Hiscox Reactor Spins Out Generic LinkedIn Animations

The Hiscox Reactor? Gee, that sounds fancy. Sounds like something a character from The Big Bang Theory would reference. It turns out that it’s not all that fancy, save for some elegant animation reminiscent of a Rube Goldberg machine courtesy of Tribal Worldwide NY. The gist: users log in to their Linkedin accounts and can follow a whirling red ball that moves through customized graphics revealing education and work history.

The experience is personalized in the way that asking a Magic 8 Ball a question is personalized. A finite number of combinations and animations have little use after the first watch. However, if you feel like watching the red ball spin – and it is a Friday, so why not? – the chain reaction may make you think about your winding career path that has taken many turns and dips. It didn’t for me, but it might for you. And it might make you want to purchase small business insurance from Hiscox, which is actually important. Or it just might make you wonder why a company would spend money on a custom animation gimmick that lacks value. Credits after the jump.

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Geox Puts Waterproof Shoes to the Ultimate Test, Develops New Form of Torture

Last year, Geox took their line of  Amphibiox waterproof shoes to the rainiest place on earth: Cherrapunjee, India — which has an annual rainfall of around 12,000 mm. This year, Norwegian agency SMFB found an even more extreme way to test Geox’s Amphibiox technology.

SMFB enlisted one brave volunteer, named Tom, who they proceeded to torture with a barrage of seven days of nonstop precipitation on the streets of Barceleona. To accomplish this, SMFB had to make it rain, developing “three highly advanced artificial clouds” for the experiment. “We reproduced the conditions required for the test, creating relentless rain and constant humidity in the middle of a sunny city. The poor man had to live under his own, private rain cloud for seven days straight,” said Kristian Kristiansen at SMFB, who proceeded to laugh maniacally.

Each of these rainy days was laid out to simulate everyday urban activities, like walking the streets as a tourist, working a day job, or going out on a date. The rain cloud even followed the poor torture victim into a cab.

MediaMonks, who handled the campaign’s film and digital production, made clever use of technology as well. They developed a “shoe cam” that “captured the shoes with super slow-motion macro Phantom shots,” says Rogier Schalken of MediaMonks films. MediaMonks documented video footage of all seven of Tom’s rainy days, in addition to the highlights video featured above.

Throughout the seven day precipitation onslaught, the Geox Amphibiox shoes remained dry. Tom wasn’t so lucky. He died of pneumonia (Okay, not really, but the psychological scars may never heal). Credits and additional video after the jump.  continued…

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Your Ticket to Space Relies on Predicting When KLM’s Balloon Will Pop

KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, which famously flies from The Netherlands to the Nether Lands™, is giving regular schmucks like you and me a chance to float around in outer space for a while. What this has to do with flying to different locations on Earth is unclear, but KLM along with agencies RAPP and Tribal DDB Amsterdam probably figured, “Hey, Axe is giving away a trip to outer space. We should do that too.” And do that too they are.

Of course, a campaign doesn’t begin and end with just giving away tickets to space. As every advertising veteran knows, the difficult part is determining  who actually gets the tickets. Ever the pragmatists, KLM have decided that this makes the most logical sense: They are launching a balloon with space tickets inside of it from Area 51 on April 22, with viewers of a live stream predicting at what altitude the balloon will pop. Should you guess correctly, you get the space tickets.

Should advertising ever be lauded for any one attribute, it should be its practicality. Credits after the jump.

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