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There has been both excit­ing and sad news in the mobile world over the last few weeks. We have seen the rise of Android and the depar­ture of an indus­try leg­end. This week we look at cam­paigns and tech­nolo­gies com­ing soon to a pocket near you.

Bug Pow­ered Mobile

How do you keep a taran­tula on a tread­mill and not off eat­ing the other per­form­ers?

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So sum­mer is wind­ing down. The lobster-tans are slowly fad­ing and peo­ple have shuf­fled back to their desks around the coun­try. But fear not, adver­tis­ers have made sure we remem­ber the good times. Sun, sand and adven­ture await. Oh, and one mas­sive shower scene…

Skoda Off-road – Image Mapping

Czech car man­u­fac­turer Skoda is on a roll. They have had a very suc­cess­ful year so far, win­ning mul­ti­ple awards for both their Fabia & Yeti lines of vehi­cles. Even the aging Octavia saloon is doing well. From the orig­i­nal Fabia “lovely things” cam­paign fea­tur­ing “bright cop­per ket­tles and warm woollen mit­tens” — which came out over 4 years ago — to the more recent Skoda Fabia RS “Meaner stuff” cam­paign, Skoda are now push­ing their crossover flag­ship — the Yeti.

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The count­down to the 2012 Olympics as offi­cially begun. Peo­ple are dust­ing off their run­ning shoes and get­ting out their bicy­cles. Lon­don seems to be wak­ing up from its lethar­gic slum­ber and head­ing out­doors. Here are a cou­ple of cam­paigns that look at the ridicu­lous and sublime.

Car­ry­ing the (pen­light) torch

Olympics ath­letes doing weird stuff for quirky Cadbury.

Yes, it’s still 2011, but if you are a bud­ding sports star, or couch-bound enthu­si­ast, it’s also offi­cially one year to go until the Lon­don 2012 Olympics. And boy, have the spon­sors made sure you know it. The much-reviled logo is set to burn your corneas for the next year and a bit, before hope­fully being for­got­ten behind the actual event.

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It is said that if you give enough mon­keys enough type­writ­ers and time, they will write the com­plete works of Shake­speare.* Not great val­i­da­tion for your future prospects if you are a bud­ding play­wright. Fan­tas­tic news if you hap­pen to sell & ser­vice type­writ­ers…  This week we look at the count­less mon­keys and their type­writ­ers sub­mit­ting their rhetoric to count­less blogs, face­books, myspaces, twit­ters and youtubes. Harsh crit­i­cism? Not if you hap­pen to be one of the ones set­ting up, sell­ing, ser­vic­ing & devel­op­ing work for the interwebs.

Here are some great dig­i­tal ideas and pos­si­bly our sal­va­tion from an eter­nity of bananas.

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The Lion, the Switch and the Wardrobe.

Every year, the cream-of-the-global-ad-agency crop head to sunny Cannes for the Cannes Lions Fes­ti­val of Cre­ativ­ity. Often thought of as the ulti­mate in cam­paign kudos, the Grand Prix award is a cov­eted tro­phy in adver­tis­ing excel­lence. Here are some of my favourite win­ners from last week’s event.

Write the Future – Wieden Kennedy for Nike

What hap­pens when you have unlim­ited funds and access to pretty much every major sports star in the world? This out­stand­ing World Cup cam­paign walked away with the Film Grand Prix 2011. (W+K took the lion’s share with 6 Gold awards in total.)

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Visu­alised ¹. past par­tici­ple, past tense of vis·u·al·ize (Verb)

1. Form a men­tal image of; imagine.
2. Make (some­thing) vis­i­ble to the eye

¹ Google Search Dic­tio­nary www.google.com

This week we look at ideas that take large chunks of infor­ma­tion and trans­form them into some­thing visu­ally appeal­ing, socially engag­ing or, in some cases, anti-establishment.

Social in 60 Seconds

Stuff that hap­pens while you boil your ket­tle

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After the spring hia­tus, the Dig­i­tal Couch is back for another sea­son of enter­tain­ment. We haven’t been can­celled… yet.

This week we look at the fine line that sep­a­rates us from our dig­i­tal selves. Think about it. There are, in fact, 2 of you. One has a job, shops at the local super­mar­ket and waits for the bus. Then there’s the other you; the one who runs ram­pant across the inter­net, wreak­ing havoc and leav­ing a greasy dig­i­tal foot­print every­where you go.

So what hap­pens when some­thing from your dig­i­tal world crosses over into the world of bus queues and super­mar­kets? Here is a selec­tion of cam­paigns that do just that.

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This week it’s all about screens and pro­jec­tion. Most of us, espe­cially if you are read­ing this, spend 8 hours a day star­ing at one, much of the time at office doc­u­ments, with the occa­sional break for a dog on a skate­board. But have you stopped to think just how impres­sive on-screen and pro­jected visu­als can really be? Here are some great exam­ples of peo­ple and agen­cies that see what we see in a com­pletely new way.

See Your Name In Lights

Hack­ing Time’s Square? There’s an App for that.

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Fly­ing poul­try, Hol­ly­wood movies, desk­top adven­tures and light-up cereal. It’s no longer just about bill­boards and TV ads. The very way in which we inter­act with the world around us is becom­ing one long sales pitch. This week we look at how tech­nol­ogy is directly influ­enc­ing our per­cep­tions of brands, through video, mobile, TV and even our break­fast cereal.

Angry Cake

Ask any mar­keter, the best val­i­da­tion for your prod­uct is an audi­ence that adver­tises for you! Not only is this usu­ally free, but refer­rals drive bet­ter results. Now I’m not talk­ing about guer­rilla mar­ket­ing, although this has its place, but rather a prod­uct that influ­ences a move­ment… price­less. (See what I did there?)

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Air­lines, dogs and whales. What do they have in com­mon? For one thing, they are all cur­rently the sub­ject of some visu­ally stun­ning or emo­tion­ally engag­ing ads. Whether you’re uncom­fort­able, fas­ci­nated or shocked, there is no deny­ing they make for com­pelling viewing.

The Space Invader

Don’t worry, I’m not talk­ing about the 80’s ver­sion of Angry Birds, but per­sonal space. We all like an empty seat next to us on a flight, and KLM have shown that busi­ness trav­ellers would even pay more for it! Per­sonal space is a big deal; it’s the rea­son you don’t squeeze between two peo­ple on a 3-seater bench, or sit at a 4-seater Star­bucks table with a stranger and his lap­top. KLM sent out their space invader to find out more. Feel­ing uncom­fort­able?

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