Hitchcock Movie Promoted with #Hitchshots Instagram Contest

Hitchcock - Instagram HitchshotsThe weekend before Halloween I spent most of a cold and dark Saturday watching Alfred Hitchcock movies. Included in my Hitchcock marathon were Rear Window, North by Northwest, Vertigo, The Rope, The Birds and of course, Psycho.

Since then I’ve become equally suspicious of all my neighbours, high places, crop-dusting planes, birds and especially showers.

Hitchcock, due for release on November 23, follows Hitchcock (played by Anthony Hopkins) and his wife Alma Reville (Helen Mirren) during the time when the legendary director struggled to get the movie Psycho made. The movie also stars Scarlett Johansson as Janet Leigh, Toni Collette as Hitchcock’s production assistant Peggy Robertson, and James D’Arcy as the original ‘mother-lover’, Anthony Perkins.

To promote the movie’s release, Searchlight Pictures have launched the Hitchshots photo contest. To enter, participants post their best Hitchcock-inspired Instagram photos with the hashtag #hitchshots. The 10 photos which receive the most amount of shares and likes (I assume, just on Instagram), will win their owner an autographed poster showcasing the movie’s all-star cast.

I’m not a fan of using ‘likes’ and ‘shares’ as a the method of choosing a winner, since Instagram users with large audiences easily receive hundreds of likes’ for nearly anything they post.

USA

Hobbit Characters Prepare for Takeoff in Air New Zealand Safety Video

Air New Zealand - An Unexpected Briefing

Air New Zealand has become well-known for their creative flight safety videos including one featuring flight crews wearing just body paint and another with fitness guru Richard Simmons (who thankfully was wearing real clothes).

Air New Zealand’s latest safety video (embedded below), features a flight crew and plane cabin full of characters from the upcoming movie ‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey‘, including Peter Jackson, and author J.R.R. Tolkien’s great-grandsons Mike and Royd Tolkien.

The video is part of Air New Zealand’s sponsorship partnership with The Hobbit, which includes the (temporary) re-branding of the Airline of Middle-Earth.

Viewers should watch for the Elvish script, then enter to win a trip for two to New Zealand, which includes a tour of the Hobbit movie set, a visit to the Weta Cave, and double passes to the movie premiere of ‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey’.

The safety video was created in partnership with Jackson’s Weta Workshop and Weta Digital.

[via mUmBRELLA)

New Zealand

German Film Director Creates an Epic Spec Ad for Steiff Teddy Bears

Steiff - Don't Be Afraid of the Dark

In 1902, while on a hunting trip in Mississippi, then US President Theodore ‘Teddy’ Roosevelt, refused to shoot a black bear that had been tied to a tree by other members of the hunting party. The incident became the subject of a Washington Post cartoon by Clifford Berryman, who created a modified version of the incident by illustrating a smaller, cuter version of the bear… and by not mentioning that the Roosevelt instructed the bear be ‘put out of its misery’.

Inspired by the story (and cartoon), Morris Michtom and his wife Rose created ‘Teddy’s bear’, and displayed it in their New York shop window. At the same time in Germany, the Steiff company were producing a stuffed bear based on Richard Steiff’s design. By 1906, the bears had become collectively known a ‘teddy bears’ and Steiff created the trademark ‘Steiff – Button in Ear’ to standout from imitators.

Now 110 years later, German film director, Denis Parchow has created a spec commercial for Steiff called ‘Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark’. If you are unfamiliar with the term, it simply means speculative, in some cases an ad will be created to help sell an idea, concept or the capabilities of a company or individual.

The spec ad features a young boy running through the forest pursued by a monster. After being cornered, he awakes to find his trusty Steiff teddy bear in his arms. When the monster appears in his room, the teddy bear springs into action slapping the monster with a pillow, then delivering a fight-ending karate kick. The ad ends with the message ‘Steiff: Protecting children since 1902’.

Is this an ad the company would have come up with on their own? Probably not, but I’m interested to hear about their reaction.

Germany

Martyn Ashton Borrows £10,000 Tour de France-Winning Bike for Off-Road Thrill Ride

Martyn Ashton - Road Bike Party

In ‘Road Bike Party’, Welsh mountain bike trials rider, Martyn Ashton borrows a road bike from his friends and takes it on the ride of it’s life. But, this is not just any bike, the Pinarello Dogma 2 is a £10,000 carbon framed road bike, and was used by Team Sky’s Bradley Wiggins to win the 2012 Tour de France.

The video was shot in various locations around the UK, beginning calmly enough on a country road. Soon enough, Martyn is doing front-wheel stands and somersaults in a skatepark, then he’s doing wheel crushing jumps off of concrete blocks. But, it’s his ride across the bridge arch and along the top of the rock wall that makes my knees go wobbly.

The film, which has gained over 4.7 million views on YouTube in just 7 days, was produced by Ashton Bikes and directed by Robin Kitchin, features the song ‘Sometimes’ by Sound of Guns.

[via Bicycling.com]

UK

Star with Topher Grace in New Toshiba/Intel Social Film ‘The Beauty Inside’

Toshiba/Intel The Beauty Inside - Social FIlm Experience

Last July Intel and Toshiba teamed up to sponsor ‘The Inside Experience‘ an interactive social film directed by D.J. Caruso (Disturbia) and starring Emmy Rossum (of HBO’s Shameless). Rossum played Christina, a young woman who wakes up in a strange sealed-off room, where she discovers an Intel-powered Toshiba laptop with a dicey connection to an untraceable web connection. Christina uses social media to ask for help to escape and discover the identity of her captors by posting content to her Facebook, Twitter and YouTube accounts. The audience could determine certain aspects within the story, influence its direction, as well as audition to star in the series themselves.

This summer the two tech firms are back to sponsor a new social film entitled ‘The Beauty Inside’, the story of Alex, a 20 something man living in Los Angeles who has woken up every day in his life with a new physical appearance (you may be seeing where this is going already). Fans can audition for the role of Alex on the ‘The Beauty Inside’ Facebook page. Since Alex’s appearance changes everyday, multiple people (both male and female) will be chosen to play the role.

The film is being directed by Sundance-Award winning director Drake Doremus and will star Topher Grace (That 70s Show), and Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Scott Pilgrim vs the World). Episode 1 on Thursday August 16 at 3:00pm PST on Facebook.

The project was developed by LA agency Pereira & O’Dell and and production company B-Reel.

via Creativity-Online

USA

Amazing 3D Street Art Promotes European Release of The Dark Knight Rises

Dark Knight Rises - 3D Street Art, MadridStreet artists 3D Joe and Max (Joe Hill and Max Lowrey) have traveled the world creating mind-bending optical illusions for brands such as Disney, Sprite, and Google. They are best-known for creating distorted street art using a technique that when viewed from the correct angle create an optical illusion of extreme depth.

Last November, the duo braved the elements to claim Guinness Records for both the largest (3807 square feet) and longest (350 feet) piece of 3D artwork in a project promoting Reebok Crossfit.

Their latest mind blowing project was created on the streets of Madrid, Spain to mark the European release of the latest Batman movie,’The Dark Knight Rises‘. In the piece the street appears to be crumbling into a fiery lava pit shaped like the Batman logo.

Spain

Closed Paris Subway Station Serves as Stage for Prometheus Promotion

Prometheus Promo takes over closed Paris subway stationPassengers on the Paris Subway may have been surprised to look up and for a few seconds see a strange glimpse into the future or the past, as imagined in the upcoming movie ‘Prometheus‘.

The promotion takes over the Saint-Marten station, which has been closed since 1939. The station has been transformed into the cave from the movie where the explorers from Prometheus come across the origins of humanity.

The Prometheus ghost station will be live from May 16 to 25 between the Strasbourg-Saint-Denis and République stops.

Watch this brief clip of the view from inside the subway train as it passes by the promotion.

via Minute Buzz

France

Ridley Scott-directed Prometheus Creates Buzz with TED Video from 2023

PrometheusOne of the highly anticipated movies of the 2012 summer is the Ridley Scott-directed ‘Prometheus‘. It’s been widely speculated that the movie is a prequel to Scott’s 1979 movie ‘Alien’, however Scott recently revealed the connection between the two movies is actually the corporation behind the ships.

Prometheus is owned by an entrepreneur named Peter Weyland (played by Guy Pearce) and in Alien the Nostromo is owned by the Weyland-Yutani Corporation. A website has been created for Weyland Industries, celebrating its 50 years of Building Better Worlds. A video of Sir Peter Weyland’s talk at the 2023 TED Conference was just added to the site this week.

In the video we see that 11 years from now TED in held in a massive stadium with an audience of 36,000, and If you’ve watched the 2012 TED Presentation by Vijay Kumar about ‘Robots that fly… and cooperate’, you know that the flying robot cameras aren’t that far away.

Prometheus is scheduled to open in North America on June 8. Check out the trailer on YouTube, or visit the website, Facebook page or forum for news and updates.

Family Saved From Night of Chilling Horror in Jack Frost Teaser Ad

Who Can Stop Jack Frost?A mysterious video appeared on YouTube and the StopJackFrost.com site last week with all the elements of a typical horror movie; a dark cold night, an innocent family in peril, and a creepy little kid reciting part of Gabriel Setoun’s poem Jack Frost.

“The door was shut, as doors should be,
Before you went to bed last night;
Yet Jack Frost has got in, you see,
And left your window silver white.

He must have waited till you slept;
And not a single word he spoke,
But pencilled o’er the panes and crept
Away again before you woke…

Jack Frost takes every breath you breathe…”

The big reveal happened tonight (January 18) at StopJackFrost.com when the full video clip was posted. Several horror movie blogs were reporting that the teaser video was for a new UK indie horror movie that would screened on the site. However, a few ad industry blogs had been speculating that it was for a furnace or home heating company.

In fact, the teaser clip is a promotion for the Automobile Association Insurance Services boiler insurance product. The teaser video and campaign was very good at grabbing people’s attention (over 100,000 views in a week), but the integration of the Jack Frost creative into the site is disappointing and awkward.

The campaign was created by McCann Erickson and viral content specialist Rubber Republic.

30 Most Viewed Stories at RandyMatheson.com in 2011

Top 30 Posted Stories of 2011

The following list is an interesting collection of the the top 30 most viewed, searched for and shared stories on RandyMatheson.com in 2011.

30 / The 12 Days of Christmas Underwear
Bonds Christmas ad features Rachel Taylor eating canned pears in lingerie as Aussie crooner Jack Ladder channels Joy Division’s ‘Atmosphere’. Read more…

29 / Volkswagen AR Experiences
VW Canada’s campaign for the 2012 Beetle features an awe-inspiring AR experience over Toronto’s Dundas Square. Read more…

28 / Jonathan’s Starbucks Card
Mobile consultant Jonathan Stark invites the world out for coffee in a short-lived and much-debated ‘social experiment’. Read more…

27 / Moosejaw X-Ray App Reveals All
Outdoor clothing retailer Moosejaw launches x-ray vision app that reveals what’s underneath the warm clothes of it’s catalog models. Read more…

26 / Spongebob’s Frozen Face-off Goes Social
Nickelodeon uses Twitter to promote Spongebob Squarepants special with a week of Twitter trash talk between characters. Read more…

25 / Infectious Billboard for Contagion
Warner Brothers Canada posts a living billboard of bacteria and fungi to promote the release of pandemic-themed movie Contagion.Read more…

24 / Tetley Canada’s Shopping Butlers
Tetley Canada brings joy and confusion to grocery shoppers by replacing shopping carts with personal shopping butlers. Read more…

23 / Biker-filled Movie Theatre
Carlsberg directs unsuspecting couples into a movie theatre full of burly growling bikers. Who goes, who sticks around for a surprise ending?
Read more…

22 / Reebok Street Art
Reebok promotes Crossfit program at London’s Canary Wharf with an amazing record-breaking work of 3D street art.
Read more…

21 / Ballatine’s Interactive Tattoo
As part of their Human API campaign, whisky-maker Ballatine’s creates the world’s first interactive tattoo streamed live from their Facebook page.
Read more…

20 / Jack Daniels Letterpress Posters
Knoxville-based printers Yee-Haw Industries create gorgeous hand-crafted posters for Jack Daniel’s campaign.
Read more…

19 / Nike’s Back to the Future Shoes
Nike shoe designers create 1500 real-life versions of the Back to the Future MAG shoes and auctions them on eBay to benefit Michael J Fox foundation.
Read more…

18 / Starbucks AR mobile app
Starbucks releases ‘Magic Cup’, an augmented reality app that brings the coffee shop’s holiday-themed cups to life with animation.
Read more…

17 / Boston Pizza’s Playoff Rebrand
Boston Pizza jumps on the Canuck playoff bandwagon by rebranding it’s BC stores as Vancouver Pizza for the Stanley Cup finals.
Read more…

16 / Ariel Fashion Shoot
Laundry detergent brand Ariel lets Facebook users shoot a remote-control gun filled with chocolate, jam or ketchup at designer clothes… and win them.
Read more…

15 / O.B. Says Really Really Really Sorry via Song
Johnson & Johnson tampon brand O.B. responds to miffed customers by creating personalized apology song.
Read more…

14 / Karen O sings for Chipotle Halloween promo
Yeah Yeah Yeah’s Karen O provides vocals for Halloween-ish short film promoting the Chipotle Boorito campaign in benefit of the American family farm.
Read more…

13 / Honda Pilot’s Crazy Train
Ozzy Osbourne’s iconic 1980 hit ‘Crazy Train’ gets a unique a capella treatment in this fun Honda Pilot commercial.
Read more…

12 / You’re Never to Old to Sit on Santa
New York’s Improv Everywhere comedy troupe performs a holiday-themed surprise-musical for shoppers in a New Jersey mall.
Read more…

11 / Nissan Damned Ponies
A frustrated pickup driver opens the hood to find a group of prancing ponies that want nothing to do with getting dirty. Just when you think it’s over the leader turns into a demonic fire-breathing horse.
Read more…

10 / State Farm Giant Robots
The insurance provider brings the giant house-wrecking robot from their TV ad to your neighbourhood via an inventive Google Streetview mashup.
Read more…

9 / Red Hot Chili Peppers QR Code
A street poster campaign for the Peppers’ ‘I’m With You’ album features a QR code nicely integrated into the band’s logo.
Read more…

8 / Volkswagen Fans Vote on TV Ad
Volkswagen Canada’s Facebook Fans invited to choose scripts, car, cast and music for the latest TV commercial.
Read more…

7 / Spotify Launches in U.S.
After years of false starts, it was big news in July when European-based online music service Spotify finally launched in the U.S. (but still nothing for Canadian listeners)
Read more…

6 / Müller Wonderful Stuff Ad
German yogurt-brand threw everything on the screen, including unicorns, the Knight Rider car and Yogi Bear in this crazy TV commercial and campaign.
http://randymatheson.com/muller-wunderful-stuff-yogurt-campaign-features-unicorns-yogi-bear-k-i-t-t/

5 / Pan-Am Social Media
ABC launched an ambitious promotional campaign for Pan-Am using Facebook, Twitter, GetGlue to no avail as the series was shelved after just 9 episodes.
Read more…

4 / Mercedes Benz Blurs
Mercedes Benz Canada creates an attention grabbing street installation that makes their C-Class Coupe look fast even when parked on a Toronto street.
Read more…

3 / Canadian Tire Spirit Tree
Canadian Tire lights up Toronto’s Union Station with a 30 foot tall Christmas tree powered by the positive sentiment of social media.
Read more…

2 / Dermablend Covers-Up Zombie-Boy
Dermablend demonstrated the power of their skin coverage make-up by covering the tattoos of Montreal model Zombie-Boy.
Read more…

1 / TakeThisLollipop Creates Creepy Facebook Connection
A mysterious project provides Facebook users a creepy peek behind the screen.
Read more…

What were your favorite campaigns of 2011?