Today’s guests are Evan Roth, Becky Stern, Geraldine Juárez and Magnus Eriksson from the Free Art and Technology Lab (F.A.T. Lab), a network of artists, engineers, scientists, lawyers, and musicians who are committed to supporting open values and the public domain through the use of emerging open licenses, support for open entrepreneurship, and the admonishment of secrecy, copyright monopolies, and patents continue
From NYC-based All Out, this two-minute short film shows what it would look life if a gay Olympic medalist were able to celebrate with her partner in Sochi. Of course, it’s not that simple in Russia, where public displays of homosexuality are banned by the government, and systemic discrimination has prevented gay people from simply feeling like people in their own country. All Out is hoping to change that, at least legally, before the Sochi Games start in February 2014. The organization is asking that people share the video with #LoveAlwaysWins on social media. The goal, as the video shows, is to close the gap between what should be allowed and what is allowed. I wouldn’t bet on it, considering that the Olympics has always struggled to balance the messy mix of politics, human rights, and competition, but at least someone is trying. Credits after the jump.
Goodstache may very well be the first ever drinking game for charity, although there isn’t a ton of peer-reviewed research on the topic. The rules of the game are easy: donate to the Prostate Cancer Foundation, print out a mustache certificate of your liking (i.e. Burt Reynolds, Ron Swanson, Salvador Dali), place that mustache anywhere on your television screen, and whenever the mustache lines up with a person’s face, take a drink. If you watch a Mad Men marathon, it sounds like a great way to connect with the characters and destroy your liver, all for a good cause.
The idea comes from SF creatives Nate Gagnon, and Stephen Hadinger, freelance copywriter and AKQA creative technologist, respectively, and the website uses a sleek design that would make the Most Interesting Man in the World proud. You can just donate to the cause without drinking, which is still recommended, or you can also just play the game to drink without donating, not recommended. Either way, check out the site and have a Happy Movember.
After all of the recent Derrick RoseBasketball is Everything TV play, let’s not forget that Adidas’ slim basketball holdings do include the mercurial superstar-child, Dwight Howard. TBWA\Singapore and Dwight teamed for a new international spot way east of America, where 180LA handles domestic duty. The Phillipines is thoroughly obsessed with basketball, and Howard’s Houston Rockets recently traveled to Manila for some preseason play and NBA global brand-building. Adidas wisely used the setting for some brand-building of their own. And as a result, here is the one-and-a-half minute intro video for Signature Shots.
Instead of receiving handwritten autographs from Dwight, fans were able to play him one-on-one as a machine captured their movement on the court and translated that into a unique signature that could be printed onto merchandise. I’m all for the riff on standard sit-and-sign celebrity sessions, even if some of the signatures look like seismograph scribbles, but this spot just feels underwhelming. The clip starts off with some promising B-roll footage of Manila and it’s young hoopsters.
However, all of the vibrant colors and sounds of the city are soon replaced by action shots of machines printing the movement signatures and Dwight playing one-on-one. Rather than wash out all of the sensory details with some techno track, Adidas and TBWA would’ve been wiser to let Manila create its own soundtrack. Watching a printer spit out signed memorabilia is just time wasted. There was a missed opportunity here to create a commercial worthy of Manila’s love for basketball. There will be more opportunities in the future, but Adidas will have to wait. Credits after the jump.
We’re figuring that this just the tip of the iceberg as it’s only day 1 of Movember, the month in which the fellas hide their razors and grow their facial hair in all shapes and sizes (and let’s not forget the ladies have had an increasing presence each year, too) in order to raise awareness (and money) for men’s health issues. We’re sure there will be plenty of agencies chiming in as part of the industry’s annual Movember fundraising competition, but first up to bat is Red Peak Branding, a unit of NYC-based Red Peak Group, whose CEO James Fox sent out a memo this morning regarding his agency’s guidelines for taking part. See below:
“Today is the start of Mo’vember which means the mustache contest is on….
Here is how it works. All competitors must be clean shaven today, or if not today first thing Monday. Joon will be taking pictures today of all the competitors so the judges have a clear before and after shot.
Competitors may grow a mustache, beard, half beard, goatee or whatever until Friday 29th [November] at which point they must convert into a mustache. All competitors must come to the event wearing an appropriate outfit to accompany their mustache (lumberjack, greaser, 1920’s Dandy etc)
All the women in the agency who wish to do so will be judges at a special event on the 29th [November]
Competitors will receive points on the following three attributes:
Lustre – How bushy and lustrous is the mustache in question (5 points)
Creativity – How creative is the mustache and outfit (Gentlemen see mustache chart attached for ideas) (5 Points)
Effort – You don’t need a monstrous mustache to win this competition – points will go to the best before and after pics (5 Points)
All those that want to get involved, both judges and competitors will pay $5 on the 29th of [November] and the proceeds will go to the USA Men’s cancer charity”
Is this the standard protocol for all agencies taking part in the Movember battle? Whatever the case, feel free to send over more efforts and if you need grooming suggestions, you can check out a larger version of the top image after the jump.
It’s that time of year again, the chill is in the air, leaves are falling from the trees, and it’s time to start thinking about what’s doing above your upper lip.
Yes, the month-long event that is Movember is once again almost upon us as participants (here are some agency examplesfrom last year) will start the month clean-shaven and then spend November growing and grooming their moustache, while asking friends and families to donate to men’s health charities.
The above video shows Movember’s new “taking it to the streets” strategy, as well as a penchant for trying to make mustaches seem extreme. I’m not sure what that’s all about, to be honest. But I’m all for people growing mustaches that make them look like 1980s relief pitchers. Other changes involve referring to participants as “Mo Bros” and the coining of the term “Generation Moustache” (I’m pretty sure Generation Moustache already happened, starting in the seventies). Some new initiatives are MOVE, a global initiative to get people to be more physically active; Mo Rated Barbers, “a global network showcasing the best in class barbershops from around the world dedicated to fine grooming, fine moustaches and to changing the face of men’s health”; and the Movember Collection, “a range of limited edition merchandise created by Movember’s very own creative design team, for sale to the Mo community via Movember.com.”
If you’d like to register to participate in Movember, or just want to learn more, you can do so at the official website. I won’t be participating, since I look like I’m about twelve years old when clean-shaven and can’t imagine going a whole month without my beard. Plus I’d be terrified that someone might actually refer to me as a “Mo Bro.”
We figured we’d wind things down with a little bit of eye candy courtesy of the folks behind the continuously growing collective that is Digital DUMBO. What started out four years as a way to gather the digital community in said Brooklyn neighborhood has grown into a brand with 13,000 members with new communities in Boston, Dallas, London and Valencia, Spain. Anyhow, in case you didn’t hear, a couple of weeks ago, the Digital DUMBO crew opened the doors to their new community/event space in their native turf dubbed dd:Outpost, which was built in collaboration with Bing and designed by Volvox Labs. Yes, a Cubes episode is certainly in order with this one. Here are some quick specs for you tech/design folks out there:
200″ projection screen allows for engaging presentations and visuals with a direct connection between the Windows 8 interface, Xbox and Airstream
Custom made touchscreen interface allows clients to control lighting, content of the AV system and view Instagram and Twitter feeds in real-time
Integrated technologies allow for content to be presented simultaneously across all screens with ease
70 high powered LED strips react to human presence by triggering patterns and surround sound effects using the Kinect for Windows technology
Projection mapped wall creates a unique surface for showcasing design work, motion graphics, and the “back channel”
So what is this space being used for exactly? Well, first off, Digital DUMBO co-founder/CEO Andrew Zarick emphasizes that “the space is designed for our community and not a co-working space” although Outpost will “host co-working days.” You can read Zarick’s more detailed description of Outpost here (along with a recent interview here) and if you care to view, we posted a few images of the space after the jump.
From the very Canadian, but not Canadien, news bureau: Red Tettemer O’Connell + Partners and Under Armour are launching a youth hockey contest tomorrow, October 12, called “Storm the Centre.” Two teams of skating youngsters will eventually win a chance to play at the Air Canada Centre, home of the Toronto Maple Leafs. I want to spell it center, but it’s for the kids, so I’ll keep it Canadian.
The contest consists of three stages – social media engagement, teamwork, and finally, hockey skills. These sort of pee-wee competitions happen all the time, but adding a social media component is a cool twist from RTO+P, especially in a hockey-crazed country, where presumably, families will claw for the chance to see their kids play on a pro rink. The details of the challenges haven’t been released yet, but you can check team eligibility and sign up here. To all the little Charlie Conways out there, have fun.
Remote Control Tourist, the new interactive digital/video Tourism Victoria project from Clemenger BBDO , Exit Films, and Tool director Jason Zada, is kind of like The Sims without the gibberish language. You can control people from your computer, suggest they eat a certain food, walk a certain direction, enter a certain door. If you don’t want to suggest activities via social media, you can just watch the live streams. Voyeurism at its finest, or at least, voyeurism at its least creepiest.
The project is meant to promote Australian tourism by showing off the sights and sounds of Melbourne, and the live stream, which runs October 9-13 for about eight hours per day, adds a compelling dimension to tourism advertising. One man and one woman will travel around the city with head-mounted cameras, tailoring their movements to the social media suggestions. Hear’s to hoping people use the opportunity to be classy and find out more about a beautiful city, and not, you know, be dumb and inappropriate on the Internet, like most of the time. The broadcast officially kicked off, well, about now.
September 14th saw the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series return to the Blue Lagoon on the scenic Pembrokeshire coastline in Wales. Red Bull decided to use a slightly different approach to capture the excitement of that day, including the dives from a 27 meter high platform.
They’ve released a stop-motion film, created using thousands of photos taken at the event by three top UK Instagramers: @danrubin, @jeera and @chaiwalla. The two minute video was stitched together out of photos taken over the course of just a few hours. It takes the viewer on a tour of all the action, capturing people’s reactions to the dives, divers climbing the ladder, the dives themselves, and (of course) the Red Bull stand. You get a nice mix of the excitement of the event, the natural beauty of the location, and a quick glance at the kind of people making up the audience. Everything is put together so seamlessly, you might not even notice it’s stop-motion.
For those of you who like beer and live reasonably close to Toronto, Open and Bier Markt have teamed up for a promotional campaign meant to make you all bubbly inside for the goodness of suds. Tall glasses brimming with foam, hangovers, and bad decisions. Oktoberfest is here.
To kick off the celebration, Bier Markt’s Facebook page has a Biervent (like advent, get it?) calendar, and for each day, there is a new billboard with a headline that might say, “Rock out with Your Sauerkraut” or “Get Schnitzel’d.” In addition to the social media, there will be events for all 32 days of Oktoberfest at Bier Markt, such as a Snout Sunday Roast and the aptly titled Bier and Lederhosen So In Right Now Event. Probably could’ve gotten more creative with that. It almost sounds like a bunch of people were sitting around a table, getting drunk, and they were like, “What should we call the event with beer and lederhosen?” Which is probably true. Credits after the jump.
OK so it’s not the same as jumping out of a capsule in space 120,000 feet above the ground but it’s cool all the same. And, perhaps, even more exciting because these jumpers don’t have a parachute to slow their fall.
Red Bull, again displaying its apparent fixation with heights, has released a stop motion film made from 21,489 photos taken by three Instagrammers over the course of three hours. What did these Instagrammers shoot? Proferssional divers leaping off a 27 meter high platform into the Blue Lagoon in Wales.
@danrubin, @jeera and @chaiwalla were the photographers for the day and it was all done to promote…wait, what? Nothing? You mean a brand sees value is producing interesting content for the enjoyment of consumers? Who knew? Stop the presses! This is radical stuff!
If you’ve ever had a nightmare boss in advertising, Zulu Alpha Kilo’s latest spot for NABS Vintage Intern Auction should appeal to you.
The NABS Vintage Intern Auction auctions off “twelve notable executives and thought leaders,” to be used as interns for a day, for the Canadian charitable group NABS, who provide assistance for people in communications and related industries who need help due to illness, injury, unemployment or financial difficulties. Winning bidders can assign their interns to do anything from giving a speech or holding a seminar to cleaning up the kitchen or getting coffee.
The spot highlights the revenge aspect of the auction, with bidders attempting to win the right to boss around a truly awful Chief Creative Officer. At the center of the spot is the eventual winning bidder, a man with an eye patch who the CCO told, “If you can work from home, you can work from Intensive Care.” He outbids the woman the CCO called “Sarah in bed and then said ‘I’m so sorry, Diane,’ which isn’t [her] name either.” I don’t know what kind of work he has for the CCO, but it won’t be pretty. Perhaps cleaning the bathroom floor with a toothbrush?
As you can tell from the synopsis, Zulu Alpha Kilo isn’t afraid to push the boundaries a little bit with some risque humor, and the result is a spot that is actually funny. We’re guessing that since it’s for a good cause, no one will be offended. No CCOs were harmed in the making of this video. At least not any that didn’t deserve it.
Here’s the full list of the “interns” up for bids, in case your boss from hell is one of them:
Claude Carrier – President, DentsuBos
Mary Maddever – VP & Editorial Director, Brunico Publishing
Young Glory Season 3 is upon us, with a twist. While previous iterations have included only Advertising briefs, this season kicks off with a separate Design category. More categories, more opportunities to win points, and more points is good for just about everything except golf and driving records. However, and I’ll inform you upfront, points from the Advertising category cannot combine with points from the Design category. When you enter, whether student or professional, choose wisely.
This month’s judges are R/GA Regional ECD David Brown (Advertising) and Collins New York Partner and ECD Leland Maschmeyer (Design). Brown’s ad brief focuses on wearable technology: “we are turning the table a little and asking you to think from “what” to “what if?” In the same realm as Nike Fuel, Google Glass, etc., Brown is asking for fashion and function. On the Design end, Maschmeyer’s brief deals with improving America’s healthcare system (don’t worry about issues such the healthcare lobby, Congressional gridlock, or Republican hostage-taking). From the brief: “Design can help in one key area: the customer’s relationship with their health insurance provider.” Sreamline, simplify, convenience. Do whatever you have to do to earn those points. Everyone is eligible.
Alas, it’s that time of year again when the industry converges on New York City for Advertising Week (damn, time flies). So, to help kick off the event, we gathered a few folks from the creative, media and publishing sides last week in our Mediabistro studios to discuss the weeklong festivities (as well as various other non-Advertising Week-related industry issues). Those taking part in the lively, free-flowing chat include PSFK founder/CEO Piers Fawkes, Huge creative director Ross Maupin and Scott Schwartz, senior partner, integrated planning at MEC.
The topic of this particular conversation was, yes, Advertising Week, including if its actually still worth attending and if so, what our participants are looking forward to at this year’s event. Tomorrow, the lads discuss the elephant in the room that is the Publicis-Omnicom merger. Stay tuned.
To bring opera to the people, Lowe Roche put a new spin on the FAO Schwarz-style giant piano (as made famous in this scene from Big) for TFO, the only public television station in Ontario featuring opera as part of their weekly program.
Set during the Festival d’Opéra de Québec, Lowe Roche assembled twelve opera singers to correspond with the twelve notes of the instrument. When these notes were played they lit up and the corresponding opera singer bellowed out his or her note. (Tom Hanks was conspicuously absent from the performance, unfortunately.) Everyone from children to seniors to dogs can be seen having a blast playing with the piano, while the opera singers concentrate on their every move to make sure they don’t miss their cue. Unfortunately, no one organized a group of twelve people to jump on the twelve keys at the same time to create a large atonal blast of opera awesomeness.
Lowe Roche and TFO found a unique way to engage their audience, while accomplishing the near-impossible task of making opera seem fun to young people. I’d venture a guess that more than a handful of children dragged along to the festival spent the entire time playing or watching TFO’s ‘L’Opéra Piano.’ To those youngsters saved from boredom, Lowe Roche and TFO are heroes. Credits after the jump. continued…
After a mastectomy, breast cancer patients are left with scars, and, in many cases, no nipples. These consequences of the operation can’t always be aided by reconstructive surgery — which is an expensive option at any rate. P.INK, which we’ve covered in the past, is a post-mastectomy support platform offering a different solution to women left with body image issues after a mastectomy: tattoos.
P.INK has been educating women about the potential of tattoos to help them take creative control of their post-op bodies with their Pinterest boards.Today, P.INK launched an online crowdfunding campaign to finance the tattoos of ten breast cancer survivors at an event called P.INK Day October 21st in Brookyln. The event, scheduled to coincide with Breast Cancer Awareness Month, will feature ten of the country’s top tattoo artists inking scar coverage and nipple replacement tattoos for ten breast cancer survivors.
“This is an investment in art,” says Noel Franus, one of the creatives at CP+B who helped launched the non-profit. “Public contributions will help commission beautiful work that will serve as a personal and permanent celebration of life.”
Donations are open starting today, at the P.INK Day Indiegogo campaign site. P.INK hopes that the inaugural P.INK Day at Saved Tattoo studio in Brookyln will be just the first of many to come.
Advertising Week X, the tenth annual week for people in the advertising industry to celebrate advertising by talking about, awarding, and giving tips about advertising is only a week away. What more appropriate way to celebrate advertising than with an advertisement for celebrating advertising? Yay, advertising!
The above advertisement comes from SF-based advertising agency Mekanism, which doesn’t seem to be an official partner or sponsor of Advertising Week so we’re assuming this advertisment was made just for love of the game. (The game is advertising, by the way.) While the ad does a good job of advertising all of the hipster/yuppie advertising people you’ll meet at Advertising Week, it doesn’t advertise one of the week’s biggest events: The Battle of the Ad Bands, in which advertising industry folks with trace amounts of musical acuity compete to be the best at simultaneously being in advertising and being in a band. I mean, CMJ is in town next week, but as an member of the advertising community, your attendance at the Battle of the Ad Bands should be mandatory if it isn’t already.
ESPN and ESPN Deportes will kick off Hispanic Heritage Month — which is not actually a calendar month, but a month-long period from September 15 through October 15 — with a 60-minute primetime special celebrating the most renowned Hispanic athletes airing on both networks Monday, September 17 at 8 p.m.
The top 10 countdown is sponsored by Jack Daniel’s and Gillette and will include such legends as Roberto Clemente, Lionel Messi, Oscar de la Hoya, and the soon-to-be-retired Mariano Rivera. Athletes were ranked from an initial list of 50 athletes by a panel of journalists, entertainers, athletes and Hispanic community leaders. One Nación was produced in front of a live live audience in Los Angeles. The bilingual show will be hosted by ESPN Deportes’ Adriana Monsalve and SportsCenter anchor Max Bretos and features special guests unveiling the countdown.
In the social sphere, Gillette is sponsoring a live Twitter fan vote encouraging fans to choose between the number one and number two athletes while discussing the countdown, while Jack Daniel’s will sponsor a recap of the top ten during the show as the top athletes are revealed. Both brands will also be integrated through different live events and programs scheduled for the rest of Hispanic Heritage Month, including vignettes featuring Hispanic athletes such as Carmelo Anthony, Sergio Romo, Victor Cruz, and Omar Gonzalez.
To promote the new, high-performance Lexus IS Hybrid, Lexus Italy, Saatchi & Saatchi Italy, Movie Magic International, LOGAN (LA&NY) and Fake Love collaborated to create “Trace Your Road,” an experiential event featuring Formula 1 driver, Jarno Trulli.
Held on July 26, “Trace Your Road” pit Trulli against a series of improvised racetracks, each one designed on a touch tablet in real-time by one of ten contest winners. Fake Love conceptualized and produced the generative visuals, projections and interactivity for the campaign. LOGAN directed the live action portion, and handled post VFX and finishing. Movie Magic International provided on-site pre-production and production for the spots and produced a behind-the-scenes documentary.
The live event took place inside an aircraft hangar near Rome and featured the new IS Hybrid, a collection of cameras, and real-time projections brought together by LOGAN director, Alan Bibby.
The ten finalists – selected from hundreds of applicants on Lexus’ Facebook page – were given the opportunity to sit in the passenger seat of the IS Hybrid with Trulli at the wheel. The course was then traced by contestants on a touch tablet that projected their designs onto the floor of the hangar using a collection of 12-20K and 22K projectors. The Lexus IS Hybrid was tracked using a custom high-res infrared (IR) camera system.
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