Walking on Eggshells: Borrowing Culture in the remix Age

This is a Great little documentary made by students from Yale University. It's based on interviews with people from the cultural industries who share their views on intellectual property in the remix age.

Great 80s style viral from Pixar

At first glance this looks like a typical 80s TV commercial, but it's actually a viral ad for the Toy Story 3 which is scheduled to premier in June. To introduce one of the new characters from the film - Lots-o'-Huggin' Bear - Pixar has created this fake retro commercial and uploaded it to Youtube. It's very convincingly done, the noise at the bottom of the screen and the distorted sound makes it look like it's been transferred from an old VHS tape. The Youtube account it is uploaded to looks very authentic as well with lots of other 80s commercials. All in all a great attempt to blur the line between reality and fiction.

Via: Yahoo Movies

Colour sensitive billboard by IBM

As a part of their Smarter Planet Agenda campaign, IBM created this billboard that changes colour according to the colour of clothes people in front of it are wearing. The result is a very simple form of interaction where no technical devices such as mobile phones or cameras are needed to be able to take part in the experience.

Draw your own iPhone game!

Sketch Nation Shooter is a new game for the iPhone that allows you to design all the elements of the game yourself. You simply draw a player, enemies and levels on a piece of paper and take a picture of it using the iPhone camera. When your images are imported to the game an editor function helps you set up everything. Once you have created a level it can be submitted to Facebook which makes it available for everyone to download. I really like this idea!

Pixels

Loving this short film from Patrick Jean. Watch Space Invaders, Tetris and other 8bit creatures take over New York. And it's shot on location too.

Hello Wall

Cool initiative from the global art project Wasted Spaces. Their mission is to transform neglected buildings and empty shop fronts in cities around the world by turning them into exhibition spaces for artists.

the Hello Wall is their latest project and is created by London based duo Hellicar & Lewis. People passing by on Wembley High Street are encouraged to interact with the large-scale installation by tweeting commands like: circles, triangles, squares, faster, slower, bigger, shake to @thehellowall. The art work will then change appearance according to the instructions it gets.

Via Wasted Spaces.

Codeorgan

If you've always wondered what your favorite website sounds like, then here's you chance to find out. Codeorgan by London based agency DLKW is a Flash application that analyses the body content of a web page and translates it into music. It uses an algorithm to create the musical composition that best fits the site's code. Key, synth style and drum pattern is determined by the page content and the result can be shared through Facebook and Twitter.

Sidetracked sounds a little like Boards of Canada over an 80s beat. Not bad.
For more details check the Codeorgan site.

Via Mashable

American Apparel turns user-generated content into lookbook

In December 2009 American Apparel held a contest in collaboration with online fashion community lookbook.nu. Community members were encouraged to upload photos of themselves in outfits featuring their favorite AA pieces. The objective was to create a lookbook solely consisting of user-generated images. Nearly a thousand aspiring fashionistas from all over the world participated and 77 were chosen to appear in the lookbook. The best pictures were reshot by professional photographers and used as cover and centrefolds. Some of them will also be turned into ads.

The lookbook is free and is available in all AA shops and via their website.

Something similar has probably been done before - I know Uniqlo has done some online campaigns showcasing people on the street wearing Uniqlo - but I still think it works because it gives AA a valuable insight into how their customers understand and use their brand. What might be even more valuable these days where peer recommendations in many cases are considered a much more trustworthy source of information than ads is, that the lookbook takes on the shape of exactly that: personal recomendations. Instead of professional models it's real people sharing their creative ideas with other AA fans.

Via PSFK

Refresh Everything

Interesting new social media experiment from Pepsi. Each month they give away millions of dollars in grants to sponsor ideas that will help improve local communities. People (in America) are invited to either upload their ideas on the campaign website or vote for the projects they think deserve to get funded. The grants range from $5.000 to $250.000 and the categories you can apply to are: Health, Arts and Culture, Food and Shelter, The Planet, Neighborhoods and Education. The campaign is set to run for a whole year and every month the ideas with the most votes get rewarded with grants. Pepsi expects to have given more than $20 million away at the end of the year - money that was originally budgeted for a big commercial to run during this years Superbowl final. I think this will prove to be a clever move.

Via HelloKinsella

Inspiration Grid by Saatchi & Saatchi Brussels

I like this idea from Saatchi & Saatchi Brussels. On their website they invite people to upload pictures of the things that inspire them. When you flip one of the pictures on the grid there's a little explanation of why someone found it interesting. Nice way to share ideas and inspiration visually.

Skype Outside

I really like this new campaign from Skype. To celebrate the Skype mobile app they have hired 5 different artists from all over the world to turn Skype customers' experiences into art. On the Skype Outside site there is a presentation of each artist to help you decide which one of them would do the best job expressing your story. Ranging from shadow artists to avant garde, Japanese street theater, wood carving and circus performance there should be something for everyone. All you have to do is call up your favorite one via the Skype link and tell them what's on your mind and if you're lucky the conversation will be turned into an outdoor piece of art in the artist's home city. It will also be filmed and uploaded on the site.

By using outdoor art they cleverly articulate the fact that Skype now has become mobile and that you can use it when you're out and about. But for me, the really great thing about this campaign is the way it involves people and makes their stories the central idea and main source of content on the site. It gives people the opportunity to participate and it offers something in return.

My City vs. Your City

Interesting website if you, like me, occasionally wonder if people are singing along to the same tunes in New York and Ankara (based on Last FM).

My City vs Your City

Via PSFK

Light

Cool light drawings from Danish artist Armsrock. He's doing a show at Bispebuen in Copenhagen from February 10th, so check it out if you're around.

Via Wooster Collective

Interactive tower block

Belgian design and art studio Lab [au] are the creators behind this cool interactive illumination system that enlightened the 145 m high Dexia Tower in Brussels in 2007. Each of the 4200 windows were equipped with RGB LEDs that could be activated individually from the control station set up at the bottom of the tower.

The Touch installation allowed people to interact with the building in real time through a multi touch screen either individually or collectively. Touch and movement were translated into graphical elements playing off of the building's structure. the final result of each design session could be photographed and sent as an electronic postcard.

Check out their website, there are lots of other cool light and architecture projects.

Top 100 social brands of 2009

Social marketing agency Vitrue has published a list over what they call the most social brands of 2009. By most social they mean the brands that get talked about the most on social media sites. To determine this they have created a tool called Social Media Index which counts the times a brand is shared through social networks, images or videos. The list doesn't say anything about the quality or success of social media campaigns. Or about whether the social buzz is positive or negative for that matter, but I still think it's interesting to see what people are talking about out there on the social web.

Top 10:

1. iPhone

2. Disney

3. CNN

4. MTV

5. MBA

6. iTunes

7. Wii

8. apple

9. Xbox

10. Nike

Check out the rest at The Vitrue 100

Banksy comments on global warming

Via Woostercollective

Augmented reality - technology hype of 2009

Augmented reality was one of those things that just seemed to pop up everywhere in 2009. Most of the time the AR based concepts were nothing more than marketing gimmicks that didn't seem to use the technology to improve on things. It was merely a case of let's-do-it-because-we-can" syndrome.

like this Tokyo store front where you can get the latest shopping information by looking at the building through your iPhone. But why would you have to download a special iPhone app, that only works when you stand in front of the building, to get that information?

Or this Mini print ad that shows the new model when viewed through a web cam. Again, I just can't see why people have to go through all this trouble to access information. There doesn't seem to be much in it for the user.

But there has also been examples of really helpful and interesting AR ideas. Like the Nearest Tube iPhone app by acrossair that will guide you to the nearest tube station.

Or the Invizimals game for Sony PSP where you can use the portable device to detect and catch monsters in your surroundings.

There's clearly potential to apply the AR technology to popular culture in useful and exciting ways. Let's hope we see more of that and less of the gimmicky stuff in 2010.

G-Star is entering into social media territory in their New York Fashion Week Competition

In a previous post I wrote about how crowd sourcing seems to be gaining popularity in advertising, but in this online competition by G-Star the crowd sourcing idea has had a social media layer added to it. People are simply encouraged to sign up for the competition by using the log in from their favorite social networking site. Then it's up to the individual Facebook, Twitter, Youtube or Flicr user to impress the G-Star judges by uploading video, images and writing tweets showcasing their passion for fashion and denim. The most convincing social networking effort in each category is rewarded with a trip to New York Fashion Week where they get to cover the G-Star runway show, and get their reports streamed live on G-Star.com.

The aim is of course to get people to participate and engage with the brand in a more active fashion. But the way the competition is set up also allows G-Star to get a valuable presence in people's social networks and online conversations. Definitely a good attempt at integrating social media and advertising. It will be interesting to see what the development will be like in this area in 2010.

Spotted at Viralblog