A new branded entertainment effort from The Brooklyn Brothers for Land Rover has you, the viewer, involved in determining the outcome of a movie, which, in turn, dictates the options on a new Range Rover Evoque.
The latest marketing effort is an interactive love-fantasy-comedy movie in which you determine what the main character, Henry, does. As you make choices for Henry, you are simultaneously personalizing your version of the new Range Rover Evoque. There are several routes you can take that feature everything from kidnapping to flirtations.
At the end of the film, whose outcome you have manipulated, you are matched with a particular version of the Evoque that was determined by the choices you made for Henry:
The short interactive film was directed by Somesuch & Co.'s Nick Gordon, and is all about choices, emphasizing the options you have when designing your own vehicle from Land Rover. It's a bit of reach, but entertaining, nonetheless.
The trailer for the interactive film:
Stills from the film: You choose the direction in which Henry walks, changing the outcome: Interact with Being Henry here
The brand also has an online project called "The Pulse of the City" in which you can listen to various "city shapers" talk about their cities and can view their personalized Evoque. A profile accompanied by a photo and bio allows you to view that person's journey through different international cities like New York, Madrid and Istanbul, to name a few.
Other attempts to get people engaged with the brand include their GPS art created with an app to create a geo-location map and share it on Facebook if you wish as well as their "Presence Project"
More Peepular than ever. Those colorful sugar-coated marshmallow Easter treats shaped like bunnies and chicks continue to expand their cult-like popularity. More colors, chocolate dipped, bite-sized and sugar-free versions are now available. In response to the public Peep demand, Just Born has opened their first Peeps & Company store and have launched a new dedicated e-commerce Peeps site.
About the store PEEPS & COMPANY® is located at the very center of National Harbor's dynamic main plaza. Directly in front of the PEEPS & COMPANY® store is Seward Johnson's famous statue, The Awakening, along with sweeping views of the beautiful Potomac River. The store's location is at a converging point for residents and thousands of visitors arriving by metro bus, car, and ferries, which dock at the piers in front of the store.
In a joint statement, David Shaffer and Ross Born, Co-CEOs of Just Born, commented, "This is a momentous occasion for Just Born, our family of associates, and fans of our candy. For years, we have seen tremendous growth and excitement for our brands, and received many requests for a store in just the right location. PEEPS & COMPANY® is proud to join the community near our nation's capital."
Inside the store: above: The Corcoran Ceramics faculty was picked by Chicago’s RTKL to create the signature tile wall for the Peeps® Company flagship retail store at the National Harbor
The stores and site are being promoted with a Peepmobile (actually called the Peepster Car for some odd reason). Here's a little news story on the new store:
Annual Peeps contests in which people create scenes and dioramas using the Easter favorites keep on growing. Several major newspapers now sponsor Peeps contests. Instead of showing you images of multiple entries like I have in the past, there are just too many, so instead I will show you the winning entry from the Washington Posts's contest along with links to the other contests so you can view the entries and winners on your own.
The Washington Post's 2011 Peeps Contest Winner: ‘Chilean CoPeepapo mine rescue’
above: This year’s winning diorama is called "Chilean CoPeepapo Mine Rescue." It was created by Mary Jo Ondrejka, Margaret Hartka, and Bryn Metzdorf. (Narration by Holly E. Thomas) (/Video by Evelio Contreras and Akira Hakuta)
Not only are the contests gaining more popularity but more and more non-edible Peeps products are being marketed. More peeps stickers, mugs, mouse pads, plushies, apparel and even golf accessories join brands like Lenox to create more branded items available from the Peeps online store.
Peeps golf balls, head covers and golf towel: Lenox Peep tea light holders: Peeps Silly Bands! Mousepads: Peeps Stainless Steel water bottles: Peeps Jewelry: Peeps apparel:
Visit Peeps and Company's new dedicated website which offers the above items and many more.
A lovely and inventive three minute commercial, Xylophone, for a new wooden encased phone, the Touch Wood SH 08C from Docomo of Japan.
Japanese agency Drill Inc. (the same agency responsible for the website design of the Epos 100 artist Visa credit cards) and creative director Morihiro Harano hand crafted a giant wooden xylophone in the woods of Kyushu, Japan. As one little wooden ball rolls down the giant microphone, it plays Bach’s Cantata 147. The agency claims that no artificial music was used.
A joint project with Sharp, Olympus and Docomo, the phone is beautifully designed, as is the packaging as well as the wooden charging unit by More Trees:
To promote the shorts sale at fashion retail store Superette, the New Zealand ad agency, DDB Auckland, turned unwitting thighs into billboards by creating benches with reverse embossed lettering that when sat upon created an impression reading "Short shorts on sale Superette"
The plates were placed upon inner city and fashion district bus stop benches, mall seats and park benches. The branded seats were an ingenious way to take advantage of free media space with the impressions lasting about an hour.
Credits: Ad agency: DDB Auckland Executive Creative Director: Toby Talbot Creative Director: Regan Grafton Creative: Damian Galvin and Rory Mckechnie Account Director: Jenny Travers Project Manager: Andy Robilliard Models: Jen and Jen
Pilot pens has brought the personal touch to impersonal e-mail communication by creating an online site that allows you to personalize a font based on your own handwriting and then use that font to compose and send an e-mail.
You simply go to their website where you register and then print out a blank template. Write your own letters in the spaces in the template and upload it to the site via a scanner, digital camera or webcam. Once the site processes your individual letters of the alphabet, you can finesse each letter by either erasing parts of it or adding to the letter.
Print out the template: Use a pen [preferably a Pilot pen. After all, this is the way they are marketing their product] to write the characters in your own hand: Complete the template:
Capture the template by using a web scanner, a digital camera or a webcam and upload it to their site where they will process it. The computer then digitizes your font: And you can finesse each character if you wish:
Save and then name the font, and voila! You're now ready to send an e-mail [from their site, of course] to anyone with an e-mail address in your own personalized handwritten font.
Looking for your own font from your handwriting for more than e-mails? Check out fontifier.com, where for $10 you can create your own and download it immediately.
