With SXSW getting bigger and bigger each year, it's interesting to see which marketers will stand out from the crowd. Often times, it's the little things that seem to capture attention best. At least in our opinion.
Last year, mobile parking app ParkMe placed fake paper boots on the wheels of cars all over the city of Austin to call attention to its app. It got a lot of buzz and the app is quite successful one year later.
This year, task app TaskRabbit has tricked out a vehicle to make it look like, well, a furry rabbit. With so many people out and about in the city traversing the city to attend panels which have now grown well beyond the confines of the Austin Convention Center, the streets are prime space for marketers to hype their offerings.
We're quite sure we'll see more examples of this as the week progresses.
Photo Credit: Mashable
Touting its U.S. edition, UK-based newspaper The Guardian has launched its first U.S. ad campaign. The paper is well known for its Three Little Pigs and Own the Weekend ads.
The Guardian partnered with BBH New York to launch #VoiceYourView, a campaign that merges the Guardian's editorial voice with its strategy of open journalism.
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Commuting to work in the morning is usually an insular, inward-focused, introspective, unexciting, reflective, mundane, uneventful experience. Unless, of course, you decide to get on the bus at a Weather Channel-sponsored busstop that's promoting a new Android app.
Just when you are at peace with yourself, ignoring everything and everyone around you, the last thing you want is for it to rain. Rather, for it to rain INSIDE THE BUS SHELTER that has been outfitted with spinklers as props to help hype just how precise the new app is at forecasting.
Right, that sells the app. More likely, it pisses people off and sends then running off to Accuweather.
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While it would certainly be amusing to stand at a bus top, visit a mobile site and then be picked up by a super cool sports car or a dog sled or a bus filled with carnival characters but how exactly does all that sell Qualcomm mobile services? If, in fact, that's what this stunt is trying to sell. Because we have no idea since we were distracted by all the stunt's hoopla.
This makes about as much sense as the brand's keynote at CES.
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Here's an ingenious idea. Now that the internet is available almost anywhere, people are able to do "instant research" to learn about anything on their smart devices. For a fictional project, Miami Ad School students Max Pilwat, Keri Tan and Ferdi Rodriguez developed subway campaign that allows people to grab the first ten pages of a book while riding the subway using near field communications. Once finished they will be informed of the closest libraries so they could finish their story.
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To help promote the Denver Center for the Arts production of Drag Machine, a drag queen-centric production, Denver agency gyro created posters that were placed strategically over existing faucets so that the faucets appeared to be... well...just look at the posters.
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Well this billboard certainly wouldn't have lasted long in the middle of Sandy. Thankfully, it's far from her path in Minneapolis. Created by Baldwin& for Burt's Bees' Intense Hydration moisturizing cream, the 11 ' X 6' billboard was covered by 1,300 $30 sticky note coupons created a "dray and flaky" look that, once removed, revealed a woman whose skin was smooth and youthful.
Check out the time lapse video of the project which was posted on the brand's Facebook page and on YouTube.
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Apparently, you can make art with a hockey puck. In August, San Jose SHarks Al-Star Logan Couture and his eight-year-old friend, Ryan, shot 800 hockey pucks at a garage. It took them four hours but, if stunt be true, they created art. Have a look at the video.
Logan signed the door which will be hung at Lucas Arena in his hometown.
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It seems that no amount of publicized social media faux pauxs let alone general marketing faux pauxs over the past hundred years are able to prevent other brands from becoming bumbling idiots ripe for ridicule. Today's marketing dunce cap goes to Health provider HealthNet which saw fit to use a fake tweet on a billboard (spotted in Portland, Oregon) to promote its site.
The tweet, "Affordable, fits my biz needs - smart health plan #healthnetcares," reads as if it were written some social media buffoon with just enough pompous "guruism" to convince his clueless superiors "this will be a really cool billboard!"
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In remembrance of that terrible day 11 years ago, a group of students from the Miami Ad School in New York have painted the memorial message, "Live For Today 9/11" on the street at three crosswalk locations in New York City; Soho, the financial district and Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
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