North Face Instore Experience

"Never Stop Exploring." so says the campaign line from North Face, by putting this to the test, South Korean agency Innored came up with this very clever idea with this in-store experience. Unsuspecting customers at this pop-up North Face store were startled when the floor below them slowly began to disappear, and they were forced to grab on to the walls, which happened to have rock-climbing holds attached to them. Then, a perfect North Face item descends from the heavens, just out of their reach, and a 30-second timer appears. Lovely connected interactive story.

Creative but savvy too

Yes indeed many great creative minds are like this, it's not by choice it's just the way our brains are wired. But what sets creative people apart from great creatives? Great creative minds have a clear goal, almost to the point of obsession, if that is winning a pitch, reaching a new audience, inventing a new product, it takes will power and brain power to make it happen, great creative leaders know this.

An invention that has left me speechless

Sorry for the pun but this really did leave me speechless and here's why; the inventor is 16 years of age!! and here's what he did; Arsh Shah Dilbagi from India developed a micro controller which turns your breath into speech - now that is bloody amazing, here's how it works. Using a basic $25 Arduino microcontroller as the core of the device, a special microphone called MEMS Microphone converts the breathing pattern into electrical signals. This technology uses a pressure-sensitive diaphragm etched directly onto a silicon microchip, and an amplifying device to increase the sound of the user’s breath. The user gives distinguishable exhales that vary in length and intensity and this can then be translated using Morse code into speech or other commands. Microprocessors compute the electrical signals and convert them into speech, with the device currently offering 9 different voices.

“After testing the final design with myself and friends and family, I was able to arrange a meeting with the Head of Neurology at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, New Delhi and tested TALK (under supervision of doctor and in controlled environment) with a person suffering from SEM and Parkinson’s Disease,” Dilbagi explained. “The person was able to give two distinguishable signals using his breath and the device worked perfectly.” As I said earlier; speechless.

Visionary

Throughout my career I come across many business problems, it's my job to solve it, one question I always ask clients is; do you want to solve this problem for the short-term or long-term? Can you guess the vast responses to that simple question? #clue>> They comeback 6 months later, with some more problems that need solving. The plus side I suppose it keeps me in work.

Sticker Beacons - Welcome to Nearables

I came across a company called Estimote,with a great offering, not only is this very functional but the design is just delightful. I love this. Here's how it works; they are tiny adhesive beacons that can be attached to any surface to help unconnected objects interact with smartphones. Smart. Despite their thin shape, each Estimote sticker contains an accelerometer and temperature sensors, as well as a processor and bluetooth connector. If an item is picked up, extra information from the price or user reviews can be automatically pushed to the customer's phone. Estimote is calling its stickers 'nearables' (I like that. They provide similar benefits to wearables without having to be attached to the user, and offer more information about the immediate environment. The Estimote stickers Developer Preview Kit can now be pre-ordered from the company's website To me this is great concept where tech connects to a much greater experience, great connected thinking. A 'very good' sticker goes to Estimote, top of the class in tech for you matey.

Steve Jobs lost interview

Love this lost interview from Steve Jobs, very frank and open about how he set-up, raw genius with naivety around business - one thing that drove him was his pure love of tech and how things work, almost childlike. Well worth viewing.

Running Souls

What a great story this is - Ronnie Goodman, a homeless resident of San Francisco who is a dedicated runner, who also ran last Sunday the San Francisco Half Marathon and raised close to $10,000 for Hospitality House, a charity that helped him pursue a career as an artist. Watching this video and hearing his story really makes me feel blessed that I can go for a run and feel the rush and freedom you get once you put your runners on, but this dude puts a whole different perspective on why runners run, inspiring and the great thing about running and runners is no matter who you are, no matter what life holds for you - it's never judgemental. Must watch

The Idea Catchers

What value on creativity? If an idea is profound enough, it can change the course of history...no pressure then. Keeping looking for truffles rather than mushrooms.

The customer journey is nothing but straight forward.

Great piece via econsultancy with digital, the traditional buying cycle has gone out of the window. Brands and agencies struggle with this, they're not dictating the journey but people are. It's a struggle for many but to build a successful brand you have to let it go a bit and let your customers lead.

Self-centred brand?

If anyone ever asks you what's the difference between brand centric and customer centric? Then this visual sums it up, genius

Beautiful Me - well maybe

What a beauty? No no not me this little beauty called BeauitfulMe, quite simply it taps into all the buzz around people's desire to discover more on their health and wellbeing. With this little app you almost feel you have your very own dermatologist or beautician to tell you how to take control of your skin issues everything from what colours and types of make-up to wear for your skin tone. The app can scan up to 500 photos from your Facebook profile and can analyze a ton of information from your face, skin tone, skin type. The interface is very user friendly too, very neat and useful for when you need to take those selfies.

Instagram Tree

Here's a wonderful campaign that is beautiful and unique that highlights the sad fact that the tropical rainforest is in real trouble, what happens there affects all of us. #TapForTrainers celebrates the amazing beauty of the Amazon, its wildlife and resources with a stunning installation in Instagram, supported by creative collaborations with some of the UK’s leading eco-fashion bloggers, designers and illustrators, such as Jean Jullien, AJ Odudu and the Boy from Dagbon. Simply by tapping the tiles on our virtual tree, the work of illustrator Sandra Dieckmann, visitors uncover stories about the Amazon, alongside narrative from Lily Cole, Veja and eco-fashion influencers. Tree tappers can also enter a competition to win a pair of limited edition trainers made from responsibly sourced rubber. Sky Rainforest Rescue ambassador Lily Cole has created and are giving away fabulous limited-edition shoe collection with Veja, the French eco fashion brand. The soles of the shoes are made from Amazonian wild rubber, tapped from the Sky Rainforest Rescue project. A great way to tell the story by harnessing tech. Happy tapping, as this tree is going to keep on growing.

A real caffeine hit

Love this, turning brands into functionality products - like Nescafe who've turned their cap into an alarm clock - I'm also loving the tactile design of the cap too. Nice connected thinking.

Beautifully Sad

Solidarités International et BDDP Unlimited veulent faire couler de l'encre from ici Barbès on Vimeo.

I came across this on my feed and as I started to watch this film I was immediately transfixed. The choice of music really set the scene and the pace of the film was spot on in telling the harrowing story of millions of children who die each year drinking dirty water. Very sad to watch as it unfolded but at the same time watching the art direction coming to life was something else. Award-winning art direction in my view but more importantly it was a very clever way to dramatise the story and draw attention in spreading the word, and hopefully for all of us to give aid to Solidarites International

Teachers Pet

Well well, look who's teacher's pet SapientNitro's end of year report - great effort from the whole team within the offices, till next year.

See the future of TV now.

Here's a whole new TV viewing experience, I know you've seen this in all those Hollywood films, but this is a reality now, it takes watching TV to whole new level. TV isn't dead it just evolved into something that I find bloody amazing.

This is your captain speaking - Delta 80's

This made me laugh, 80's styling for Delta Airlines, making a very watchable safety information video, loving the little touches; back combed hair and body popping along the aisles. It's these nice little touches that make this shareable, baseball hat tip to you Delta.

Best Conversion Rate by colour

I have worked at various digital campaigns from finance to fashion brands and have always looked at how best to optimize the performance of the campaign. One thing I have learned is that you never stop learning and tweaking. Take this infographic from Quicksprount around the use of colour, amazing how one change of the CTA (Call To Action) button from say green to red can make all the difference in the success of a campaign. I did a similar test for a campaign for one of the big banks in Australia 2 years ago - I was told time and time again that a green CTA gets higher click throughs - I asked where's the prove? No one had real concrete stats, just an assumption- as in; 'green is the colour for go!! an action colour some would say' Well, I said let's put it to the test, the outcome; red won hands down. It was one of the most successful campaigns the bank had ever ran. Now I know what some marketing directors are thinking, 'I'll apply the colour red to all my CTA's' well, that would be a mistake, and here's why; trends change, people's behaviour change on what gets an interaction. So next time you run a campaign, look at reference like this infographic but always test and learn along the way. Some more info here

Real people in ads please

Unknown Germany artist pasted photoshop toolbar on fashion posters for H&M - Genius - real people in real life I say

You're a senstive soul.

Interesting visual social experiment conducted on a group of people around their emotions, visually very insightful especially when you show it as a heat map of their body. The two that really stood out was sadness and happiness they couldn’t be poles apart, when you look at happiness it is the only emotion to show an increase in sensation pretty much across the body while the only one to show no increase in sensation anywhere is depression. So next time you are feeling blue or you say; overall I'm pretty happy, you might have described it to a tee. Happy NY

Here's the full story and links

Google - an amazing story

This has been around for a while but if you haven't seen it - it is a cracker - just watch the film unfold, great story, great spot. Hat tip Google.