat’ Program with Celebrity Seatmate Contest

May 26, 2012 by Leave a Comment

KLM Meet & Seat programEarlier this year Dutch airline KLM introduced a ‘Meet & Seat‘ program. Passengers who connected their Linkedin or Facebook to their booking could see the profiles of other passengers who had also chose to share their profiles. Connections could be made to get together prior, during or after the flight… and it was widely panned as being ‘really’ creepy.

Meet & Seat is still around, and KLM is promoting the program with ‘Ne My Guest’, a contest where you can not only win a great trip to a cool destination, but you can also choose a well-known Dutch celebrity to sit beside you on the flight.

You (and a friend, I assume they have to sit somewhere else on the plane) can join footballer Ruud Gullit on a trip to London to watch a Chelsea game; party backstage with DJ Armin van Buuren (somewhere) in the US, fly with supermodel Yfke Sturm to Couture Fashion Week in New York, attend the La Biennale Film Festival in Venice with actor and director Jeroen Krabbe, designer Hella Jongerius at the Oranjebaum Exhibition in Berlin, or finally join the first Dutch astronaut Wubbo Ockels (best name ever) for a space flight training mission.

KLM is on a winning streak of very creative initiatives over the past year including a day when they gathered together 140 employees to tweet replies, added 4000 of their Facebook fans photos to a plane and hosting a dance party on a plane at 35,000 feet to promote a new Amsterdam-Miami route.

Netherlands

Filed Under: Advertising & Marketing, Travel & Tourism Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

A Flock of Seagulls Plays A Flock of Seagulls

May 25, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Cape Cod Potato Chips - A Flock of SeagullsOne of the defining images of the 1980s was the gravity-defying hair style of Mike Score, lead singer of A Flock of Seagulls. Mike had actually been a hairdresser before the band took off in the early 80s with the worldwide hit “I Ran (So Far Away)”. The original group disbanded in 1986, reforming for a brief tour and VH1 performance in 2003 before going their separate ways again. Mike Score still tours as A Flock of Seagulls with various musicians, bringing the music of the 1980s to new generation. Here’s a review of a recent show in Miami.

The 1980s classic has now been resurrected for this ad for Cape Cod Potato Chips. In the ad a man snacks away as a voice over says, “What could be better than Cape Cod Chips… maybe if you ate them on a beach while a flock of seagulls sings A Flock of Seagulls”. The singing seagulls even sports a mini version of Mike Score’s iconic hairstyle, and the drummer has a distinct pecking style to his work.

If you’re eligible, Cape Cod Potato Chips are giving away a a year’s supply of chips to random fans on their Facebook page.

The ad was created by Baltimore-based agency GKV, and produced by Rhythm and Hue Studios.

Filed Under: Advertising & Marketing, Music Tagged With: , ,

Fans (Literally) Download Band to the Stage at Coca-Cola Sponsored Rock Show

May 22, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Coke FM Download ConcertHow many times have you gone to a rock concert and thought the band playing up on stage was high. In the case of this concert in Bogata, Colombia sponsored by Coca Cola to promote its online radio station , the band was indeed high, 50 metres high to be exact. (I know, bad joke… and just say no to drugs)

The band began their performance on a small platform 50 metres above the stage. The only way the audience could get the band lowered to stage level was to ‘download’ their songs. Each time the audience downloaded a song, the band played it and they were lowered 10 metres until they eventually reached the stage level.

50,000 songs were downloaded from the website in just an hour, which saw 337% more visitors than usual.

The stunt was created by Ogilvy & Mather Bogata and was so successful that similar concerts are now planned for Quito (Ecadour), São Paulo and Mexico City.

Filed Under: Advertising & Marketing, Experiential, Music Tagged With: , ,

MusicBunk promotes Music Discovery App by Tossing Vinyl Records

May 22, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Musicbunk Vinyl Toss Viral4 friends of Pasadena agency Conscious Minds spent two days tossing vinyl albums onto a turntable in order to capture the successful landings you see in the video. The stunts are reminiscent of Ray Ban ‘Never Hide’ video from 2007 (5.1 million views) or Levi’s ‘Jeans Jump’ clip from 2008 (almost 8 million views).

The video went unbranded for a week, but now has been revealed as a promotion for MusicBunk. MusicBunk is an app that helps find out who likes the same music you do and connect with them to share songs and playlists.

While a few people will be shocked by the vinyl abuse, but anyone who’s visited a flea market or swap meet knows there’s enough scratched up vinyl to play around with.

The MusicBunk app is available for iPhone and Android.

USA

Filed Under: Advertising & Marketing, Mobile, Music Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Camp Nectar Creates ‘Real’ Fruit Boxes From ‘Real’ Fruit

May 21, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Camp Nectar Real Juice BoxesThe video really explains it all, and they sing it to the tune of ‘Old McDonalds’s Farm’. Camp Nectar wanted a way to promote that their juice boxes are made with real fruit juices.

Brazilian ad agency ageisobar came up with the idea to create ‘real’ fruit boxes. They created plastic molds and placed them around the passion fruits and guava still growing on the trees on a farm in Paranapanema.

After two years of experiments, they finally achieved their goal and were able to create over 1100 of the juice-box shaped fruits.

The results of their efforts were exhibited in supermarkets, fairs and fruit markets.

It’s not the first time we’ve seen fruits grown in odd shapes, back in 2009 a Japanese farmer grew heart-shaped watermelons and not to be outdone the chinese grew pears in the shape of Buddah.

Brazil

Filed Under: Advertising & Marketing, Experiential, Food & Drink Tagged With: , ,

Wellington Craft Beer Competition Promoted By Beer Brewed in a Bus Shelter

May 21, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Wellington in a Pint

Click photo to view album (photo fr. Wellington in a Pint Facebook page)

The folks at Wellington, NZ ad agency ClemengerBBDO have gotten together with the pubs of Craft Beer Capital and craft breweries Parrotdog, Tuatara, Garage Project and Yeastie Boys (best name ever) to try to capture the spirit of the New Zealand capital in the ‘Wellington in a Pint’ campaign.

As part of the campaign, Anderson Design created a special shelter on Manners Street, in which they placed a special 30 litre tank (with UV coating to protect it from the sun, and heating pads to protect it from cold) of wort to ferment. In the photo album caption they admit, “it probably won’t taste very good, so we’re calling it Bad Manners”.

Round 1 began in April, and participants were asked to submit their creative idea desrcibing Wellington would be via the website or on the back of special beer-mats. A few of the more colorful examples include “”Bohemian Armpit – flavoured with a hint of cumin and patchouli”, “Courtenay’s Tears – a youthful beer best drunk on a Friday” or “Black Umbrella – dark and blows you away”.

Round 2 is the creative brewing portion where home brewers can step up and make a beer of their own to submit. For winners will be selected by a crew of judges that includes local chefs, footballers, cricketers and New Zealand’s foremost doom, stoner-rock metal group ‘Beastwars'(!!)

Round 3 will see craft breweries Parrotdog, Tuatara, Garage Project and Yeastie Boys selecting one each of the winning beers, refine it and turn it into a professional craft beer for the beer-loving masses.

On June 27 the beers will be released to the thirsty public in Wellington, and yes, I just went and checked on flights to New Zealand ($2400 return from Toronto).

The campaign is brilliantly supported by social media, including a Facebook page, Twitter profile, Google Maps and Foursquare tip list.

New Zealand

Filed Under: Advertising & Marketing, Experiential, Food & Drink Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

National Geographic Launches ‘Untamed Americas’ Instagram Contest

May 21, 2012 by Leave a Comment

National Geographic Launches Untamed Americas Instagram ContestPhotography has always been a major part of the National Geographic publications. It sounds cliche but the first time I experienced the magazine was at the dentist’s office while i was a kid. As the oldest of my brothers, I always chose to be the last one to be ‘treated’. So there was lots of time to flip through the pages of whatever issues of the magazine were laying about.

With Instagram being the hottest thing of the moment, it’s natural to see the National Geographic use the photo sharing app as part of it’s projects. This spring National Geographic Channel and Nat Geo Wild will broadcast the insanely cool-looking ‘Untamed Americas‘, a four hour HD mini-series event spanning the Americas from Alaska to Patagonia.

To compliment the series, National Geographic Channels wants to see your pics of ‘Untamed Americas’ – just follow @natgeochannels on Instagram and submit your photo with the hashtag #UntamedAmericas between May 5, 2012 at midnight through June 18, 2012. Photos will be judged by host of Nat Geo WILD’s America the Wild Casey Anderson; landscape photographer and Instagram artist extraordinaire Cole Rise; and Cynthia Drescher, editor of the travel guide Jaunted.

Winners can receive prizes including a National Geographic camera bag filled with a Nikon D3100 SLR Digital Camera with 18-55mm VR & 55-200mm VR Lenses & basic kit, a Glif (a fantastic tool for iphoneography), a subscription to National Geographic Magazine, a National Geographic Channel Jacket, Hat, Water Bottle, Binoculars and Untamed Americas DVDs, and a limited edition signed print by Cole Rise.

USA

Filed Under: Advertising & Marketing, Art & Design Tagged With: , , ,