The Rise and Fall of the Ad Man

The Rise and Fall of the Ad Man is an interesting documentary from the BBC that puts the profession of marketeer in a historical perspective. Worth watching!

Netshoes Click, The App that Recognizes Shoes

Netshoes,  online retailer of sports shoes and apparel in Brazil, launched today an app that recognizes shoes. When you take a picture of a shoe with the Netshoes Click app, it will search for the identical or similar shoes in the database. Of course with a handy link to immediately buy that great sneaker you just spotted on a hipster in your local coffee bar.

The app mainly recognizes the +5000 sneakers and sport shoes Netshoes sells and is meant to boost mobile sales from 5% to 10% of total revenue. Although Amazon previously had some go's at visual recognition apps, the company said it's a one of a kind in the current market.

I did a little test of the app and guess what....it works!

The white All Star seemed like an easy one to me and the app did indeed easily spot it, with an exact match on n°1 and 3 very similar recommendations.

The DC also did well with a match on n°1, although I'm not sure why the other Gatsby 2 is on the last place instead of the second. As these shoes were out of stock, I was also not able to find them back when searching on their full website, which is a bit annoying.

The Nike Cortez is a doubtful case. The picture is taken while wearing the shoe which might make it more difficult to recognize, but they do have a female Nike Cortez on sale which is not featuring in the list. It did recommend grey nike shoes though,  so fair enough.

Fascinating technology, that will be refined "as more people use the service", their CTO said.

Deadmau5 and a phone launch

To launch a new phone these days, billboards aren't doing it anymore. A live performance of Deadmau5 in the center of London however, accompagnied by the most advanced projecting technology, does put your product in front of the masses.

Well played by Nokia, but wether it will establish them between the iphones and Androids has yet to be seen...

Burn productions: Never Extinguish & Human Machines

As an energy drink these days, it seems you just have to produce video content to keep it up. After years of Red Bull's domination in extreme sports video's, competitor Burn is now catching up with some skateboarding and snowboarding video's as well. Mind you, we're talking about beauties like "Human Machines" and "Never Extinguish", so you don't hear us complaining. Good storytelling, although I'll stick to plain Coke's.







Probably more to come on http://www.youtube.com/burn

(Rune Clifberg pic from the behind the scenes Facebook album )

Shadow Art by Newcastle Brown Ale

Newcastle Brown Ale, or better their agency Vitro, commissioned NY artists Ellis Gallagher and H. Howard to make a shadow art installation for the beer brand in San Diego. At night, a spot lights some 4000 caps and throws a shadow on the billboard, ensuring a lot of attention from the partypeople around in the nightlife district.

Here's the making of:

Becoming a cool brand is not a crime

Ik kan het me nog levendig herinneren, Nike die probeerde om skateschoenen aan de man te brengen. Ik was een 16-17 jarige skater en geloofde hen voor geen minuut.Ik heb als gevolg ook nooit met Nike's geskateboard. Wel met DC's, és, Osiris en Globes want dat waren geloofwaardige skatemerken. En ik was niet alleen. Het was een woelige start voor Nike SB, zo staat ook te lezen op hun Wikipedia pagina.


Des te interessanter was het om op de boekpresentatie van "How cool brands stay hot", Gert Kerkstoel te horen praten, tot voor kort Global business director van Nike SB (en Belg). Want terwijl de coole skate merken meer en meer mainstream werden (en daardoor veel van hun 'street credibility' verloren), zette Nike SB koers in de andere richting door zich onder te dompelen in de skatecultuur.

Next Generation Marketing, Day 2

 

Finally, after some cancelled flights in Berlin I can sit down in my sofa and write down some 'lessons learned ' from day 2 at the Next Generation Marketing conference for B2B (#b2beu). As day 1, it was a very exciting day with many great cases and revelations. A shortoverview:

Celebrating Originality

To celebrate originality Adidas gathered a bunch of celebrities to feature in their latest Originals ad called "The Street Where Originality lives". It was my girlfriend who at first summonned me to watch it, as it was a topic on some clebrity gossip blog. Not knowing what to expect and with some horrible misplaced celebrity endorsements in mind I saw to my surprise a nice clip with what could be called "celebrity endorsement well done".

The Red Bull Pipe

For quite some time Red Bull has been sponsoring extreme sports, organising sports events ands so. It's amazing to see how everytime they seem to be able to take it a step further. By building Shaun White a private half pipe, and making nice coverage of it, they got worldwide media attention, not to speak of the online viral effect.

Inspired Video's from Inspired brands

Great video from Inspired bikes, starring Inspired team rider Danny MacAskill and his bike. Crazy tricks and an amazing soundtrack ( Band of Horses) make this video so extremely pleasant to watch. Apparantly I'm not the only one to thinks so, as the video stars in the top ten of 2009 most succesful viral video's on Mashable.

Anyway, this one  hardly makes you think you're watching a commercial and as for (niche) brands with some street credibility, I think this is the way to go. Purely emotional brand experiences. Great stuff.

The Bubble

A controversial book and a nice advertisement. The bubble is a collection of Berlusconi's most funny, shocking or least intelligent statements and the ad says just that. The ad made me laugh, though the title of the book  is a slightly more gloomy...

(via Ads of the world)

Did You Know 4.0

Amazing visualisation of shifts in interaction patterns, social media habits, approach to advertising, mobile usage and more. (thanks to @geertdelaet's Wassup Session).

Cellcom commercial goes wrong

McCann Erickson made a not so subtle commercial for Cellcom, a telecomoperator in Isreal. It depicts Israeli soldiers and Palestinians alike, playing a fun game of soccer over the (internationally condemned) 'anti-terror' wall. To show the world what really happens when a football is shot over the wall, the Palestians made their own version.Great viral marketing?

If you are looking for a telecom operator that actually does something for the Palestinians click here. (in NL.)

The Apple App Wall

Apple displaying their iphone apps in a very cool way. The wall displays all apps available in the Apple store. Everytime an application is purchased, the icon pulsates. Tech crunch caught it on camera for us.

Billboard Mania

Browsing through pictures of last year, I came across a little movie I shot from a billboard in Chennai. We were safely behind the glass of Sid's AC-ed car and therefore the music of the car kind off synchronises with the billboard...I like it (as much as the associated memories ).

It was a campaign from Vodafone and one of the few billboards that actually caught my eye. The other pic is to give an idea of what all the other billboards looked like...

chetpet bridge

ans some more from Flickr to illustrate:

We hate Jaundice We love... Indian copywriters?

Stepping in front of a bus kills

This anti-smoking campaign from the National Council against Smoking in the US didn't yell about how dangerous smoking really is, but rather focused on (boldly) asking smokers why they ignore the messages on the packs. Defintely another way of looking at it.

"You can't ignore this message. Why ignore them on cigarette packs?"

Youtube 48hour ad contest

It's the Cannes Young Lion's advertising competition made available to the masses, on Youtube . The 48h competition will reward the YouTube winners with a place at the real competition in Cannes. There the challenge will be to make a 60min ad with a mobile phone only, in 48h.

Apparantly it's unleashing a lot of creativity from all corners of the world and it's fun to watch...and vote.

All ad video's had to be made for an well known international charity, kept secret until friday the 15th of May. A short briefing announced Oxfam and the 48hours started. Thousands of ads were made over the weekend and posted on Youtube. They all ask for your signature, your way to show your support at the copenhague climate convention.

Funny, striking, creative or boring...you have 13 days..4hours...49minutes to judge yourself.

>www.youtube.com/canneslions

Uplace Machelen - inspireert steden?

Het gebeurt al eens dat spontaan de wenkbrauwen worden gefronst bij het aanhoren van toogklap of zelfs serieuzere zaken, dat weet iedereen. Ik meen dat dit meestal op ongeloof duidt, maar zeker ben ik daar niet van. In ieder geval heb ik vandaag toch eens gefronst bij het aanschouwen van de voorstelling van Uplace te Machelen.

Een mega-fantastisch project dat de oude industriezone onder de viaduct van Vilvoorde moet omtoveren in een internationale trekpleister van pure fun, maar die ook business, entertainment, wonen en natuur allemaal naadloos aan elkaar reigt. Een all-in-one experience bestemming zoals ze het noemen, die alles aankan om u te plezieren...
Toen kwam de frons.

De kei-toffe video met Tine Hemmerechts moet het allemaal nog cooler laten lijken.

Jammer dat ik niet overtuigd was. Geef mij maar een afgeleefde, pittoreske straat met verhalen aan elke straatsteen of een likje street art. Dat vind ik 'more of an experience' dan een nieuwbouw oase onder de viaduct. Maar belsist u vooral zelf:

Wel alle credits aan Glenn, en zijn wassup sessie. De marketingzijde (emotiemarkt) van het Uplace verhaal houdt wel steek.

Original Advertising - FairTrade

To really change your way of shopping...

Reverse Graffiti - Eco-Friendly Art

As much as one can love street art and graffiti, the environmental arguments stand strong and might trigger opposition to the art on the wall. Not so anymore it seems, as creative minds have found a solution, even for the detrimantal effects of the spray can.

Reverse Graffiti it is called. For this eco-friendly form of graffiti only soap and clots are needed to make little pieces of art on cars and walls in the city. By removing dust and dirt on polluted walls, great art works emerge and give life to otherwise forgotten and ugly city walls.

One great example I came across is the one of Alexandre Orion, who in a tunnel in Sao Paolo, Brazil, m ade a huge and beautiful piece, only by removing black dust. Though temporary (see

 video) his reverse graffiti deserves all the attention it can get. At least he caught the attention of authorities and forced them to thoroughly clean all the walls he had flourished with his skulls.

Other Reverse Graffiti artists include Scott Wade, who goes crazy on dusty cars:

Reverse Graffiti in San Francisco by Green Works:

Original way of advertising, by means of reverse graffiti, London:

(source:www.environmentalgraffiti.com)