Friday, December 25, 2009

The Perfect Christmas Story


This year for Christmas Vodafone have launched a huge online campaign centred around Facebook and three cool apps: the Pressie Picker, the Selection Box and the Perfect Christmas Story. Basically they're just fun little apps that work out who you are from your Facebook profile and come up with some quirky insights into you and your friends. They work around Facebook Connect.

The Pressie Picker pretty much does what it says on the tin, and will analyse who you are and suggest the best pressie for you or a friend. Of course you have to let it know if you’re naughty or nice. The Selection Box is a fun collection of gadgets to help you count in Christmas and prepare for whatever may be in store ;) Finally then, there’s the Perfect Christmas Story. If you’ve seen the Vodafone Christmas ad then you’ll get this – no point in spoiling it though, pop over and have a quick gander.

This is a Cybercom campaign so if you have the time I'd love to hear what you think.

Augmented Reality: Adidas


The next few months will see Adidas release a new range of shoes. What sets this range apart is that Adidas has created a virtual 3-D world that is accessed through the line of five men’s shoes. On top of this, Adidas will also introduce three Augmented Reality games as part of the new virtual world. Each pair of shoes will give the owner access to the virtual world and act as the controller for interacting with it. All you have to do is go to the Adidas website and hold up a code embedded on the shoes tongue to your webcam. The virtual world then pops up on your screen as part of the shoe.

“The foundation of augmented reality lies in adding a layer to the real world,” says Chris Barbour, head of digital marketing for Adidas Originals. “That’s what we have done. We have taken a real world item and added a fantastic virtual world on top of that. We are not trying to mimic a real-world look, we have a more stylized, pop-up book creative approach,” says Barbour. “The neighborhood is displayed on a two dimensional computer screen, but you can use your shoe to control the angle and depth of view and zoom in and out, giving a 3-D sense of perspective.”

The campaign will offer a skateboard game, played around the virtual city’s alleys, a Star Wars-like game and a music-based game. The games have been developed for Adidas by xForm.

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

LBi: Mobile Mobile

Mobile Mobile is described as "a joyous seasonal story of re-cycled phones, collaboration and derring do".

Basically, after LBi upgraded all the mobile phones in the agency, they decided something should be done with their old handsets. They came up with the idea to re-cycle, or “up-cycle” as they described it, the phones in the form of an interactive sculpture.

Each phone was assigned a tone and tied into a computer to each play a single note. The following video demonstrates their favourite but you can also create your own personalised version through the campaign microsite using your keyboard.

The Best Agency Christmas Card Ever?

Just watch this...

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Smirnoff 'Be There': The Carnival Experience


During the last month I've been very excitedly covering Smirnoff's various activities around there new 'BE THERE' campaign. Not letting the momentum slow for even a moment, Smirnoff's next competition is already up and running, and this one is seriously cool.

How would you like the chance to take 3 friends and go to Carnival. You could be spending 5 nights in Rio de Janeiro with all your hotel and travel expenses covered, during the biggest party in the Brazilian calendar! Even if you're not the main winner there are runners up prizes, and every single person who enters get s a free download of the Layo & Bushwacka! track The Longest Day, from their Shake It Brazil compilation.

So what do you have to do? Just pop over to the Smirnoff Facebook page and enter your details. Done. Like that.

The closing date is the 9th January 2010 and you can find all the details about the competition and the prizes here.