Aurora (Part 1) from Adaptive Path on Vimeo.

This is Part 1 of Aurora, a concept video created by Adaptive Path in partnership with Mozilla Labs. It sets out to define a plausible vision of how technology, the browser, and the Web might evolve in the future by depicting that experience in a variety of real-world contexts.

The release of Aurora is part of the launch of Mozilla Labs’ browser concept series, an ongoing initiative to encourage designers and developers to contribute their own visions of the future of the browser and the Web. Over the next couple of weeks, they’ll be releasing more video segments, as well as background material showing just what went into imagining the future of the Web and translating that into a video.

A great presentation from Iain Tate, on how the band Radiohead have such effective and relevant experiences online that they have taken him from being someone who disliked Radiohead into being someone who may not love them, but certainly likes the idea of them. His ultimate point being that this is the outcome that a lot of brands want out of the online experience, but to do this you really have to experiment with the medium and to a large extent re-invent the medium regularly. This means you really have to do new things and not wait until you see someone else doing it first successfully before feeling comfortable about doing it. Remember they only give out medals for bravery.

Apparently Lego are already using this as digital POS.
You can have 3D objects and or video playing in the same space.
Mmmm…

So the sand has well and truly settled and Cannes is long over for another year. Observations from afar? I’m left wondering when it will get to a point when it’s just the Cyber Lions and then everything else. The only other category will be for work that had no digital component whatsoever. If it’s got a URL on the poster, it can’t be entered. Or… are the categories themselves just becoming irrelevant, it’s all just stuff, integrated, direct, promo, telly, digital stuff, that’s all connected somehow. Anyhoo… it just seems a lot of the digital stuff keeps popping up in other categories.

>>>>>Large Kittens Below<<<<<

UNIQLOCK

By PROJECTOR For UNIQLO
It’s a fusion of dance video routines, time signal music and clock utility, so the description on the entry says. But it’s more than that. It’s a brand and it’s collective agencies who have for the last little while produced some amazing work with such an articulate digital focus. If the GAP was born a decade or two later and had some imagination this is who they could be. But won’t. They also have a solid grip on the widgetisation of your brand and where it can take you, or more importantly where people can take you.

NON-STOP FERNANDO

By LEAN MEAN FIGHTING MACHINE For EMIRATES
Audacious idea. Have this Brazil nut gabber on for the time it takes to fly from Dubai to Sao Paulo. Lean Mean Fighting Machine also takes out Interactive Agency of the Year beating out Crispin Porter + Bogusky, all this with a staff of only 20 proves that they really are.

PET SHOP BOYS – INTEGRAL

QR codes, QR codes, QR codes… Now even a Pet Shop Boys film clip has got em’ but with a little twist. The QR codes appear throughout the clip embedded in a pixel animation. So when you pause on a frame (there are over 100 of them in the clip) and point your phone at them you’ll be taken to civil liberties/social rights sites that provide more information on the songs moral message. Neat.

ORANGE UNLIMITED

By POKE For Orange
Good things should never end. Just like the site. Which didn’t, the more you scrolled it just kept on going. Full of whimsy (break out the toffee) and instantly embeddable sized bits and pieces to take away for later not to mention FREE THINGS hidden in the site. The awards for this thing seen to be unlimited as well so far…Cannes Cyber Lion Silver > Webby Awards – People’s Voice Award > Art Directors Club of New York – Silver > One Show Interactive – Silver > The Clio Awards – Bronze > IAB Creative Showcase – Grand Prix > IAB Creative Showcase December 07 > FWA – Site of the Month > D&AD – Nomination > Design Week – Commendation > Creative Circle Certificate… enough.
Yet it doesn’t seem to be enough for these guys, their latest effort play balloonacy looks set to capture the collective attention of the internet again. The results they must have for some of their sites must be staggering. BTW check out the interior designed toilets from the London office.

BFD BUILDER

By CRISPIN PORTER + BOGUSKY For DOMINOS
You build the pizza, you save the pizza, you order the pizza and then you track it all the way to your front door (almost). Now I’m glad this won, because it’s a utility. You know, something you can use, and through its usefulness it becomes a really good ad/brand promise. Smells like the olden days.

SEE SOMETHING. FEEL SOMETHING

By SOAP CREATIVE for FOXTEL
You know the one, where you’re inside the telly, watching people watching you. Getting all emotional.
Nice work from the local Soaperheros.

GET OUT AND PLAY

By FARFAR for NOKIA
Great simple game play, wonderful stop motion and superlative production values.

THE KEY TO RESERVA

By JWT SPAIN For FREIXENET CARTA NEVADA RESERVA
Really it’s a long form TVC featuring Martin Scorsese. Beautifully produced tho’

SIMPSONIZEME

By CRISPIN PORTER + BOGUSKY For DOMINOS
40 million people had a go of this thing. Brilliant take away content.

GET IT STRAIGHT

By JUNG VON MATT for BOSCH
One of the many motion sensor entries. I think this one was the best as it’s useful to boot. The others weren’t bad though.

READ A BOOK AT WORK

By COLENSO BBDO for NEW ZEALAND BOOK COUNCIL
Beautifully simple idea. The fullscreen site looks like the generic windows desktop, yet it’s not, it’s the minisite for the New Zealand Book Council where you can read books (short stories, poetry etc) at work as the content appears as wonderfully terrible powerpoint slides.

TITANIUM

MILLION

By DROGA5 for THE NEW YORK CITY DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
Now this is really something, a program whereby kids in New York High schools are given specially built phones that function as learning devices during school hours (teachers can send out assignments etc) and all the normal distracting features are turned off. After school hours all the calling/txting features are turned back on and it’s just a regular phone again, other than that the credits etc are then linked to student performance, so it’s incentive based as well. Sure there are brands involved in this but it really is for the greater good. It’s these type of ideas that really belong in the Titanium category, not just campaigns that don’t fit in any category because they defy the genre, but for ideas that rise above advertising itself.

It reminds me of this idea and that’s not a bad thing.

Ahhh…

That said, this is advertising and it’s hard to go past a good beer ad. Really you have to see this, it’s amazing.
It’s what this whole content thing should be about. The Speights Great Beer Delivery.

The extremely entertaining Mark Pesce presenting at the Next Wave festival.

More of his thinking on the 3.4 billionth phone, his MAD twitter army and a social experience of the China earthquake.

Next week is adbusters Mental Detox Week. Here’s how they describe it. The idea is simple: take your TV, your DVD player, your video iPod, your XBOX 360, your laptop, your PSP, and say goodbye to them all for seven days. Simple, but not at all easy. Like millions of others before you, you’ll be shocked at just how difficult – yet also how life-changing – a week spent unplugged can really be.

Mmm… sounds tough, but worth the experiment.

Stuff like “Best Practices”, however despite this I thought this article by Daniel Stein, CEO of digital content marketing firm, EVB, San Francisco contained some pretty simple truths on the “digital marketing landscape”. See you just can’t help it.
Digital Marketing Best Practices:

1. Simplicity: make it quick & easy;
2. Participation: get people involved;
3. Personalisation: let people make it their own;
4. Unexpected: surprise people;
5. Humor/Entertainment: evoke an emotion;
6. Distribution: use ALL media to tell a story;
7. Communities: make the consumer your marketer;
8. Portability: weave your content into their digital life.

Digital Marketing Worst Practices:

1. Lengthy introductions: get to the point or users moves on;
2. Overcomplicating: more technology isn’t always better; know your audience;
3. Replication of traditional ads: consumers are savvy and avoid disruptive ads
4. Expecting people care about your brand: if you don’t bring a bottle of wine to the party,
you won’t be invited back;
5. Forcing your brand: consumers are in control, so let them come to you.

Via: Contagious Magazine

I read recently that we seem to be increasingly outsourcing parts of our brain. So here is a little digital helper in that process. See a little detail online and think hey I’d like to remember later… offline. Well step back from that post-it-note. Instead, just click on that little beamme.info icon, enter your mob number and voom  that recipe (insert small detail) has just been sent to your phone. No one keeps the number and it’s free for the user. Neat huh? beamme.info