Exceptional experiences
Virtual Homeless
I was walking through the city the other night and came across a really interesting interactive installation that was a projection being shown on the side of a building of a homeless man laying on the ground. After a little while a message pops up asking you to move the virtual homeless person via a text message. Intrigued I sent the text message, a door appeared and the man got up and went through it. I then got a text message to my iPhone with a code I could use to donate to Pathways to Housing.
A little research revealed that it was created by Sarkissian Mason for Pathways to Housing in response to the fact that they saw a growing number of charitable donations were being made via mobile text codes after they redesigned their web site.The projections will appear on New York buildings through March and you can get location details on Pathway to Housing’s Facebook page.
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Nikon moves one step closer to Minority Report
I don’t know anyone who didn’t want Tom Cruise’s virtual desk in movie Minority Report and the new Nikon Cool Pix web site has us one step closer to that dream. The site uses your web cam to let you explore and manipulate your photo libraries on the site with gestures like what you would use on their Cool Pix camera which amazing just like the ones you use on your iPhone. You can experience the demo with some sample photos here. The element that isn’t pictured here and is probably the coolest executions are that in addition to the Web site they also put the technology into ad units and for use on other sites like Flickr through a simple bookmark. It’s a really nice tie-in from the product to the interactive experience that lets you experience something on the camera without ever having one.
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MySpace U.K. Makes Music with Facebook
Johnathan Hills and the guys over at Domani Studio have not been resting on their shiny new FWA of the year win and have been busy with the recently launched site for MySpace U.K.. The site turns to either Facebook Connect, you read that right, or the new MySpace version of Connect called MySpaceID to allow users to create personalized videos with major music stars like 50 cent, Alicia Keys and Lostprophets. It’s honestly one of the best external uses of Facebook content I have ever seen as your profile photo is seamlessly integrated into the videos that were all shot specifically for the site to be able to create the effect. It os funny to login, choose some of the video clips and then call a friend over to see their reaction. Now is MySpace could just figure out a way to make their actual site as cool as this experience…
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JimCarrey.com – more Eternal Sunshine than Living Color
The rubber faced comedian Jim Carrey has just launched JimCarrey.com, a new personal web site documenting his career and based on his slapstick comedy stylings it’s an experience that is nothing like what I expected. The visual design is at times like something out of a Salvador Dali painting with elements of a Tim Burton movie sprinkled in. It is extremely visual with minimal navigation and a lot hidden content and interactions sprinkled throughout the extensive video and animation. One example of this is the Ace Ventura headed bird that is his Twitter link found on every page that spouts his latest Tweets one word at a time. I have to honestly say that this is the first celebrity site I have ever wanted to spend any time with and I applaud him for actually creating something that gives some credit to his fans for being able to enjoy something more challenging that the usual headshot laden celebrity dribble.
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IKEA turns Facebook into their own showroom
IKEA has come up with an innovative digital campaign that turned one of Facebook’s basic functions into a promotional tool that they used to promote the opening of their newest store in Malmo, Sweden. The campaign started with a profile of the store’s manager, Gordon Gustavsson who then uploaded pictures of the store’s showrooms to his photo album and any “friends” who tagged the products with their names then won those items. The word quickly spread through Facebook and users started embedding links and images in their profiles and news feeds. So with nothing more than some photos and a great idea they got thousands of consumers to willingly promote IKEA and its new store.
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Tobi.com uses AR to bring the dressing room home
Everyone hates having to wedge themselves into a cramped dressing room flooded with never flattering fluorescent lighting but you now have another option. Zugara’s has created an augmented reality dressing room app called Fashionista and is being used by online clothing retailers like tobi.com. You turn on your web cam and then move an AR marker forward and back in front of you to scale the clothes to fit your body. Once that is done you can use positional gestures to see other clothing options, approve or disapprove of your choices or take a photo of your favorite outfits. Your approved choices are moved into your basket and the photo can be uploaded to Facebook to get your friends opinions of your selections.
In the past we have seen augmented reality used in mildly useful ways like the United States Post Office box sizer where you can determine what box you need to ship you gift but this starts to take it to another level. You can clearly see the potential of what this could mean to online shopping as it takes the content off the flat page and makes it interactive and more importantly – makes it personally relevant. I find the opportunities for this type of augmented reality execution really exciting unlike previous executions that were more gimmick than concept.
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Orange smartly uses social media to create Friend-o-Meter
The U.K. mobile provider Orange has created one of the most interesting uses of Facebook and Twitter connect that I have seen recently. To promote the launch of the social media focused Motorola DEXT mobile phone they have created a site that quizzes you on ten questions to see how well you know your friends on Facebook and Twitter. The way they use the data is really smart as the questions aren’t the obvious ones you would expect and use things like friends upcoming events events, like and dislikes to create challenging questions that will really test how well you know people (I only got a 45%). You leave the experience thinking that maybe you need to be better connected to those sites and that information which us exactly the point of the experience. Since Facebook seems to be unable or unwilling to give advertisers the tools to be able to create meaningful experiences on their site then this direction may be able to save them from themselves.
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Mashable.com draggable social media interface
I may be late to the party on this one but I just had a colleague show me the social media interface on Mashable.com today. On every other site when you want to share a piece of content you have to pick through a long line of small icons to find the one you want. As a designer I have never liked that interface because I think it makes every article I write look like the the United Nations with all the nations flags flying out front when they are in session. With Mashable.com you find the content you want to share, rollover the photo in the story then click and drag to it get the social media interface to appear. Drag it onto your network of choice and you done. The beauty of this approach is that it retains all of the functionality without any impact on the visual design of the site and it really cleans up the user experience by eliminating that multi-colored line of icons. You could put any site design under the interface and it would still work perfectly.
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AXE uses fresh techniques to create Day & Night ads
No one has been able to continue to re-invent the concept of ’sex sells’ better than Axe deodorant that past few years. Their latest campaign called Day & Night is the first one I can remember that uses technology in a new and really smart way. The first execution is a print ad where you have to text ‘AXE’ to specific number but you have to do it after 9pm. In return for the text AXE sends you the missing part of the ad. Hold your phone over the ad and you have the whole picture.
The second execution is an outdoor poster where the bottom half of the image is obscured during the day by a polarized film. At night poster is back light so the bottom portion of the image can be seen through the polarized film.
Even more important than the smart use of technology is that fact that the ads create an impression that will make you not only remember them but either take action to see the rest of the print ad or seek out the outdoor ads. It also makes you take that action at night which I am sure is based on behavior of their core audience demographics. 9pm is a media grazing phase and will be able to focus on the experience not distracted by work and before young guys would be heading out to clubs and bars. I hope they keep up this new direction of moving beyond the bikini clad TV spot to do more work like this.
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The Puma stock ticker with benefits
I think Puma has been able to create the first experience that makes the wild swings in the international financial markets into something entertaining with the Puma Index iPhone app. The app uses real financial data from the Dow, German (DAX) and Australian (ASX) markets to control the amount of clothes on male and female models. If the market is up the models in the app get dressed in layers and if the market tanks then the models strip down to their Puma Bodywear.
This application follows the holy trinity of application success where your content has to be either funny, sexy or functional. This one clearly falls into the sexy category with a key twist that makes all the difference in keeping it from becoming an open once and delete experience. Since they tied application content to the dynamic nature of the financial markets it stays dynamic. That creates a sense that you need to keep coming back to check in on the app throughout the day and the week to see what you are missing. Each one of those exposure shows you more and more of their clothes and builds a bigger and bigger brand impression. The average consumer probably isn’t that tuned into that level of the experience and simply enjoy watching the show and that is what makes it so successful.
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