Wednesday, August 31, 2011

The smallest billboard around

Here is a billboard to promote the UK documentary show Seven Dwarves:

Tiny billboards were placed around London to showcase the television program that shadows seven tiny people during the production of Snow White.   ...Really?


These mini-billboards were scaled to real-sized hoardings, as the Brits would say, and came with lighting that actually worked.  

 

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Put it together...

Here is a series of amazing print ads from Vietnam for model kit maker Tamiya:

Elvis Conspiracy

JFK Conspiracy
Judging by the sheen of the advert, these were sadly... only print, and not assembly model inserts, which would have made these ads even more AMAZING!  To have the print ads actually be piece-together-kits would have introduced a level of fun and interactivity.

Marilyn Conspiracy

Moon Conspiracy
These print ads have intricately detailed recreations of historical events, including the "Elvis Conspiracy" with fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches, a toilet and a bloated Elvis.  The "JFK Conspiracy" comes with a grassy knoll and a lone gunman.  The "Marilyn Conspiracy" has an ample supply of booze and pills.  The "Moon Conspiracy" has an assemblable film crew for the alleged moon walk.

Roswell Conspiracy
These ads are incredibly intelligent in how it draws in a viewer with these intricate details that can be studied as they recall the details of these conspiracies, including the restricted area signs of Area 51 and the autopsy table of the "Roswell Conspiracy."  The reader "Put(s) it Together" in their mind as they mentally piece these kits together, weaving their own narrative of what might have actually happened.  All the while, these print ads simultaneously communicate firmly the quality of model kits Tamiya offers.  But I can see why this is NOT a real model kit... talk about choking hazard liability... It's a shame because this is the type of ad I would genuinely put together and play with.

Monday, August 29, 2011

Shaved tattoo

Here's a print ad for Schick:

With a tag of "The Power of 4," these Schick ads show how four blades can shave the fur off a tiger, a bearded viking warrior, and the tresses off bikini-clad ladies.    


Sunday, August 28, 2011

Shadowcasting billboards

Here is an amazing billboard for Newcastle Brown Ale in San Diego:

There have been some interesting instillations for Newcastle.  Using Newcastle bottle caps, they arranged thousands of caps in a particular way on this billboard.  At nighttime the light cast against these caps looks like a shadow of a person reaching out for the beer.

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Stop motion photographer

Here is an interesting stop motion video using a ton of photographs:


Here is the Behind the Scenes video:


Friday, August 26, 2011

Knives in your back?

Here's an outdoor ad for Cedars-Sinai Spine Center in Los Angeles:

Real knives were placed inside this outdoor poster to show the type of back pain the Spine Center can relieve. 

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Play fight with Ikea

Here's an ad from the UK for Ikea:


A couple play fighting with Ikea pillows and such find their antics up in the bedroom and shows they have "Everything You Need To Go Happy To Bed" to make them "Happy Inside."

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Chrome makes your bots go faster

Here's an ad from the UK for Google Chrome:


The little toys speed up every time it passes through the Chrome frame, showing how everything runs faster in the Chrome browser.

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Who says there isn't chivalry in beer ads

Here is a commercial from London for Stella Artois:


A gentleman seated at a cafe sees a stunning woman and goes after her.  Being the fine gentleman he is, he places his coat over a puddle as she walks across the street.  Well, a storm must have recently passed through since there are many puddles on the street.  He begins to strip off his other garments so she can have something to step on over these other puddles.  As she hops over other puddles, he continues to tear off his clothes for her, and finally he asks, "Can't we just talk?"  "But we are in a commercial," she quips.  It's a cute, risky response, but works for this commercial and the look and feel is very nice. 

Monday, August 22, 2011

How fresh is your orange juice?

Here is an ambient ad from Brazil for Oficina do Acqi:


Drinking straws that roughly translate to "The Most Natural Juice In the Town" were stuck onto fruit at local grocers to show how fresh Oficina do Acqi's juice is.


Sunday, August 21, 2011

Hit on chicks with a ukulele

Here's a commercial for Match.com from London:


This bloke serenades a girl with an impromptu ukulele song and sparks what may be a budding relationship.


Saturday, August 20, 2011

LivingSocial taxi

Here is a great stunt in London for LivingSocial:


Unsuspecting passengers would board the LivingSocial taxi and discover they had the choice of either continuing to their destination or a LivingSocial Experience.  The daring ones who didn't have a train to catch or were in a rush took a roll of the dice for some interesting excursions including a pole dancing fitness class and a fish pedicure. 


Friday, August 19, 2011

Human powered vending machine

Here is a human powered vending machine created for ACTIVATE drinks in Los Angeles:



An exercise bike was attached to a vending machine and for every 30 seconds of pedaling a free bottle of ACTIVATE was released. 

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

A moustache-filled video resume

It's a competitive job market out there.  What do you do if you have your heart set on working at Google?  Here's one bloke who created this video resume:


It was a bit of a let down when he took of his delicious mustache. But he does keep it mustachlicious on googlepleasehire.me


Tuesday, August 16, 2011

That's one powerful fan

This outdoor installation was done in Brazil to show how powerful Arno fans are:


A car was tipped over to showcase the "Maximum Wind Power" of these fans.  


Monday, August 15, 2011

Have a Gö! Let's attack our boring furniture

Here is a commercial from Australia for Ikea:


Armed with familiar Ikea items, this angry mob storms suburbia taking down their old furniture for their new Ikea replacements. 

Saturday, August 13, 2011

These cheetahs look hungry

Here's an ambient ad from New Zealand for the TV series Man vs Wild:


A tent promoting the TV show was placed in the cheetah exhibit at the Auckland Zoo.

Friday, August 12, 2011

Shocking bowling balls

These bowling balls were transformed in Germany to promote the horror TV channel 13th Street:


They had painted several bowling balls to look like severed heads and swapped them out in German bowling alleys. 


Thursday, August 11, 2011

Soapbox derby

Here's a media kit for the Red Bull Soapbox Race, Los Angeles:


Each press kit came with a little soapbox car and a can of Red Bull to promote the event in Downtown LA.

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Post-it note art

I really can't get enough of post-it stop-motion films.  Here's one for Brazilian shoe brand Melissa:


It took 350,000 post-it notes, 25 animators, and 5 months to create this stop-motion film shot at the foyer of the Melissa flagship store in Sao Paulo for the "Power of Love" campaign.  Passersby were encouraged to write personal messages on the post-it notes. 

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Interactive ice sculpture promotion

Here is an ambient ad from Canada for McDonald's "Cool off with $1 Drinks" promotion:


$4,000 worth of Canadian dollars, or "loonies" as the Canadians like to call them, were encased in sheets of ice and shaped into the iconic McDonald golden arches.  People chipped away at the seven foot tall ice sculpture for the icy coins. 

Monday, August 8, 2011

Human pinball

Here's a stop-motion human pinball machine for the Animation Block Party:


Rube Goldberg: Open your imagination

It seems like only yesterday I was writing about Episode 2 and Episode 3 of Sony's Rube Goldberg videos for their new tablet.  Now the fourth installation is out:


This spot does have some interesting elements with metal balls.

Sunday, August 7, 2011

Largest and smallest stop-motion films

Here are some stop-motion films shot with a Nokia N8.

The first one is the LARGEST stop-motion film shot with a Nokia N8:



"Gulp" follows a fisherman fishing for sand fishes.  One fish becomes bait for a much larger fish.  Three Nokia N8s were set on a crane to capture the sand artists who drew this ocean scene.  Watch the Making Of film:


Here's the SMALLEST stop-motion film shot on a Nokia N8 using CellScope technology:


"Dot" shows a slumbering figurine who finds her nap is interrupted when the landscape starts unraveling.  She runs through the miniaturized land trying to avoid the destructive thread.  There are nice little touches in the scenery such as pencil shavings used for ocean waves.

Dot stands at 9mm and they used a 3D printer to "print" out resin copies of the models.  Here is a Making Of film:
 

Saturday, August 6, 2011

Larger than life marionette show

Here's a video for Royal de Luxe, a French street marionette company.  They performed their new show Giants Royal de Luxe in Nantes, France:


This is the film Being John Malkovich come to life.  The attention to detail with these mechanical marionettes movement is phenomenally impressive, from the batting of the eyelids, to the realism of each step. Towards the end of the video, it shows the team jumping off the platform in order to pull the ropes of the extremely tall marionette.

Friday, August 5, 2011

Bottled water plants

Here's an ambient ad for Desani bottled water in Canada:


Topiary plants were shaped to looked the bottled water. 



Thursday, August 4, 2011

Nervous nail biters? You know this much is true...

Here's an odd ad for Argentinian herbal spirit Fernet 1882:


It appears there's a large field filled with 1882 nervous individuals.  The crowd becomes overjoyed when large versions of objects they can chomp on in order to temper their nervousness, such as a pen cap, are flown in by helicopter.  When the helicopter takes the chewed up pen cap away it's kind of hilarious.  

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Scary ads

Here are a couple of frightening ads.

The first one is a traveling ambient ad for AMC's The Walking Dead:


A truck with bloody limbs coming out of the back was seen driving around at Comic Con 2011 promoting the second season of the post-apocalyptic TV show. 

The second ad is a commercial directed by Rob Zombie for Woolite:


It's hard to believe the horror-movie film directing, heavy metal playing rocker would direct a commercial for a detergent. 

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Seafood aquarium

Here's an ambient ad from Thailand for LG's SolarDom microwave:


They created robotic versions of cooked seafood for food court aquariums in Bangkok.  Robo fried mackerel, grilled saba with soya and deep-fried shrimp swam like real fish in the tank to show how LG microwaves can cook food fast so that it is "Ready to Eat."  


Monday, August 1, 2011

Flying high above

Here are a couple of ads that are up in the air.

The first one is from Thailand for Big Bloom bubble gum:


They took a pink "marker" balloon typically found in front of shopping centers and fashioned it so it looked like a large bubble, attaching a life-sized child dummy.  It's pretty good way to get attention, yet it is a little creepy.  But it does have a large potential for a media freak out.  Remember the whole balloon boy fiasco?

The second one is from India for the artificial sweetener Sugar Free:

I like the idea of having an ad floating above, but for this particular execution they could have developed a stronger tagline or modified the concept.  It's a shame to have an attention-getting billboard that doesn't really say anything.  

The connection of a "lite" sweetener with a "light" advertisement seems like a mixed metaphor that doesn't really make a strong enough connection to the product.  A viewer might look at a big floating sign and never see the product identification, tagline or bother to make the effort to read it.  Like guy illustrated above, who appears to actually be looking at the ad, the potential customer may be in a bad angle where reading the sign might be difficult.