Newspaper 2.0!

With the arrival of iPad, Kindle and many such Portable tablets/Netbooks in the market, is this the future of the Newspaper. The New York Times brings to you Times Reader 2.0 recreating the newspaper experience. Which means you'll discover great articles that lead to more knowledge, insight and enlightenment.

Whether you're using Windows, a Mac or Linux, in less than a minute, you get everything you'd expect from The Times in print, delivered straight to your computer.



Once you download that day's New York Times, you're good to go. It's all in your computer. No wireless or Internet connection needed.

Is this the future of Newspaper? Check out their site here

The Pepsi Refresh Project

Pepsi launched the Refresh project, a grants scheme providing millions of dollars to fund good ideas, big and small, that make the world a better place. Pepsi has up to $1.3 million in Refresh grants to give out every month, ranging from $5000 through to $250,000. The social investment campaign, online at www.refresheverything.com, is being presented as Pepsi’s alternative to spending on television advertising at the SuperBowl this year.

Pepsi is collaborating with Hulu and Ford to tie the Refresh Project with an online reality show ‘If I Can Dream‘. The show, launched by 19 Entertainment, the owner and creator of American Idol, will follow five would be stars living in a Hollywood house as they try to make their way into the Los Angeles entertainment industry.

Source:
http://theinspirationroom.com/daily/2010/the-pepsi-refresh-project/#more-39145

Goo Mania - Celebrating the start of Creme Egg season

Cadbury Cadbury Creme Eggs has turned a gala premiere for Vertigoo into goo mayhem to celebrate the start of Creme Egg season. Creme Eggs are the best-selling confectionery item between New Year’s Day and Easter in the UK, with annual sales in excess of 200 million items and a brand value of approximately £45 million.

View the site here

Check out all the videos at http://www.youtube.com/user/CremeEggGooTube

Dodge Baby Made On Board

Chrysler’s Dodge was released on the Belgian market in 2007 as THE macho car brand. In 2008, the challenge was to sell the first Dodge family wagon while strengthening the macho image of the Dodge brand. Proximity BBDO came up with the concept of “Baby Made On Board”, a play on the “Baby on Board” stickers seen in the back of many family cars. Having a family car should be seen as a sign of virility, not the end of it. The Baby on Board campaign focused on conception, inviting prospects to test the backseat of the Dodge Journey, and make a baby during the test drive. The campaign won two Promo Lions at Cannes International Advertising Festival, a Gold and a Bronze, and a Gold at the Golden Awards of Montreux in the Web/Online/Viral/CD category.

Source:
http://theinspirationroom.com/daily/2009/dodge-baby-made-on-board/

World’s first music video in Excel - AC/DC

The brief was to reach 30 to 40-year-old men with 'a genuine blow-out moment in these serious times'. Sony Music Entertainment UK decided to offer them a moment of rock ‘n’ roll escapism at work. Most office workers are subject to a restrictive internet policy which essentially stops them from having fun. Sony Music Entertainment UK decided to raise two fingers to the IT department by including AC/DC’s music in an Excel spreadsheet, a file type allowed through every corporate firewall. Now we just had to make the spreadsheet compelling enough for people to pass it on. To achieve this Sony Music Entertainment UK created the world’s first music video in Excel with the video playing back real time, frame by frame in ASCII.

The Great Schlep

Elderly Jewish voters are a crucial voting block in Florida. In 2008, this group was beginning to lean towards John McCain. Droga5 targeted this group in a way they couldn’t refuse: by encouraging their pro-Obama grandchildren to visit and talk to them about Obama. Droga5 spread the word with a viral video featuring comedienne Sarah Silverman and a website that united, educated and inspired a younger generation to do their part. Millions viewed the video, 26,000 members united online and thousands of media outlets covered The Great Schlep. It was the first time in twelve years a democratic nominee won Florida.

LOVE DISTANCE Sagami Original 0.02

GT Tokyo used a genuine long distance couple for this campaign. They ran a 1,000km marathon, and images of the two were broadcasted live on the internet for a whole month. The couple were allowed to keep in contact only through blog, TV phone and SMS messages. Thus all correspondence between the couple was displayed to the public on the internet. This also provided users with a simulation of a long distance relationship. The men's site and the women's site were created separately; on the day of completion, the two sites come together as one. And that was when the name of the client and the product was revealed.

Source:
http://awards.dandad.org/2009/categories/onln/online-advertising/25046/love-distance

MySpace Fanvideo Campaign

A great way to promote its Music Section, MySpace uses technology to Get you 15 mins of Fame by integrating your Profile pic in the Music Videos of 50 Cent, Alicia Keys, N-Dubz, Florence & the Machine and Pixie Lott and more. First time ever using a competitors login access, MySpace has shown its interest in using technology to promote itself. Facebook Connect implementations have been shown to dramatically increase page views on sites with potentially viral content, so MySpace's media content, including MySpace Music is a perfect candidate for this.
Check out the Fanvideo site here

Touchless mobile interface

The clever Japanese geeks (Professor Masatoshi Ishikawa and Dr. Takashi Komuro) over at Tokyo University have come up with a new interface for mobile phones. This isn’t an application which you would be able to install onto your iPhone or Android phone though. Its a completely new thing. The so far named “vision-based Input Interface” new technology enables users of the mobile phone to control the device without actually touching it, kind of like an “in air” mechanism.

This means, the device utilies the interface’s ability to recognise in 3D the motion of finger movements, thus allowing direct control of the mobile.

Sounds complicated and it probably is, but to use it looks like a piece of cake, check out the video below.

While it is very fancy and all, a major drawback is that this new interface requires your device to have a camera that video capture at 154 fps. Also it may not be very convenient and practical, afterall who would want to control your mobile in such a way when you could just touch the screen instead?

Source:
http://www.gadgetlite.com/2010/01/05/latest-technology-touchless-mobile/

iSpy Levi’s Twitter Campaign Case Study

It’s the iSpy Levi’s Twitter Campaign Case Study from their innovative social play earlier this year. Levi’s sent out hand selected people in their signature jeans across Australia and New Zealand while clues were released through twitter as to their whereabouts, after following clues through out the day, all you had to do was ask the person if they were wearing Levi’s… if you were right, they dropped their pants and gave you the jeans on the spot! Very cool.

Source:
http://www.digitalbuzzblog.com/ispy-levis-twitter-campaign-case-study/