A great incentive to get people to participate - a 33% discount and all Virgin want you to do is submit an awkward family holiday snap. If you haven't got any I suggest you raid the charity shops, car boots and jumble sales to get yourself away on one of Virgin's big planes. This is how they put it:
"Between the sunburns and the sing-alongs, sometimes the only thing relaxing about a family vacation is when we finally make it home. Well, AFP is proud to partner with Virgin America to make your next family vacation a little less awkward…
In celebration of family vacations everywhere, Virgin America & AFP are inviting travelers to submit their most awkward vacation pics (photo must be of your family) for a chance to win the ultimate family getaway. Just by submitting or voting for your favorite photo, you can score an awkward 33.3% off your next family booking."
Virgin haven't attempted to rip off awkardfamilyphotos.com by creating a copycat inferior version. Fish where the fish are - and all that. So credit where it's due.
But, is this a win win for both parties? Virgin borrow equity from Awkward Family photos. Awkward get an increase in submissons and I'm sure a nice amount of cash.
However, will punters just see it as Virgin muscling in on something which was beautiful in it's non-commercial naivety?
Thursday, 30 September 2010
Virgin Vacation MeMe's with AwkardFamilyPhotos.com
Space Cadets
These guys attached a HD cam to a Weather balloon and sent it 90,000ft up before it burst and returned to Earth
Homemade Spacecraft from Luke Geissbuhler on Vimeo.
Wednesday, 29 September 2010
BOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!
Ant picked this new work out for Nike by W&K.
As he asks - is this the next WASSSSUPPPP!!!!?????
Loyalty cards become one
This is a beautifully simple and useful idea. It just won the mobile clicks award.
Read more here
Lots of logos - Infographic for the display ad tech landscape
Developed by Terence Kawaja of LUMA Partners, the Display Advertising Technology Landscape makes an attempt to map out the companies involved in this ever-changing business via coolinfographics.com
NOKIA PUSH BURTON
Nokia have been working on the push project for over a year. A crowd sourcing initiative to encourage folk to hack it's N900 phone. One of the resulting ideas was PUSH skating - basically it analyses the tricks you do on a skate board via sensors. it then turns the data into cool stats and graphics. It's the real world and Tony Hawk Pro-Skater melding into one.
They've now taken to the slopes and teamed up with Burton. I've got a feeling it still wouldn't make my pathetic 2 foot Ollies look very good.
Read more at Contagious magazine
Puma Sole hits India
Jack in the Box have created the sole machine for Puma. It travelled around 15 different destinaions in Mumbai. The Ambassador car was painted white and Mumbai urbanites were encouraged to tag it. Apparently they had to repaint it 4 times. The pimp your sole contest encouraged people to get creative online. It utilised Facebook and drove people to retail. The figures look good - 3 million impressions but India's population is over 1.2 Billion.
It's not the most original piece of activity but it is another example of digital and experiential blurring seamlessly to create a brand experience.
Tuesday, 28 September 2010
Power failure - Dazeley documents Battersea's decline
Looking like the inspiration for the set on Lost Dazeley's images record the sad deline of a London icon. See more images here
And if you're into bricks - 61 million bricks were used to build Battersea Power Station. It was designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott & built in 1933. It went out of service in 1983.
The question has to be will the redevelopment retain any of this old character? The Tate breathed new life in to Bankside I somehow think the same won't be true of Battersea's reinvention.
Fungal Wind - the power of 30 fold
Excuse the Saab ad before hand but check out the clip above. From New Scientist:
"A good breeze is just what a fungus needs to spread its seed, but what if the weather doesn't oblige? It turns out some species generate their own jets of air, increasing how far their spores travel more than 30-fold.
Marcus Roper of the University of California, Berkeley, and his colleagues used high-speed cameras, lasers and models to film spore ejections and calculate the precise speed and motion of each spore in the crop pathogen Sclerotinia sclerotiorum and seven other apothecial fungi."
More here
Monday, 27 September 2010
UNITED EUROPE - Maps that show what the Euro zone really thinks of one another
Maps by Graphic Designer Yanko Tsvetkov.
More here
MOUSETRAP MAYHEM - THE GAME GOES LIFE SIZE
Mark Perez travels around fairs with his life size mousetrap game. It takes 5 days to set up and just like the original it doesn't always work.
Read more here Mousetrap
THE FUTURE EDITORS
We’re now in the era of the Future Editor and we’re experiencing a revolution in how we’re influenced by the media. The old hierarchy of Editor-in-Chief being in sole charge of what we consume when and where is being questioned. We, the reader, have become the editor with a team of sub-editors. These new editorial teams are a diverse bunch. As with all information we’re searching for authentic sources to inform our opinions. Ultimately they are sources we trust. Some are established publications, others are celebrities with global followings. But the most important ones are our friends.
New tools like FLUD, Apollo News, Pulse News and FlipBoard aggregate our trusted sources into easy to digest digital magazines. They blend global news alongside intimate feeds from our social networks giving us a heady mix of the macro and micro. If you've got an iPad check them out and unleash your Future Editor.
BRA WARS - yes it's a bra that doubles up as a gas mask.
Find out more at emergency bra HQ http://ebbra.com/
Wednesday, 8 September 2010
Social Media over the next 5 years
There's loads of Buzz around Social Media and to celebrate Mashable's 5th B'day they've been asking various experts to give their view on the next 5 years. Have a read.
http://mashable.com/2010/09/07/next-5-years-social-media/
Now there's nothing particularly Earth shattering in this over view from the mashable guys. It seems obvious to us that as social media networks, like Facebook, are adopted by the older masses they'll be rejected by the younger generation, who will inevitably move on to the next latest thing. After all who really wants to be hanging out in the same bar as their mum. In the next 5 years will we become more closed rather than open? Will social snobbery, privacy and fraud lead us to be more conservative, less trusting and more selective about who we let in to our various worlds?
