No, that isn't Johnny 5 enjoying the Warriors game, it is actually a VR camera. This week the NBA streamed its first game to fans in Virtual Reality. It was just a test, and it looks like there was a pretty small audience that tuned in, but it leads one to wonder why you would even go to a game if you can get a better seat at home with a headset. Plus, the beer is way cheaper when it comes from your own fridge.
Have you been watching the World Series? If you watched game 1, you'll know that it went on for a very, very long time. You may also know that one of the Royals players stole a base. What you may not know is that since this happened you can now get a free A.M. Crunchwrap next Thursday morning. The promotion ended up making Taco Bell the most talked about brand during the game, so good job and good luck to all those who decide that Taco Bell is a good idea for breakfast.
Have you spent more time in the last week thinking about a Raspberry Pi than you have thinking about what to wear? If you work in a professional atmosphere you still need to wear descent clothes when you show up at the office, and YaJoe has a solution for you. They are making clothes specifically for all the nerds and geeks out there that look and feel good. So save your xkcd tee for the weekend and step up your style.
People put a lot of thought into the car they buy based not only whether it suits their needs, but what it says about them. Of course, one could say if you're in the market for a Bentley, you don't have to worry any of those things, but regardless Bentley created a super cool app that makes sure you get the perfect car for you.
Their Inspirator app uses pretty advanced emotion recognition software with over 12 billion emotion datapoints to determine who you are and attributes those learnings to features of their car.
If you work in this biz you know that it's SUPER hard to manage life changes like kids, illness, family issues, and the like with grace when this industry is so demanding of your time, attention, and energy. So, sometimes, you have to leave the industry for a bit to make things easier . . . it's getting back in that can be a major bitch.
Sapient Nitro understands this struggle is real, so they created the "returnship" pilot program in NYC and Toronto, a 10-week paid program to help industry folks get back in the biz. For more information on the program, check out invisible.careers.
Google set up a booth on the streets of Austin where passerbys could "pay" for a cupcake by sharing a branded pic with their social network. To one-up them (and brilliantly point out how people were just made pawns in giving Google free advertising on their social network) Zappos set up a booth right next to Google's asking people to pay for a happy surprise with the cupcake they just got from Google. No free advertising, just the cupcake, and out came an item from Zappos.com. Ballsy. We like that.
Trix is looking to replace their iconic silly rabbit, with one real life rabbit to help promote the launch of their new reformulated cereal, free of artificial colors and flavors. One lucky town will have their local furball featured on the cereal boxes and be dubbed the honorary Trix rabbit. The fun part? Bunnies don’t even have to be bunnies, they can be other animals disguised as bunnies. See some of the early submissions here.
You’re probably too busy to watch this video, which means you probably should. Jet Blue wants you to know that people are too busy these days and that they should consider being less busy. Maybe get away from it all and take a vacation, perhaps? Perhaps, but it's certainly a less subtle way of them telling you to get away and fly their airline, which is nice. Comedian / Actor Mullen Lowe does a good job in this witty video about two people that have way too much going on. If it’s easier, watch it in increments of 60 seconds, then you won’t feel as bad about spending 16 minutes of your day all at once.
Durex wants to know what men and women really think about condoms. So they created this interesting short to share their findings. The video is part of a new campaign to change misconceptions about STDs and unplanned pregnancies. The experiment actually does its job and changes some of the participant's perceptions.
Our new favorite commercial is beyond genius - comedic genius that is. Thank you BBDO for enlightening us on all the ball abuse that's out there. If only consumers knew that Bonds underwear could save "the boys" from unspeakable tragedies.
Who loves GIFs? PSYCH! Trick question - everyone does.
Get excited because Giphy.com, a search engine for hilarious little animated thingees, is giving people the ability to easily create gifs on their own. All you need is a YouTube link to your video or a direct video link and you are off and running. Go caption crazy. Get Nuts. Get Giffy with it.
This isn't the first time someone has built a choose-your-own-adventure style game on Twitter, but this one brings in a beautiful pixel graphic style to the genre. If you have some time to put the real world aside, go enjoy Leon's (@leyawn) adventure. Make sure to pay attention to the details.
Automobiles have been seeing a bit of a shake-up these days with Tesla arguably driving the majority of the innovation. But it's time to take notice of a little partnership between Roush and Domino's to make the Domino's DXP. The two have got together to make sure that the pizza you order arrives at your door hotter than Chevy Spark it came in by installing warming ovens directly behind the driver. The number of pizzas this little beauty and transport... 80.
If you are reading this there is a good chance that you like both breakfast food and tacos. You may also be privy to the fact that Taco Bell is going hard after a share of the breakfast market. Well, now they are testing out their third variation on the breakfast taco, this time with a croissant. It comes with the same fillings as it's predecessors, the waffle taco and the biscuit taco. But this begs the question, what is going to be after the croissant taco? The bagel taco? The pancake taco? The cinnamon roll taco? The options are only as limited as the Taco Bell food teams supply of recreational herbs.
Dropbox offers a whole lot more than just file storage and sharing--they offer collaboration, which is a powerful way to do some pretty amazing things . . . like create their latest commercial. This spot is what 141 Dropbox collaborators can do when they combine their genius. Good stuff!
Cruises aren't exactly on the top of any Millennial's vacation wish list. If fact, they're not even at the bottom because, well, they didn't even make the list at all. Why? Because (as we all know) cruises get a bad rap for lots of things, particularly things opposite of what millennials are looking for, like unique experiences, exploration, adventure, spontaneity . . . ah we could go on and on about those crazy millennials.
So, how does a cruise line like Royal Caribbean overcome this and create a spot that attracts such a demanding audience? With a laid-back yet upbeat, super relevant supercut of all the awesome experiences you probably never knew they offered, and by calling it anything but a cruise.
It's not easy to come off genuine and legit when targeting an entirely new audience with a "product" with a pretty heavy stigma, but they pulled it off quite well.
This new Halloween experience from Target is scary good! Get it? Scary good? Meh. Anyway . . . What's so good about it is it embraces a boatload of new and super effective marketing tools. It's story telling vs. advertising, it's VR, it's 360° video, and it's in-experience shopping all in one. All you have to do is go inside the house and explore the rooms from there for related products. And don't worry, it's family friendly so it's not actually scary at all.
Next time you're on the way out of the office for a kick ass vacation, make sure you use this witty OOO generator brought to you by Westin Hotels. It will create an amazing auto-response along with a short video for you to share with the world. You'll also probably want to change your hotel reservation to a Westin now, because they really get your dry humor.
If you thought trying to read and understand someone's chicken scratch was hard, try figuring out these tweets from a real chicken! Australian BBQ chain, Chicken Treat, is letting a chicken named Betty run their Twitter account from her hen house. Sounds silly, but the campaign is getting publicity, so more power to them. Hopefully she can set the world record for the first official tweeting chicken. What a world we live in!
It's as simple as that. Subscribe to Drinkeasy, receive a text about their newest spirits and text "Hell Yes!" to get them delivered right to your doorstep. Another great home delivery service that utilizes simple technology to communicate with its followers. Raise a glass to that!
This is big, huge news - Lucky Charms is offering a MARSHMALLOW ONLY version of their popular cereal. WHAT?!??!? But here's the catch - there's only 10 in the world! The brand is giving away these deliciously coveted boxes of goodness to winners of their sweepstakes where consumers are asked to post a photo of themselves pretending to hold the prize. Post your photo to #Lucky10Sweepstakes between 10/14 and 10/18 and you might be a LUCKY winner (see what we did there?).
And who better to tell consumers about this genius idea but Biz Markie!?
Coming up with your Instagram captions is stressful. If you screw it up, the picture can be rendered useless - and then what?! You won't reach your optimal likes and that's just plain sad.
Well, the new company by the name of Captional Gains get this and is ready to serve you and your copywriting needs.
All you do is upload your photo to the website and you'll receive 10 custom lines that "don't suck." Not only does this help you in your quest to be witty and clever, but really it just improves the entire social media universe.
Remember that blue sticky stuff you used to put posters up on your wall? Well, maybe we are dating ourselves here - but the point is there are very few cool ways to hang your favorite prints. That is, until now! Handvas is a new company that offers high quality 3D printed hands to hold your artwork. It adds a bit of something extra to your already cool art.
So put down the push pins, double sided tape or whatever else you use to hang your stuff and check out Handvas.
You know what no one wants... being face to face with a barista working the drive through on the way to work before you've had your morning coffee. There is a reason you go through the drive through, to avoid human contact as much as possible. Well, that's what Starbucks is rolling out after a pilot of the idea in Seattle that included a video screen at the order board. Although, it may help those employees communicate to people that they actually need to wind their window down even in the rain.
You get how the internet works, right? What if you had to go back to 1983 and explain uploading your nieces' artwork to a website to get it printed on a coffee mug. That is Computer Show. It's really brilliant piece of stealthy content marketing that highlights real tech companies in an entertaining way. Well done 1983.
Driverless cars are coming, and it's going to be a little freaky at first. Tesla has released a software update for the Model S that gives it an autopilot mode. Yes, a car got a new feature from an update and the owner didn't need to buy a new car. Anyway, the future is here and someone is going to probably get sued when the robots take over.
Biscoitos ZeZe, a Brazilian cookie brand, is trying to spread some love in Brazil in the form of compliments. They hit the streets to post stickers on opposing traffic lights asking pedestrians to tell the person across the street what they think of them. Pedestrians can choose from one of six different compliments and when the person across the street gets to the other side they'll see their compliment. A sweet gesture from the makers of a sweet treat (hey, that was the only connection to cookies I saw here).
Fact 1: Tech startups need money more than pretty much anything else (besides immense talent, of course).
Fact 2: Campus Party is a huge event with loads of said tech startups.
Fact 3: Bitcoin is a great way for said tech startups to get payment.
What do you get when all those facts come together? A brilliant Campus Party stunt from IBM and Ogilvy Brazil that got Bitcoin into the hands, errr phones, of the exact audience that would benefit from them most.
By taking over a popular weather app they sent a message out to all the attendees letting them know it was going to rain . . . but not real rain, it was going to rain Bitcoins. Attendees were then told to get to a specific location at a specific time to hold up their phones while Bitcoins rained from the sky into their accounts.
Now that's the kind of rain shower I don't mind seeing in the forecast!
In a world taken oven by in-your-face sensory experiences delivered via screens, glasses, augmented reality, and VR goggles, it's easy to lose sight of the amazement that's right in front of our faces. An amazement that was put here by a power much greater than Apple, IBM, or Samsung. The kind of amazement that is absolutely free. That amazement is nature, and the Ad Council and U.S. Forest Services wants to remind us of that in this clever little stunt.
They gathered a group of children and asked them to test the "most realistic video game in development." The kids were then taken to the forest with VR goggles to experience the game in HD Surround Sound. Of course, after all the Ooos and Ahhhhs, the reveal showed them what they were really experiencing, which is better than any video game ever could be.
Hopefully you're over the fact that the majority of the top 5 most liked posts on Instagram belong to the Kardashians. If not, focus on these fun recreations of the Instagram logo to distract you from that disappointing statistic. Users around the globe showed Insta some love on their b-day by coming up with clever ways to reinterpret the (now) iconic logo.
Yes, yarn-bombing exists. And in Brazil there is a warm clothing donation campaign that's grabbing attention with said yarn-bombs. Signs all over the city of São Paulo have been hit to remind people to donate their clothes to those less fortunate.
Halloween is a time family fun, costumes and trick-or-treating. It’s also a time for horror movies, ghosts, and other scary shit. That’s why Airbnb is giving away an overnight stay in one of the creepiest locations ever. The Catacombs of Paris, home to over 6 million haunted souls. Sounds like a blast, if you’re into death and whatnot. Entries can be submitted until Oct. 20th. Good luck to any of you brave enough.
Want to talk about first world problems? Sure - let's do that. Have you stewed over the fact that your yoga mat doesn't roll up neatly when you want it to and conversely, doesn't lie completely flat? Welp, with the help of Kickstarter your yoga problems are over - think super large slap bracelet. Awesome, right? These things could be fun to own even if you don't know what downward dog means!
Fear that a nosy friend or co-worker is spying on your personal life? Well, there's an app for that. Kibo allows its users to send naughty (or other) messages under the guise of encoded everyday messages. So if you need a bit of relationship privacy or have a super private business deal - you may want to try Kibo out. We may just try it for the fun of it.
Did you know that it's only been 5 years since Instagram entered the scene? We don't know about you, but Instagram feels like it's been a part of our lives forever. To celebrate, the app has reminded users of the top 5 "liked" Instagram photos of all time. The upsetting part? They are mostly Khardasians. Regardless, enjoy!
If you are an avid viewer of Shark Tank then you will certainly recall the Squatty Potty. It is basically just a stool for your feet that helps you poo better. The ad feels long and they really pack in some crappy puns. Be warned, if you watch you'll never look at soft serve ice cream or unicorns the same again.
Tony the Tiger is back! Well, not officially, but it's good to see him again. The spoof site tonyisback.com brings the big, lovable, sugar-hyped tiger to meet up with some of the kids that were supposedly in his commercials 30 years ago. Kellogg's is not amused. Is the site going to make it all the way, or will they be getting a letter from the Big Breakfast lawyers?
Giving someone a heartfelt 'Happy Birthday' used to take effort. You'd have to go buy or make a card, find a stamp, remember their address, and actually remember their birthday. Facebook has changed all of that by constantly reminding you when every one of your friends is getting older. It's trivialized the standard 'Happy Birthday' post to your wall. But, it seems that Facebook wants to make it personal again with the ability to take a short birthday video so that your friend can know that you took 12 seconds to wish you a happy birthday, rather than the 2.5 that it takes to type it on a keyboard.
Aww, so nice, Danish Travel Agency, Spies, created an ad to convince your parents to send you and your spouse on a nice vacation . . . except there's an ulterior motive. See, Denmark's birth rate is super low, and well, your parents are getting any younger waiting for that grandchild. So yeah, go on that vacation, just be sure to get it on with your spouse as much as possible and make a frickin' baby already. Fantastic!
Kia thinks enough is enough with this everybody gets a trophy crap and they're not afraid to say it in their latest campaign for the Kia Sorrento. Nope, these football parents are frickin' competitive and that's why the chose a Kia Sorrento over other CUVs. Now this is a wagon (err CUV) I can jump on.
We all love a good binge-watching session, but every time you finally binge-watch that series everyone's been talking about, they've moved on to some other show you missed. And, well, God forbid you feel left out in this FOMO driven world.
Well, Samsung understands the struggle is real, which is why they're giving one lucky Nordic applicant the opportunity to spend 100 days in a super sweet Himalayan Monastery to binge-watch whatever the heck they want. Oh, and they pay you for it too . . . you know, in case you lose your job in those 100 days. Priorities, right?
In this clever stunt, the Swiss Post wanted to let people know they can get their packages delivered anywhere they like. So naturally they used remote control cars disguised as boxes to deliver these items in the streets of Lucerne.
The Boorito is back at Chipotle for the Halloween season. This year, if you add an unnecessary ingredient (just like Chipotle’s competition) to your costume, you’ll be able to get a burrito, bowl, salad or tacos for only $3. Proceeds go to the brand’s food foundation. To support the campaign, they’ve launched this new ad that pokes fun of the fast food industry and shows how scary some of the “food” can actually be.
No need to go back to the future, because the future is now. In celebration of Marty McFly and the 30th anniversary of Back to the Future, Pepsi is bringing the fictional “Pepsi Perfect” product to life. For a limited time, you can purchase one of these futuristic drinks. Sure it might cost you $20+ dollars, but who doesn’t want to have a piece of the future, in the present?
Want free Jets tickets, Brooklyn Nets tickets or free scoops of ice cream - no problem! All you need to do is defile JetBlue's OOH advertising. Ok, so it's less like defiling and more like taking a body sized coupon off bus shelters...but you know, basically the same thing.
These crazy OOH stunts are attracting attention of New Yorkers as the brand promises to place more of the freebies around the 5 boroughs under the hashtag, #NYCTakeoff. It's not often that consumers actively search for billboards - well done JetBlue!
Everyone could use a little more excitement in their lives which is why we are sharing with you, our loyal readers, the newest in extreme hobbies. It's called Extreme iPhone Pinching - and it's not for the faint of heart. The oddly exciting event involves dangling your precious phone over damaging ground/heights while you pinch the very edge of it hopefully without letting it fall.
We have a hard time watching these videos. So clutch your iPhones tight people and never let them go. Never. Let. Them. Go.
You've caught on to the fact that Stephen Colbert is not the same character from the Colbert Report, and the fact that he is doing something very different with the late night format by now, right? He has had Tech CEOs, Political figures, and innovators. This gives the show a unique feel and honesty that is intriguing since these people are not as used to being in front of the camera in the same way as Scarlett Johansson. This is in large part because of talent booking strategy of Emily Lazar. Is it a refreshing change of pace, or just making things feel a little more awkward?
Let it me a lesson in PR that Apple doesn't mess around with terms and conditions (just ask Gizmodo). Now iFixit has found their app removed from the store and probably a very cold shoulder from Apple from now on since having posted a teardown of the new Apple TV. The unit in question was a developer version and iFixit knew the risks they were taking, but what did Apple expect from sending a developer unit to a website known for ripping the guts out of tech?
When you think of Omaha you think of steak. Steak that is shipped directly to your home in vacuum sealed packs at a price close to the market for gold. Well, now you can think of one more thing. Zombies that have a desire for only the purest of flesh to consume. While it is true that getting rid of herpes is probably harder than killing a zombie, the choice between the two viruses is (hypothetically) pretty obvious.
