I am sitting alone in my office, literally laughing out loud at Help I Can't Sleep's Dream Recommender. Just when I thought Help's marketing couldn't get any more brilliant. Seriously, the balding, and the cow milking! Too funny. It makes me want to go to sleep immediately.
Another one to file under Damn-I-wish-I-had-thought-of-that.
I'm thoroughly enjoying Diesel's new Be Stupid campaign. They make a pretty compelling case for stupid. How can you argue with logic like "Stupid has all the stories" or "If we didn't have stupid thoughts, we'd have no interesting thoughts at all"? I am starting to see how stupid can be brilliant.
Oh my goodness, this Intel Rock Star commercial is just too funny. Is it just me, or does this resonate with anyone else?
I can. I'm loving Porsche's new I Can website. It's gorgeously designed with simple and elegant graphics and animations. The best part of the site is the Picture It feature which allow you to upload a picture of your house and place a Porsche in your drive way. Love it.
Pepsi updated their logo and product graphics a few months ago. Like any rebranding, there have been mixed reactions. Personally, I really like them. I appreciate that have given some life to the brand by allowing the logo to be slightly organic. The stripe in the Pepsi logo changes size according to the beverage type. Diet Pepsi gets a skinny stripe and Pepsi Max gets a seriously fat stripe. I am pretty sure that this goes against all traditional branding rules, but I like it. It actually gives the brand a little more personality. I hope the trend catches on. (Thanks Brett).
These lunch boxes are a great example of packaging design by Emma Smart. Each sandwich box opens up into an image of a place setting. There are three different lunch box themes (Satisfying, Healthy and Children's), each with an appropriate design. I would be so thrilled if I opened my lunch box to find this. It shows how much emotional enjoyment design can add to an experience. Emma created these lunch boxes for ASDA as part of a student project a few years ago.
Ginga Interactive in Brazil has been working hard to promote the movie Twilight. One of their advertising approaches has been a series of interactive posters in Sao Paulo subway stations. The posters are touchable, allowing subway passengers to explore the content. They can watch and control clips from the film, browse character profiles and download information to their mobile phones. Watch a video of the interactive posters here.
I generally browse the web on high speed. Sprint's Now Network Widget made me stop in my browsing tracks and pause in one place for a few minutes. The widget displays all sorts of semi-useless, but incredibly interesting information about what is happening around the world and the web right now. Displayed info includes tons of eggs being produced, the top word being used online, number of calls being made to 911, and much more. I'm still watching the numbers tick...
I was in Starbucks this morning and I noticed this bite sized dose of GOOD Magazine. They promise fresh topics every Thursday. This is great advertising because to read GOOD is to love it. Are other magazines taking this taste test approach?
Electronic devices get such a bad rap for taking people out of the NOW. A new series of Xbox Ads, entitled Live Your Moment, embraces the immersive entertainment experience. The visually stunning ads start with a slow motion view of an emotion overcoming a person's face and then spin around to show the experience happening in their head. Very effective.
The San Fransisco Zoo has a fun participatory ad campaign called Critter Quest. They use a series of 4 bus shelter poster depicting pieces of animals. Passersby are encouraged to take a picture of themselves as a peacock, giraffe, butterfly or kudu and send it to the San Fransisco Zoo website gallery. This is a great advertising idea. It's fun, it gets people interested and involved, and it gives people a reason to visit the website. (Found through Marketing Alternatif).
Nervo Design and Animation has created these great animations for Zune. There are 5 unique animations. The short videos are meant as a branding accompaniment for Zune events and presentations. They are slightly random but in a interestingly captivating way. (Found through one of my favorites, Computerlove).
I found this image on Flickr, of a flower shop with a sign in the window reading "We're famous, find us on Google Maps". This is cheeky and brilliant marketing on the part of Google.co.uk. It's simple, comical, and works for any store.
Get London Reading is a campaign to encourage Londoners to make more time for reading. The campaign includes this great advertising graffiti (featuring book quotes) and a fabulous interactive map showing books set in the different neighborhoods. This is a nice idea for people living in London as well as visitors to the city. It encourages reading or allows you to experience the communities where your favorite books took place. More cities should adopt this idea.
Ha! This is the first diaper commercial that I have seen clearly aimed at men, and it's super funny. Props to Huggies for taking this direction. Hopefully this will be a good lesson to all baby product manufactures - marketing to men is not that hard.
Ha! I'm loving the combination of retro references in this ad for Last FM. It's a bit misquoted, but making me giggle none the less.
Check out this awareness test advertisement created by Transport for London. I won't say too much about it. You have to just watch it for yourself.
The Nokia Nseries has created an interesting website where they tell a tale of 4 bloggers traveling around the globe and taking pictures, to help sell the Nokia 5 megapixel, GPS enabled phones. The advertising story goes like this... "Once upon a time, 4 travelers began a global quest. They beat a path through our urban jungles to seek out untold stories - to capture time, only to release it back into the world. And they laid out a trail so we cannot lose them". You can track the bloggers' travels and view their geo-tagged photos as the post them. It's a cool, overly dramatized take on selling a phone - I like it. (Found through Comuptuerlove).
I'm head over heals (spelling error intended) for the folks over at Help. Their product offering is pretty simple. It consists of two products: Acetaminophen tablets entitled 'Help I Have a Headache' (Ha!) and band aids entitled 'Help I've Cut Myself' (Haha!). Their product line alone totally had me sold on the company... but there's more. They also try to be socially responsible. All of their packaging is made out of 100% recycled molded paper pulp and manufactured in the US by a factory that helps adults with learning disabilities. They also have a sense of humor. You can order customized 'Help I...' t-shirts on their website, where you fill in the blank with whatever tickles your funny bone. If all that doesn't make them awesome enough, they also offer other Help activities such as Help I'm Bored, Help I'm Illiterate, or Help I'm Homesick (my personal favorite!). I'm not sure who is behind the company Help, but I've decided you are totally awesome!
