Thursday, January 22, 2009

Interactive Sharpie e-cast Billboard

Many of us have a fascination with graffiti art, and we sometimes even look over our shoulders to make sure no one’s watching when we scratch out our initials in a freshly laid slab of cement – or carve them into a wooden desk – or even scribble profanities across the stall door in a public restroom. 

The creative minds working for Sharpie, the ultimate in permanent markers, have discovered a way to satiate our desires to deface public domain. Interactive e-cast billboards have been scattered around cities, which allow people to experience the rush of creating their own graffiti. Choose some colors, write a message and Sharpie makes it possible for anyone to leave his permanent mark on the side of the bus stop or the public phone or anywhere else billboard adverting may be experienced. 

Source USA Cool Hunter

The new business isn’t the same as the old business, just with computers.

See more here

Printing. Paper. Ink. RFID. And cleverer phones will be the perfect things to interact with these clever objects.

Marketing guru Russell Davies recently wrote up his notes on his latest presentation on his blog. Russell has been looking at how RFID and similar technology can allow brands to tell stories about their brands. He says that the world is moving to Post Digital and that for any marketer that thought the internet was complicated, they’re going to get a lot more confused. Technology we associate with the web - Twitter tweets, imagery, games and further information - is going to become infused in real products and those products will become their own communication channels. See more.
Source russell davies blog and PSFK

Friday, January 16, 2009

A short history of marketing


Scholz & Friends: "Dramatic shift in marketing reality" from Michael Reissinger on Vimeo.

A Link Between the Real and Digital Worlds



Microsoft Tag is a mobile application that offers a way for users to quickly move between the real and digital worlds. Users simply snap a picture of a tag using the camera on their internet-enabled phone and they are taken to a page that shares additional information on the particular product or service without the extra step of entering complicated web addresses or texting special codes. In our modern society where instant gratification is increasingly expected and attention spans are fractured and short, mobile tagging provides a vital tool to businesses hoping to instantly connect with their customers.

Though the idea of mobile tagging is nothing new, the color-coded Microsoft Tag includes a number of improvements over earlier version. It has been designed to work with the fixed focus of cellphone cameras and can still be scanned when blurry or partially damaged. In many cases, an actual picture doesn’t even need to be taken as the camera simply reads the tag and directs users to the appropriate page. Additionally, the smaller format makes the tags less obtrusive without sacrificing on the amount of stored information.

Tags are generated through the Microsoft site by supplying a URL to a web page or any text you want displayed when the tag is snapped (while in its Beta stage this service will be free). This information is dynamic and can be changed or updated at any time by revisiting the Microsoft site. The tags can then be printed out and placed on virtually any surface, from product packaging and displays to billboards and business cards, to create an interactive experience for consumers. As these tags become more commonplace we anticipate the varieties of experiences enabled by this technology to further obscure the lines that separate the physical from the virtual.

Source PSFK

A Link Between the Real and Digital Worlds




Microsoft Tag is a mobile application that offers a way for users to quickly move between the real and digital worlds. Users simply snap a picture of a tag using the camera on their internet-enabled phone and they are taken to a page that shares additional information on the particular product or service without the extra step of entering complicated web addresses or texting special codes. In our modern society where instant gratification is increasingly expected and attention spans are fractured and short, mobile tagging provides a vital tool to businesses hoping to instantly connect with their customers.