Designer Karim Rashid’s latest product aims to make the task of preparing a baby bottle much easier. The Iiamo Go is a self-heating bottle that allows parents to serve body temperature milk to their baby anywhere without the use of electricity for warming. The bottle uses a new patented organic cartridge made of dehydrated salt and water. Milk is warmed by a reaction that takes place when energy is released from the salt becoming re-hydrated.
Rashid wanted to modernize the bottle and bring a new emotional and aesthetic appeal to the product. The bottle is molded from 100 percent BPA-free polypropylene.
Children love reflective shiny colorful surfaces and materials – I do too – maybe I am still a child. So it was time to make a baby bottle a wild interesting sculptural colorful animated object so the baby actually gets excited about being fed.
Treehugger reports on an intriguing cell phone concept design that’s powered by sugar. Daizi Zheng’s mobile phone runs on a battery that can generate power using soda, or any other kind of sugary liquid. It’s unique idea, and a potential solution to the environmental problems that come with disposing traditional batteries.
Zheng explains:
Through my research, I found that phone battery as a power source, it is expensive, consuming valuable resources on manufacturing, presenting a disposal problem and harmful to the environment. The concept is using bio battery to replace the traditional battery to create a pollution free environment. Bio battery is an ecologically friendly energy generates electricity from carbohydrates (currently sugar) and utilizes enzymes as the catalyst. By using bio battery as the power source of the phone, it only needs a pack of sugary drink and it generates water and oxygen while the battery dies out. Bio battery has the potential to operate three to four times longer on a single charge than conventional lithium batteries and it could be fully biodegradable.
Wallpaper*’s excellent City Guides to London, Berlin, New York, Paris, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Los Angeles, Milan, Rome and Tokyo are now available as iPhone apps. The Berlin one is currently a free download; the others are £2.39 each.
This is rather lovely. A genuine stand out piece of advertising from McDonalds. Compelling enough to make you want to stick around to the end to see what happens. A steam machine was built to fit inside a bus shelter and the free coffee message is only readable when the steam machine is activated by the end user. Very cool.
Have you lost your camera recently? Mislaid it somewhere in a national park? Left it in a taxi? Dropped it in the gorilla pit? Anyone can be a victim of the thoughtlessness and/or sleepiness that can lead to Camera Loss.
‘How can I prevent Camera Loss?’ I hear you ask, wishing I’d get to the point. Well, you can’t prevent cameras from getting lost, but you can do something so your camera can be found very soon after it has vanished.
All you have to do is take some photos – which you never delete from your camera – so when someone finds your camera at the bottom of the gorilla pit they are able to locate you and return the lost property to its rightful owner.
To illustrate just how you can safeguard your camera from the crippling effects of Camera Loss, here are the pics that this rather amusing chap always keeps on his camera.
Evian’sRoller Babies is the runaway commercially branded hit having been watched (at latest count) over 30 million times, making it the 5th most popular YouTube video of 2009, and the most watched commercial/ad/whatever you want to call it.
I forget where it was now but one person made a comment that went something like this..
“Beyond measuring the cute factor, can the client actually measure and attribute a boost in product sales to this effort? If so, I’d love to know how they’re measuring it.”
I liked their thinking. But at the same time I think that’s discounting a lot of the great work that has evidently been put in. So let us postulate a bit more about what made it so successful after you’ve had a look at it yourself if you haven’t already.
If we were to deconstruct the commercial, why has this become the most watched branded ad of 2009 and what is it about it that could be then replicated to anywhere near similar success levels?
Well, it’s a bit of fun isn’t it. You watch it and get that cutesy, fun, smiley and warm feeling. It has a backing track that lends to the fun, remember it did pretty well for Honda aswell in the Cog. (Reacquainted myself with the ‘making of’ here.) But then, in this case, you could just as easily have the backing track with nothing compelling in the forefront so credit where credit is due. I just don’t make enough of a link to Evian from the ad. It doesn’t make me want to go out and buy water, Evian water. Much like I’m not going to go out and buy a Honda tomorrow in fact, even though the financial investment and level of decision making associated to the two are complete polar opposites thus there being more chance of me buying Evian.. (Ok, bad comparison.)
I like the ad purely on the merit of the ad, in fact, I don’t think it sells enough what it is actually linked to. But maybe that was part of the trick. Maybe that’s why it did so well. People will share it as a piece of content because it is so subtly branded more than if Evian was plugged all over the place from start to finish. It loses its value as a piece of content if overly branded.
So the question that is left hanging over my head after thinking about and writing this is should brands now be concentrating less on what they are actually trying to sell and from an online perspective at least, be creating content that is watchable, entertaining and shareable in order to sell more of X. Again I think of the Cog ad. And which brings me back to what the commenter asked at the start of this post. Did Evian sell more water? Did Honda sell more cars? Did this achieve the goals set out from the off? What were the goals? I don’t know actually. On any of the above but it’d be good to find out more though to quench my curiosity.
The online integration is however, pretty fantastic and extends the life far further, another contributing factor to its success. Evidently, this was all very cleverly planned and executed.
It isn’t simply a video that has been put up on YouTube and forgotten about. There’s tonnes of content around the video. Some really brilliant stuff like teasers, interviews, wallpapers, where to listen to and download the music and of course, the obligatory Facebook fan page. This isn’t one of those all too familiar cases when a client thinks that by doing some kind of online video to promote something that it is going to automatically go viral. Yes, the dreaded v word. A sterling effort then.
What do you *feel* when you watch the ad? A compelling urge to buy Evian? An enjoyable feeling of escapism for a few minutes? I think i’m with the latter camp. Share the love.
A rather wonderfully executed guerilla campaign by Mini Amsterdam featuring packing boxes in prominent locations around Amsterdam. They are promoting something that you probably wouldn’t know about or be interested in but this brings in to the forefront, a 99€ a month finance deal which is available on the Mini Cooper. Taking a fairly run of the mill offer, like a finance plan and making it part of something compelling. Lovely.
Now perhaps somewhat of a TED classic, this is definitely worthy of your time, the video that is. Rory is not only someone with a deeply ingrained wealth of knowledge and experience, but I think he’s truly emblematic of our time. Why? Well, along with all that, it would seem he maintains a curiosity for this new world we live in and an enthusiasm to try out all the new tools that have sprung up and become part of every day life. In this TED talk he mentions amongst other things, the skills and creativity involved in creating intangible value, and that’s an important one, especially with social media, creating value that you can’t touch. I like the musings that advertising isn’t getting people to buy stuff that they do not need as much as it is getting people to value what they already own. Fascinating stuff.
“We need to appreciate what we already have, rather than agonising over what we don’t.”
A point is also made that many of life’s problems could be solved by “tinkering with perception”. Isn’t that what we’re all trying to do with all these creative, groundbreaking projects on behalf of bold / brave clients? Challenge perceptions, push the boundaries, reach new heights? The Diamond Shreddies are a perfect case study, where something so simple to everyone (in hindsight) as flipping shreddies on it’s side resulted in raising sales by 18%. Truly remarkable. We’re told that the traditional shreddies is old and boring (below) whilst being shaped as a diamond instantly makes them ‘better’, ‘more flavourful’ and ‘crunchier’. Astounding. It’s the same shreddies but the perception we are being sold is of these new experiences to be had with the Diamond Shreddies. And we believe them. Hence why sales rose.
Of course, I digress. There was some criticism of the points Rory made here and then furthermore in the comments.. but I got bored of the arguing and going round in circles in the comments but hey, it’s encouraging some debate and thought around the subject isn’t it.
Close to 100 comments here also, on TED, mostly wildly cynical and dismissive but isn’t it great when Rory himself pops in, says hello and silences a few critics. Truly brilliant.
What a lovely idea this and told with an incredibly simple yet brilliant narrative. With a $10K budget for their holiday card, Mother London made the sensible decision to instead of giving out a load of smaller gifts to a lot of people, they would make this holiday truly special for just one person.
The ending is an unexpected one so worth watching for the duration. Another case in point that sometimes the simplest ideas turn out to be the most powerful.
Here’s a great deck to get those thinking juices flowing, another cracker from @bud_caddell across the pond at Undercurrent. Do people say across the pond any more? Well, I just went there. PS Sharing the love Bud, happy birthday..
A few choice quotes:
“Ultimately, semantics fail us when trying to describe the present moment. When is now? Now? Or now? And while we’re on the topic, Morrissey would like to know, how soon is now?”
“Hope and despair are the emotional manifestations of future consciousness. We feel either one based on the predictions we make from passing events.”
“Attention is our scarcest natural resource. And attention is given based on a perception of time and a consciousness of the future”
I found out about this rather swish site for displaying news called Newsmap.jp. It’s brilliant.
To help you get a better idea of what i’m talking about and in true Blue Peter style, here’s one I made earlier.. I’ve just selected UK as the region but encapsulating all topic areas.
Immediately and rather nicely you get a snapshot of what is going on, colour coded by region and interest. Amazing stuff. I can see this becoming quite handy.
Filtered to only include UK technology news this time..
… and here’s another one, just UK sport time. You get the idea. It’s awesome. Go try it yourself now.
I’ve omitted the word ‘influencers’ from the original headline because it still bugs me a bit but nonetheless this is a brilliant compilation of so many varying predictions on 2010 in the one place from some of the biggest movers and shakers. I’m merely there to fill up the numbers obviously and being next to Seth Godin has provided many with much amusement. But I’m all for a bit of self-deprecation every now and then. Hat tip to @tim_whirledge for the original heads up.
Everyone that is featured in the presentation is listed below with their @names, making it easy for you to follow as many as you wish.
Major trends that came to the fore out of all the predictions were:
Mobile, Location, Transparency, Measurement, ROI and Privacy.
Not much new there then for 2010. Mobile, Location and Privacy would be my three to watch in 2010. Transparency shouldn’t even be there because it should happen without a second thought. But in 2009 we have seen and still in 2010 we’ll continue to see ideas, campaigns and executions which will pretend to be something they’re not / mislead consumers in some way or fake its roots and originality. Sometimes it is purely for the sake of controversy and to get people talking about it but other times you wonder who initially thought it would be a good idea and then how it ever made it in to the public spheres.
It was concluded that 2009 did not meet expectations. What should we expect in 2010?
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In this report, the 2010 Social Media trends are foretasted by:
@petecashmore PETE CASHMORE Founder, CEO Mashable
@armano DAVID ARMANO Senior Partner, Dachis Group Author, Logic and Emotion
@chrisbrogan CHRIS BROGAN President, New Marketing Labs
@peterkim PETER KIM Managing Director, N.America Dachis Group
@seth SETH GODIN, Bestselling Author, Entrepreneur & Agent of change
@litmanlive MICHAEL LITMAN Social Media Strategist Consolidated PR
@tamar TAMAR WEINBERG, Community & Marketing Manager, Mashable
@johnbattelle JOHN BATTELLE Founder & Chairman Federated Media
@mariansalzman MARIAN SALZMAN President, N.America Euro PR, Trend Spotter & Author
@mzkagan MARTA KAGAN Managing Director, US Espresso- Brand Infiltration
@danzarrella DAN ZARRELLA Social & Viral Marketing Scientist HubSpot
@emarketer eMARKETER Digital Intelligence
@drewmclellan DREW McLELLAN Founder and Author The Marketing Minute
@idc CAROLINE DANGSON Digital Marketplace Research Analyst IDC
@jasonfalls JASON FALLS Social Media Strategist Social Media Explorer
@charleneli CHARLENE LI Founder Altimeter Group
@gauravonomics GAURAV MISHRA CEO 2020 Social Online
@marc_meyer MARC MEYER Principal Digital Marketing Response Group
@emarketer JEFFREY GARU Senior Analyst eMarketer 2010
@jimmy_wales JIMMY WALES Founder Wikipedia
@alecjross ALEC ROSS Sr Advisor -Innovation State Department
@CraigNewmark CRAIG NEWMARK Founder of Craiglist
@scobleizer ROBERT SCOBLE Technical Evangelist Rackspace
@dmscott DAVID MEERMAN SCOTT Marketing Strategist & Author World Wide Rave
@roncallari RON CALLARI Social Media
@ravit_ustrategy RAVIT LICHTENBERG Founder & Chief Strategist Ustrategy.com
@equalman ERIK QUALMAN Author Socialnomics
@pgillin PAUL GILLIN Writer, Author & Social Media Consultant Principal
@adambroitman ADAM BROITMAN Partner & Ringleader Circ.us
@cbensen CONNIE BENSEN Director of Social Media & Community Strategy Alterian
@mikearauz MIKE ARAUZ Strategist Undercurrent
@nenshad Nenshad Badoliwalla Co-author Driven to Performance
@adamcohen ADAM COHEN Partner Rosetta
@danielwaisberg DANIEL WAISBERG Head of Web Analytics Easynet
@communitygirl ANGELA CONNOR Journalist & Community Strategist
@trendsspotting TALY WEISS CEO and Head of Research TrendsSpotting.com
#2 Starbucks
