Corporations are not the only ones utilizing street art to convey a message to the public. Regardless of the hand behind the brush and the brain behind the message, street art is an effective way to communicate an idea or a feeling. The goal of artist Henk Hofsra in the Dutch city Drachten was to draw attention to the impact and importance of water. An aerial view of the half-mile stretch of this blue street reveals the phrase “Water is life”. The subsequent project stage turned this former canal back into a waterway to truly demonstrate the significance of its phrase.
The objective of a personal trainer is clear: make you sweat in a short amount of time. Incisive and astute, this ad makes us want to go out and run a marathon. I would not be surprised if this type of ad gets recycled with a bigger company. Effective simplicity always impressive.
This short video shows how inexpensive a marketing campaign can really be. Ikea, Scandinavian home furnishings store, used the vast realm of Facebook in a clever way to promote the grand opening of a new location. They created a contest for users to win free Ikea products, which in turn, created a massive word-of-mouth movement throughout the Facebook community. The power of social media and free stuff can be quite the influential combination.
Chicagonow.com, a Chicago blog aggregate, found a way to attract traffic to its site by placing branded cars on top of each other as protest to the city's lack of parking. Cars were placed outside of Wrigley Field during baseball games, causing thousands of passerbys to take notice of the stunt and advertised website. Hmm, a shortage of parking in a major city? Strange... But, when stacked like this, impossible to ignore.
Using the subway on a regular basis gets old fast, which is why the people at VW found a way to brighten Stockholm commuters' morning routines with a fun take on an everyday activity. This installation illustrates how easily a metro station can become a playground with a well-executed idea like this interactive staircase piano. Way to go Sweden.
The universal scent of “wake-up”, shared by millions, is the arousing fragrance of coffee or tea in the morning. At the annual Aroma Festival at The Rocks in Sydney, Australia, coffee addicts across the world join to smell, sip and splurge on their favorite liquid indulgence. In order to add some spice to the already flavorful affair, event coordinators, Sydney Harbor Foreshore Authority, Grinders Coffee and Dairy Farmers collaborated to re-create the Mona Lisa Masterpiece with coffee. To achieve the different levels of color, multiple brews of pure coffee and espresso drinks were prepared in order to create the unique medium. Along with a caffeine buzz, festival attendees left with new insight into the possibilities of modern art.
Personal preference aside, everyone loves to dunk an Oreo cookie in milk. Whether you fancy your cookie au naturel, double-stuffed or dowsed in a hard chocolate cover, it’s more fun when you dunk. The Oreo Elevator is a creative marketing technique that triggers the helpless sweet-tooth so many of us undeniably have. Innocent shoppers left the mall with more than just their recent purchase, they left with a craving for milks favorite cookie.
Some ice-cream bars promise a creamy caramel filling, while others may pledge a chocolate fudge center. Colgate, however, offers an ice-cream bar filled with a little reminder; Don’t Forget to Brush! (and while you’re at it… use Colgate!). To take the brand off the shelf and in to customer minds, Colgate surpassed traditional means of communication and headed straight for our sweet tooth. Instead of preaching against cavity-prone consumption, Colgate encourages it, even provides it, as long as consumption is accompanied by a fun, simple reminder to always brush.
How much fun is there to be had at a boycott? Aside from the pleasure brought by catchy one-liners chanted in unison from the chords of diligent, dissatisfied customers, not much. Enter Carrotmob, “a method of activism that leverages consumer power to make the most socially-responsible business practices also the most profitable choices.” Carrotmob has re-written the Activist’s Guide to Effective Protest by changing the rules; instead of yelling at those who do wrong, they tip their hats to those who pledge to do right. How Carrotmob works: Companies compete by pledging a percentage of mob-day-sales to greening business operations. The winning company is then mobbed by the avid network of carrotmobsters who bolster sales by doing what they do best: consume. The company then uses the pledged money to lower energy usage, replace aged piping or use sustainable inputs. In addition to the short-run gain in sales revenue, the company is able to achieve long-term savings and favorable positioning as a socially-conscious business. Carrotmobs have succeeded domestically in several cities including San Francisco, Portland, Brooklyn, Seattle and Chicago, while expanding internationally to Finland, Germany, Australia and Canada. The philosophy behind Carrotmob is that it’s much more enjoyable and effective to lure companies in with a carrot (Carrotmob) than to poke them with a stick (boycott). Learn more about Carrotmob at http://carrotmob.org/.
San Francisco MUNI and BART riders face the same daily question: “Stairs or Escalator?” To help ease the pain of climbing the dreaded stairway, Joint Juice suggests commuters try their new glucosamine infused Fitness Water. The mobile marketing campaign was launched in MUNI and BART underground stop stations and on SF MUNI public transit buses (“Can you bend like this bus?”).
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