360 DEGREES Weblog

It’s a success story that sounds suspiciously like it might have been conceived in Hollywood. An entrepreneur sees that his family business is failing; spends years and virtually all the firm’s money in developing a new product; and finally, 20 years later, his vision becomes a runaway hit.
But you won’t find this story on the big screen. Instead, you’ll have to head for your local beverage aisle. Bionade, a smooth-tasting organic soft drink, has taken Germany by storm. And it now stands to conquer the world. (BUSINESSWEEK)

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Lost America is a neat collection of “night photography of the abandoned West.” This one above is the original Highway to Hell, route 666 in Utah:

Sunset on U.S. Route 666 in southern Arizona. Redesignated as U.S. Route 491 in 2003 from pressure by Christian groups and an AZ highway department tired of replacing stolen signs.Go to the side

Who needs star designers when you’ve got famous brands? That’s the controversial strategy at PPR’s Gucci Group, where François-Henri Pinault, proud new owner of Puma and soon-to-be Mr. Salma Hayek, is challenging the fashion industry’s most fundamental beliefs. He’s running late for a meeting on the other side of Paris, but something unspeakably ugly stops François-Henri Pinault cold.

“Look at this,” he says, bolting from a leather chair in his office overlooking the city’s eighth arrondissement, as the late-afternoon light falls across the floor. Reaching his massive, nearly bare desk in two graceful strides, he snatches a piece of paper tucked into the corner of his leather-trimmed blotter. It’s a small black-and-white brochure, dense with tiny type.

“This,” he says, dangling the folded sheet between two fingers as if it were a dead rodent, “is what is coming inside a pair of Gucci sunglasses. You open this elegant case, and this is the first thing you see.” The brochure was printed, he concedes, by Gucci’s eyewear licensee—one of only two licensees the company maintains—but still it rankles him.“This cannot go on,” says the C.E.O. of PPR, the $23 billion conglomerate whose luxury unit, the Gucci Group, also includes Yves Saint Laurent, Balenciaga, Bottega Veneta, and other brands. “People have to realize that what we are selling is an experience, from beginning to end.” (Condé Nast)
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If you’ve got both expensive taste and a sweet tooth then you may want to add at a least a few, if not all, of the world’s most expensive desserts to your wish list of things to try. The list topper (and therefore THE most expensive dessert in the world) is The Fortress Aquamarine from Wine3 at The Fortress in Galle, Sri Lanka. The focus of the sweet treat is an 80-carat aquamarine gem resting on a specially shaped sliver of fine chocolate representative of the company’s logo. It’s a gorgeous looking dessert, but not many have any idea if it tastes equally as good since priced at $14,500 they have yet to sell their first one.

Recently a new provocative billboard has appeared in the shop windows of the Central Department Store located in the heart of Moscow. The advertising campaign of the store was dedicated to the upcoming school year and called to start preparations for 1 September (the beginning of the school year in Russia) with Luxe-class purchases.
The billboard shows a girl getting ready for school and talking to her old toys. ‘I’m going to school! Now I think only of frocks and frills and don’t need you, two losers! Daddy, if you love me, buy me shoes, a dress and a hat! Dolce & Gabbana, Armani and Prada!’ says the girl. (RUSSIA IC)

Dubai-based Istithmar is set to buy Jones Apparel Group Inc.’s Barneys New York for $942.3 million after Japanese casual-clothing retailer Fast Retailing Co. Ltd. pulled out of the bidding war Thursday.
The retreat by Fast Retailing (Charts) ended a month-long tug-of-war over the luxury department store chain, although the operator of the Uniqlo stores has no intention of slowing down its overseas expansion drive. (CNN)

Porn gets a lot of credit for pushing technology forward. You probably owe your DVD player and your video-on-demand service to dedicated porn fans with discretionary income. But as web technology evolves to support true personalization and community – into Web 2.0 – porn is falling further behind the curve.
Like content was king in the 1990s, in the days of Web 2.0, community is the kingdom. (WIRED)

An insight into the flashy history of Las Vegas, Neon Graveyard is a photographic collection of disused billboards and signs shot by Carl Lukasewich at the Reed Whipple Cultural Center.

The Sample Lab, which opened 25 July 2007 in Tokyo’s Iceberg Building in Harajuku, is a members-only space that invites consumers to sample and test new products.

More than a hundred people lined up for the opening, paying a modest JPY 300 registration fee and JPY 1,000 annual membership fee. Members need to be over 15 years of age, and gain entrance to the lab by showing a QR code stored on their cellphone. In addition to store-like shelves stocked with merchandise, the space also features a powder room where women can sit down to try out beauty products.

Sample Lab offers everything from BBQ sauce and exercise equipment to pantyhose and moisturiser. Besides trying everything out in the shop, members can take home up to 5 items per visit. To harvest their precious feedback, Sample Lab asks visitors to fill out surveys about the products they’ve tested. The concept was created by marketing agency Mel Posunetto, with the dual purpose of collecting user feedback and sparking word of mouth advertising.

Many consumers are happy to pay to be the first to try out a new product, and to spread buzz that’s invaluable to brands launching new products. Moreover, creating a dedicated space for trying out new products makes it easier to collect feedback, which creates a nice niche for firms like Mel Posunetto. Tryvertising is the new advertising, right? So this could be one for agencies to set up everywhere from Miami to Mumbai.

Whoa! That lamp from the Pixar movies has gone AWOL.

I would love to have one of these, and no it’s not the PIxar lamp on a rampage. It’s a special edition Giant 1227 Anglepoise Lamp in celebration of the 70th birthday of the original 1227 Anglepoise Lamp. This one is three times the size of the original and has an aluminum base, joints, arms, and fork. It comes with a halogen reflector bulb and castors with locks for easy (but safe) positioning. Black, £1,660.