Burn your way to Money

To continue the theme of 'fire' and Publicis Mojo work, this is a cool little idea to encourage charity donations. On the site, you can pay $3, choose steam or fire, and see your chosen method of destruction blast away a block of ice. There is $40,000 dollars trapped inside, which all goes to the support the Auckland City Mission. Apparently it is a metaphor for the city's poor families during winter, but to be honest it is interesting because it is an innovative way to get small donations. More charities should be embracing these short-term, awareness raising campaigns alongside their long-term cause driven communications (see the TCT events). It's also another great example of people wanted things to happen in the real world when they are clicking around online.

Burn Films

We just came across this new work from Publicis Mojo in Sydney for Burn, Coca cola's new energy drink. Unlike the hyped, high-octane approach taken by most energy drinks, Coke has chosen communities where "energy" plays a real role. There are three films, all shot documentary style to preserve the realism of these communities. The skate one in particular is very reminiscent of Spike Jonze's Lakai Intro. They can all be found on the Mojo website (in much better quality), and are pretty awesome. It is a big shift for Coca-Cola, in the way they approach communications.
"The crux of our approach was to involve pre-existing communities in the creation and distribution of the key campaign assets, rather than the brand launching it on its own," said Micah Walker, ECD Mojo Sydney.

Marketing Water

This great idea from UNICEF is the latest in a series of creative ideas for water, of all things. One of the most ubiquitous and boring substances on earth (deep sea creatures excluded) has been inspiring some brilliant work. This example saw dirty water vending machines being installed in New York (more in the video). Previously there was also the interesting stuff from Droga5 Tap Project where diners paid for their tap water, with their money going to charity. Lastly there has been some good work from Tappening, such as the "Start a Lie" campaign.

The Week's cool stuff

As a challenge to our current Saatchi and Saatchi interns, they have been sending me cool things they see on the internet. If I've seen them I get a point, and if I haven't they do- the winner buys the drinks (the challenge shamelessly stolen from @on_jay). Here are some of the ones I hadn't seen. The winner will be announced at the end of the week.
Paintball painting - The new 3D projection?
Red Bull - Great use of Youtube annotations adding interactivity
SyFy - Very cool zooming website for Tin Man (following on from their amazing Alice in Wonderland work)
Double Rainbow song - Fantastic meme. For the original video see above, and for an explanation of what the hell this is, go here.

Perrier Teases us

It is only July, and 2010 has already given us more immersive online experiences than you can shake a stick at. There were the Adidas streetview and Fight Club mashups at the start of the year, Lexus Dark Ride which raised the bar again, and now this, from Perrier of all people. It is mildly NSFW, which you could have guessed from the inclusion of Dita Von Teese, but it is worth a look. You follow Dita through the Perrier mansion, playing games and eventually watching her shower in Perrier. Though not including any of the Facebook integration of other examples, it holds the attention (of men), and is exactly the sort of interactive content which we will begin to see more and more of.

Touch screens and the Ipad teach us to expect interactivity from everything; books and ads to videos. The question is what happens when the novelty inevitably wears off.

Perrier by Dita

Old Spice win again

Now this is good. The Old Spice ads, though perfect examples of content which spreads well online, are still just bits of video which broadcast to an audience. The latest bit of genius from W+K changes the model though, responding to a tweet asking for an interview. Suddenly we are not just watching a broadcast but taking part in a conversation. When the brand starts engaging with its audience to this extent (or this), things start to get pretty exciting.
UPDATE: There are more of them. They have also promoted "old spice" as a trending topic on Twitter.

The Mad Men School of Seduction

It is Friday afternoon, its hot, and so its time for a video. Marvel at the subtle and charming seduction of the Mad Men.

Augmented Reality Mario

This video is part of a Bachelor thesis, but shows what can be done with augmented reality. Technology allows us to use the world as a canvas, and play with our environment. There will be a lot more where this came from.

Cheeky Internet Shenanigans

As Justin Bieber contemplates an ill-advised "Suicide Tour" to North Korea, we can all rest easy that the Internet remains as anarchic, witty and ridiculous as ever. What started as a marketing ploy to encourage people to vote on where Bieber should tour, quickly developed into a viral campaign to send him to Kim Jong-il's dictatorship.

Amusing yes, surprising no. This is just the latest prank in a long history of internet anarchy, which stamps on any brand, celebrity or individual who naively opens themselves up to the web. A lot of it comes from 4chan (very much NSFW), the lawless image posting site, but the whole online community has always been averse to rules. Here are some of our favourites examples.


Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf- In 1998, at the very birth of the internet, a vote for People.com’s Most Beautiful Person of the year gave an unexpected winner.
The Penguin- A competition to redesign the UGC boot went spectactularly wrong when this ugly design won.
BMX-  This is why you don't ask the internet for help.
Rage against the Machine- Facebook-organized campaign to deny Simon Cowell number 1.
Skittles Twitter- A good example of big-brand naivety and an over-the-top reaction from cruel tweeters, who abused the open twitter feed. (See also CashGordon and MyDavidcameron for political examples)
Amazon Reviews- The internet has outdone itself in hunting out the useless and weird amongst  Amazon's product catalogue. Have a read of the brilliantly written comments for the Tuscan Milk and related products.

We are all workers

We really like this new work from Levis and W+K. The idea was to create something tangible and long-lasting, which they have undoubtedly done. It is a great development of the "Go Forth" campaign, managing to balance heritage with a more forward-looking view. There's a good interview in Contagious which reveals more.

The real life social network

This interesting presentation has been doing the rounds on Twitter, and is definitely worth a look. It is by Paul Adams, a "user-experience researcher" at Google, and it really gets to the heart of why Facebook "friends" are such an unnerving phenomenon.

The Stories of Objects

As if more examples were needed that we are increasingly looking for real things in the real world (rather than stuff on screens), we just came across Itizen. This allows you to tag objects which mean something to you and upload them. You can then pass them on so that the object may collect stories. It is a great example of digitally augmenting real world objects, and adding value to existing behaviour.

Also see:

Objects as storage devices - Interesting thoughts on PSFK
The Value of Things - Book from 2000 which is becoming increasingly relevant
The Comfort of Things - Recently published and getting great reviews

Shopbabbles- social media and shopping

In what is fast becoming a bumper week for blog posts (and an inefficient week for doing other work), here is another post. Shopbabbles is a blog focusing on where social media and shopping overlap. Its Saatchi & Saatchi run, and seems to have a lot of interesting stuff worth checking out.

Ad of the Week

Old Spice is back, and the general consensus seems to be that this is, incredibly, even better than the original. The same quirky wit and innovative 1-shot execution remain, and it has already been viewed almost 300k times. Well done W+K and P&G.

Engaging your Tweeters

In many ways it is pretty easy to show you care as a brand these days, as with pretty minimal investment you can monitor what people are saying and respond. However Wheat-thins have taken it one stage further, and in replying to a tweet have also got some great content for a hundred thousand people to view.

UPDATE: In fact looking at the comments they may even have started a meme. Look out for "Aaah I'm out of___, My life is officially over" popping up elsewhere.