Ginger Joe Beer Creates a Big Hairy Deal With London Billboard

Ginger Joe's London BillboardWhile 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.

Remembrance Day Project ‘Network43’ Shares Wartime Tweets of London Residents

Network 43 - Tweeting through the London BlackoutSince it’s launch more than 5 years ago Twitter has become the source of breaking news and commentary for dozens of major events around the world from air crashes, natural disasters, celebrity deaths, political debate and revolution. Before Twitter and Facebook our online discussions and sharing were mostly confined to commenting on news sites and blogs, instant messaging systems amongst our family and friends or literally hanging out at the office water cooler.

It’s interesting to imagine how past events may have been discussed or shared if social networks like Twitter or Facebook existed back then. With that concept in mind, London ad agency muirhoward have taken that idea and created Network43, a campaign launched in honour of Remembrance Day. The campaign documents the experiences of four Londoners during the three weeks between October 20th and November 11, 1943.

The campaign was inspired by conversations about the experiences of the grandmother of an muirhoward employee. The grandmother had been an evacuee during the war, and had attended 20 schools during that time. Four Twitter personas were created for the campaign including; Billy (@SpitfireBilly) a 14 year-old ex-evacuee; Ellie Blackwood (@EllieSE18), a 21 year-old factory worker; Kay Parker (@KayMakes), a 25 year-old school teacher; and Spr. James Campbell (@SprJames), a 28 year old soldier recovering from an injury.

The information for the tweets was drawn from The British Library Newspaper Archive, Greenwich Heritage Centre, London Fire Brigade Museum, experts, as well as the personal accounts and diaries of people who experienced that time period.

via The Drum.

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

Ted Baker - Rutting Season CampaignLondon 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.

Chelsea Footballers Get Their Kicks Battling Space Invaders

Chelsea footballers battle space invadersLet’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.

Blippar App Launches with Augmented Reality Game for Cadbury

Blippar Cadbury Spots v StripesHighly 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.

Stella Artois Presents The Black Diamond Immersive Experience

Stella Artois Curse of the Black DiamondThis summer a few lucky Londoners have been invited to a very special immersive experience commissioned by Stella Artois and orchestrated by Felix Barrett and the Punchdrunk Theatre Company to promote their Stella Artois Black Lager. The same partnership produced a similar immersive experience last year called The Night Chauffeur.

In early July, invitations were sent out to people in London to attend a special party. Invitees knew when and where to go but not much about what they were about to experience. Guests arrived at the warehouse is Shoreditch, East London, which had been designed to look like a Paris family home in 1963. Besides the invited guests, the party included a number of actors playing roles within the Black Diamond storyline. It turns out the party is being hosted by a young diamond-cutter named Jacques Ferre, and that night he is set to give his girlfriend Cecile a rare black diamond.

Later at the party a man is chased from the room by Jacques. It turns out that the black diamond has been stolen and Jacques shouts to the crowd of guests asking if they had seen anything. The party is brought to an abrupt leaving the guests in a state of confusion.

A few weeks later the guests are summoned to a secret location in small groups to play out the remaining six scenes in the story. The scenes played over the next hour at several locations as guests interacted with actors playing the various characters in the story. If you’re curious whether there was a happy ending you can read a first-hand account of the Black Diamond experience by the folks at DesignBridge.

For the rest of us not lucky enough to be involved personally in the London experience, we can follow the story at the Stella Artois Black Diamond website. The site was created by London agency Unit 9.