Nas is on the back page in new XXL with Jay Z on the cover. He’s rocking the MIKE23 Crackle Pullover hoodie.
Archive for June, 2006
New MIKE23 Gear
Jun 30
Kicksengine
Jun 30
KicksEngine is a visual tool that searches the latest listings of your favorite kicks on eBay. They do the work of coming up with relevant keywords for you so you don’t have to. All you have to do is click on the images and the latest results will appear, simple as that. Utilizing advanced search queries of the eBay API, their results work to eliminate spammed entries as much as possible so you get the most relevant and up to date listings.
Psycho Crusher, FTW!
Jun 28
NES Super Mario Bros. – Using M.Bison’s ultimate Psycho Crusher, for the ultimate win!
Marktd
Jun 28
Marktd is to marketing as Digg is to technology. Registered users submit marketing articles to the virtual library, and other users “mark†the ones they like to provide a scale of importance. It’s a really easy way to keep up with industry news without having to wade through all the trade publications.
CODE.TV
Jun 28
[via trendcentral]
CODE.TV is attempting to do something similar online for affluent Gen X and older Gen Y New Yorkers. Targeting 25-to-49-year olds earning $100,000 or more a year, the new broadband network is showcasing new clubs, restaurants, shops, and activities in the city and of course, the Hamptons, making it almost a multimedia version of New York magazine. Plans for a Los Angeles edition are already in the works.
With online video content being so successful right now, Code.tv could fare well. While the niche audience probably isn’t large enough to merit a “real†TV channel, we imagine that luxury marketers and advertisers may find Code.tv a one-stop shop for reaching consumers likely to reach for their (very sizeable) wallets.
Vodafone Journey
Jun 22
[via adcritic]
Who says corporate websites have to be mind-numbingly dull? Certainly not Vodafone Group, the global mobile communications giant that just unveiled an immersive online experience to introduce the company to consumers on a personal level. Following up on its award-winning “Future Vision” campaign for Vodafone in 2004, Swedish interactive agency North Kingdom designed the new experience, dubbed “The Vodafone Journey,” as a video-heavy “guided tour” of the company. “We knew we wanted personal and direct storytelling to show the inner soul and heart of the huge company that Vodafone is,” says creative director David Eriksson. “The ambition was to take the users by the hand and show them fragments from the world of Vodafone. We then made it possible to explore all these details and go deeper by themselves.”
Led by the friendly spokeswoman Lucy, the tour runs about five minutes and spans a multitude of settings, including an airport, a snowy ski slope, a tropical beach and a hi-tech office building. As Lucy journeys from location to location, she interacts with various “characters” that represent real stories from within the Vodafone community. “We worked to find real people and real stories that we thought could represent the different parts of the company,” says Eriksson. “It was very important that it feel authentic and genuine, and therefore we didn’t use any actors, and we used local languages to tell the stories.” In addition to Lucy’s informative monologue, users can click on a handy “tell me more” symbol at any point to pause the tour and learn more about a particular topic.
The biggest technical challenge for North Kingdom? “Integrating the video that was shot in real HD and making it work without demanding too much performance of the users’ computers,” says Eriksson. “Another big challenge was the complex structure of the storytelling, and implementing seamless navigation within and between the different movie clips, since there is so much to experience and see. We employed focus groups to make sure we created something that the users could understand and navigate.”
Droga5 Nabs Top Cyber Honors
Jun 22
Newcomer Droga5 took home the top Cyber Grand Prix at this year’s Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival. Droga5, the Publicis-backed creative boutique led by creative chairman David Droga, who is also chair of this year’s film and press juries, was honored for Marc Ecko’s “Still Free” viral film.
The short promotes the hip-hop clothier’s graffiti-based video game, which features a mysterious tagger who spray paints Air Force One. The game triggered a wave of media coverage, causing the Pentagon to deny that any such defacing actually occurred.
MOG – Music Social Network
Jun 20
Share your musical tastes with just a few clicks of the mouse. The world can see what you listen to. For real. For free.
Find others like your self. MOG automatically points the way.
Express your thoughts on music and everything else. MOG supports full blogging.
Audi — Art of the Heist
Jun 20
This campaign has been around for a while. It’s already accumulated a ton of awards and really broke the door open around alternate reality advertising campaigns. Here’s a link that was sent over by Steve Wax over at Campfire Media. It’s a terrfic presentation that McKinney did to highlight the narrative progression of the campaign.
Volvo Cars — The Hunt
Jun 20
Volvo buried a Volvo XC90 inspired by Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest. You have the opportunity to find it. And if you find it first, you can keep it. Simple as that. On the website, you’ll see a treasure map. This map will help you to find the Volvo XC90, all you need to do is learn how to read the map.
one red paperclip
Jun 16
So, the “One Red Paperclip” is the brainchild of Kyle MacDonald and his goal is to trade one red paperclip for a house. He started with one red paperclip on July 12th, 2005 and has been making a series of trades for bigger or better things. The current item up for trade is one role in a movie. If you want to be in a movie? Pop your offer over to him at (oneredpaperclip@gmail.com) or give me a shout at 310-689-8867.
Jackson Pollock
Jun 16
Here’s the Jackson Pollock inspired website by Miltos Manetas. I had a lot of fun with this one and if you want to front like an Abstract expressionist painter, give it a try. It’s simple to use and the interaction is so responsive to any slight movements and clicks of the mouse.
[from CNN]
ROME, Italy (AP) — The theme may be familiar but the technique is new: A standard cell phone camera to shoot an entire feature-length documentary on love and sex.
Italian filmmakers used a Nokia N90, a higher-end cell phone sold around the world, to produce the 93-minute “New Love Meetings,” which they say is the first feature film to be entirely shot with such a tool.
The technique underscores what has become a fixture in today’s world: The use of amateur video and cell phone cameras to immortalize moments in people’s lives.
“With the widespread availability of cell phones equipped with cameras, anybody could do this,” documentary co-director Marcello Mencarini said in a telephone interview from Milan. “If you want to say something nowadays, thanks to the new media, you can.”
Read more.
NEW YORK Organic said it would start an emerging platforms practice to help clients determine the opportunities in social networks, video games, video on demand and other new digital channels.
The new group will bring together practice leaders Organic has developed in these areas, combined with its “persona room” to form the Organic Experience Lab, the agency said. Organic has developed persona rooms for clients like DaimlerChrysler that replicate the living and working areas of target audiences.
To lead the unit, the San Francisco-based Omnicom Group shop hired Chad Stoller, who served 13 years at The Arnell Group, most recently as director of communications solutions. At Organic, he will be executive director of emerging platforms, reporting to CEO Mark Kingdon.
“Clients really want to understand how they become integrated in the digital lifestyle,” said Stoller.
With the explosion of digital media, several agencies have begun emerging platforms practice areas. Interpublic Group, for instance, has set up an emerging media lab in Los Angeles to introduce clients to new platforms.
PayPal Mobile says it has signed up EMI, Twentieth Century Fox, Oxfam, Stuff and Maxim magazines as its first text-to-buy partners in the U.K. The service enables users to buy things instantly by sending specific product codes via text message. The brand will then send the object to the user’s address as listed in its PayPal account. The company says it already has 10 million PayPal account holders residing in the U.K.
The Interaction Design Institute in Ivrea, which just recently moved to Milan had it’s end of semester thesis show last week. You can find an archival of the projects on the Experientia blog. Some of the projects include Ana Camila Pinho Amorim’s ‘uni.me’ and Aram Saroyan Armstrong’s ‘Pooptopia’. The Institute will eventually be absorbed by the Domus Academy’s ‘I-Design’ programme, so check out these projects now since the staff from Ivrea will not be moving to the Domus Academy. Could be your last opportunity to see work that represents the vision of the staff from Ivrea.
Motorola Mobilizes MySpace
Jun 13
Here’s another instance of a brand infiltrating the popular social network, MySpace. Not sure how impactful these branded profiles are anymore. Especially since this one particular profile for the motoQ is really just a glorified product feature that would typically be found on a branded website. In my opinion, I still think the Nikesoccer MySpace profile is the one to beat. Not only does it not shove product down the consumer’s throat, it also fosters dialogue about the members of the community. The other content giveaways on the Nikesoccer profile are fresh as well.
[via nytimes.com]
THE Reuters sign and the Nasdaq Tower in Times Square are two of the most valuable advertising spaces in the world. Now, with a deal to be announced today, advertisers can rent both spaces at once — and create a virtual roadblock on the south side of the square. It is a partnership that the two companies hope will leverage both ad spaces to stand out even more in a sea of advertising.
Reuters and Nasdaq made the deal late last week, just as advertisers are beginning to roll out more outdoor advertising to take advantage of warmer weather and higher foot traffic.
But Reuters and Nasdaq, whose buildings face each other across Broadway and Seventh Avenue at W. 43rd St., are in a unique position to combine their advertising assets.
Advertisers will have the option of running the same ad on both signs, or even half of the ad on one building and the other half on the other building. Or the two signs could work in tandem. “It just made a lot of sense to put the two together,” said Bruce E. Aust, the executive vice president of the corporate client group for Nasdaq. “You’re getting two of the most dynamic towers in Times Square.” The companies dubbed the deal “Times Square, Squared.
