Hasta La Creative!

(TrendHunter.com) The Urban Security Suit by Dutch designer Tim Smit was created to make sure you continue to look stylish even in case of a chemical attack.

Most of us may not survive a massive bio-chemical attack, but I’ll be damned if I won’t look absolutely fabulous and hip as hell when they find my messed up bo…

A story on a new language learning program in Wired is illustrated with a graph that shows the program’s underlying principle: “The best time to study something is at the moment you are about to forget it.” This was also one of the arguments in the brilliantly written The Advertised Mind, a book about cognitive psychology and advertising, that suggested a new approach to media planning based on how people acquire and, importantly, retain knowledge.

Architecture of query-specific search recommendation (source: pdf)

A collection of papers written by Googlers has a lot of stuff that points towards a possible direction of search. Since these are all papers published in academic journals, many of them are locked behind publications’ paid subscriptions, but a few are freely available. The one I’m reading now is titled “Retroactive Answering of Search Queries” (pdf); its about identifying queries that have lasting interest and proving answer to these queries at a later date when information becomes available (pictured above).

Famous director Guy Ritchie brings his unique style to the latest film advertisement for Nike, starring Wenger, Fabregas, Gallas, Ronaldo and Rooney.

The minute long film entitled, Take It To The Next Level, combines a football match with glimpses into behind the scenes of the players’ life.

The…

(TrendHunter.com) The mortgage crisis in the USA has created a very depressed housing market and as a consequence, sellers are having a hard time finding buyers. A new apartment complex in Los Angeles is using a very unorthodox method to find interested buyers for its apartment units: gyrating, sexy window dancers. T…

Volkswagen has broadened its talk show host campaign, featuring Max the talking ’64 veedub, with the debut of What the People Want.

(TrendHunter.com) Carlsberg tries to appeal to the health-conscious consumer with this TV spot for Carlsberg Lite. Naturally, since we’re talking about guys, any approach won’t just cut it. It must feature lots and lots of attractive girls.

Entitled “Fitness Centre”, the ad follows three men going to a dream fitness…

Renault has come up with this fun ad to display make believe scenarios of what people would prefer to be doing rather than being stuck in traffic.

Initially some of the drivers stuck in rush hour seem a little frustrated, sticking their heads out their windows and looking quite aggravated. A few s…

(TrendHunter.com) Miley Cyrus, the 15-year-old Hannah Montana star and a face of the Disney empire, says she regrets posing for a risque photo shoot in an upcoming issue of Vanity Fair. The photos were shot by famed photographer Annie Leibowitz for the June issue of the magazine. Miley, who was accompanied by her fat…

When I filled up my Pathfinder yesterday, I realized that $3.54/gallon means a $70 tank–double what it cost me a short time ago. Naturally, this type of inflation has dire consequences for the economy.

For the first time since 1980, consumers are driving less. Last year, the amount of miles driven declined 0.4%. The previous two years had been flat. Prior to that, the amount of miles had grown 3-5% each year.

Brandweek explores some of the behavioral changes taking place as Americans keep it in “park.”

91% of consumers claim they have changed their shopping behavior due to various rising prices in the U.S. economy.

One of the categories getting hit the hardest is restaurants. Last year, customer traffic was up only 0.7%. More than half of financially challenged consumers surveyed said they are stocking up, preparing more meals at home and using leftovers.

The article also says Coca-Cola and PepsiCo will feel the pinch as transportation and raw materials costs rise. “It’s squeezing everybody’s margins,” said Gary Hemphill, managing director at Beverage Marketing, New York. “Beverages are price sensitive, there is only so much you can pass onto the consumer.”

Brandweek believes strong branding is more important than ever, as it’s that much harder to motivate purchase. I believe they are correct, but if gas prices continue to rise at this rate, it’s not going to matter much. People simply won’t have the disposable income it takes to make non-essential purchases.

[UPDATE] Now that I’ve had the chance to read the front page of Sunday’s New York Times, I see this topic is on the media’s mind. The Times says middle- and working-class consumers are starting to switch from name brands to cheaper alternatives.

In Ohio, Holly Levitsky is replacing the Lucky Charms cereal in her kitchen with Millville Marshmallows and Stars, a less expensive store brand. In New Hampshire, George Goulet is no longer booking hotel rooms at the Hilton, favoring the lower-cost Hampton Inn. And in Michigan, Jennifer Olden is buying Gain laundry detergent instead of the full-price Tide.