360 DEGREES Weblog

Much the way Spot Runner and Spotzer aim to make local television advertising easy and affordable, so PlaceLocal strives to deliver a similar result on the web.

The PlaceLocal platform, from Connecticut-based advertising technology company PaperG, allows online publishers to automate local ad creation, sales and management. Aspiring advertisers need only type in their business name, and PlaceLocal will automatically search the web for relevant information—including logos, photos, reviews, awards and other information—and then use it to create a customised online advert. Advertisers aren’t required to have their own website in order to create an advert—in fact, if they don’t have one, PlaceLocal will create one for them. Once generated, the ad is fully editable by the user. The ads can then be booked to appear on partner websites in the same geographic location.

HBO’s show HUNG has now made its New Zealand debut on TVNZ’s Channel One.

Auckland-based ad agency Colenso BBDO was retained to promote the show and to generate some buzz. They have definitely created a buzz with their risqué billboard, recently erected on Victoria Street in central Auckland. Whether you like the billboard or not, and whether it draws you to watch the show or not, you must admit that the old, tried-and-true subjects – well-endowed female and male bodies – never seem to fail to draw attention.

As we Noo Yawkers know, bicycle messengers and Chinese menus are as much a part of the landscape as taxis and slow-walking tourists from the Midwest. Until now, though, no one’s capitalized on those Gothamite fixtures quite like J&R Music and Computer World has. The chain, a local presence since 1971, is working with agency Toy to get the word out about its same-day delivery service by dispatching bike messengers with huge (empty, one hopes) boxes on their backs that are purported to contain J&R appliances. Of course, there’s a social-media component: Spot one of the bikers, take a pic and you get a $10 gift card (what sports!). But for me, the cleverest touch is the faux Chinese menu, being dropped under doors, in mail slots and building lobbies, which lists items like PC hardware instead of the usual General Tso’s chicken. Then again, New Yorkers may be too jaded to notice what’s on the menu, and if they do, it’s because they’re hungry and they might get pissed off by the whole thing.

Most people dance while getting drunk to avoid a hangover. What better way of promoting whisky at a nightclub than mixing it with a bit of music? Ballantine’s Finest whisky has come up with a new marketing marvel which has spirits in a new bottle with a external coating that tends react to music. This bottle which is dark blue in hue is the brain-child of a London-based packaging agency ‘The Core’ as a part of Ballantine’s ‘Listen to Your Beat’ campaign. The label on the bottle is made with an electroluminescent material which appears like an equalizer responding to music.

Created by Japanese designer Tokujin Yoshioka, this futuristic Hermes window display utilizes a projectors and monitors to produce the eye-popping illusion of scarves blowing in the wind.

Here’s a rather interesting way to market your product. USB Insert has come up with a new way to market your product (which obviously involves USB). The USB key mentioned is going to be very thin, so thin that it can almost be embedded into a normal cardboard flyer paper, and you’ll be able to remove it from the magazine to check out the details. Since it’s going to be attached to a card, the drive can be designed to look like almost anything that can be printed

Just a month or so after augmented reality browser Layar won EUR 75,000 in Vodafone’s Mobile Clicks contest, the technology was already being put to work in a custom-designed application for Louisiana’s Voodoo Experience music festival.

Layar is a free mobile browser for Android devices and the iPhone that overlays computer-generated information on top of real-time, on-screen images from the handset’s built-in camera. The Voodoo app was designed by New Orleans ad firm Zehnder Communications using Layar 2.0 to let festival-goers with enabled phones get information on performances, attractions and services simply by pointing their phone cameras toward key parts of the festival grounds. When viewing concert stages, for instance, one custom AR layer provided information on lineups, schedules and current artists performing, including artist profiles and Web links. Pointing a phone camera at a vendor would show menus and pricing, while other points of interest highlighted by the app included vendor locations, artist displays, restrooms, ATMs, entrances and exits, medical sites and other services. Zehnder was one the first 50 firms worldwide named as developers of the Layar platform. A demo of the Voodoo app is available on Vimeo.

In addition to a whole new world of entertainment and useful information for mobile consumers, augmented reality also opens up a wealth of new OFF=ON opportunities for advertisers.

The bankrupt-and-hand-tied Detroit duo of Chrysler and GM are still unable to own private jets, so this little FirstBank-rented prop plane’s still bigger than anything they’ve got in Detroit. Well, unless you’re Ford. They’ve still got ‘em.

Ad agencies thrive or fail by the creative ideas they come up with, and promoting themselves is no exception. What makes Montreal firm Carte Blanche’s new self-promotion campaign unique is that it’s also a recruitment experiment. Carte Blanche is offering one lucky (depending on your viewpoint) intern the chance to spend 30 days living in the heart of the Montreal agency’s headquarters, in a fully-equipped apartment adjoining their offices. After the working day, the intern will have access to the office floor. The agency claims that this project—dubbed Dortoir (French for dormitory)—is a world’s first for an ad agency.

Carte Blanche is inviting email applications from creative and passionate people, who are asked to up load up to 10MB of images, text and video to show off their talent. Dortoir seems less like a recruitment process and more like a prize competition—echoing buzz-heavy campaigns like The Best Job in the World. Similarly enliven your own recruitment process and you could find yourself with a larger pool of interesting applications to wade through, as well as plenty of free viral exposure. Anybody interested to live with us???