Category: Live Communication

The surprise plate

Last week I covered how Virgin Atlantic setup a stunt to give the people of New York a taste of their onboard services. Now Lufthansa to give the business people of Frankfurt a taste of their new business class menu decided to take over the lunch recommendation of Restaurant Medici.

Unsuspecting business people who then ordered the restaurants lunch recommendation, were served the new Lufthansa Business Class menu. As they finished the food, they came across a sticker on the plate saying “Be our guest: That was a new dish from the Lufthansa Business Class.” Then to the surprise of the people, a Lufthansa air hostess appeared and mentioned that the lunch was already paid for by Lufthansa.

Tables you can hear

As part of their new urban headphones campaign, “You Need To Hear This,” Philips unveiled special handmade wooden tables that you could literally plug your headphones into and hear. Each table featured hand illustrated typography and iconography inspired by its neighbourhood – all prompting people to plug their headphones directly into the table (Philips headphones were provided by the bar).

As a result, pub goers across east London experienced the Philips headphones while listening to trending music curated specifically for the neighbourhood they were in.

The talking window

Train passengers who are bored during their travel tend to lean their head against the window. To capitlize on this moment of boredom and promote the Sky Go mobile app, BBDO Germany with the help of Audiva, a company that specializes in bone conduction technologies (i.e. the conduction of sound to the inner ear through the bones of the skull) developed a special transmitter that could be attached to the train window for a completely new form of public transport advertising.

As seen in the below video, these special transmitters released the Sky Go message through an inaudible high-frequency vibration that got translated to sound by the brain.

The Beer Fridge

First various brands created campaigns with red buttons, then came one with a pink phone and now we have a campaign from Molson, a Canadian beer brand that revolves around bright red refrigerators. 🙂

These eye catching refrigerators were filled with Molson beer and strategically placed across a variety of European locations to attract crowds. The catch? The fridges could be opened only by scanning a Canadian passport.

The campaign was created by agency Rethink Canada in order to bring back the classic tagline, “I am Canadian.” As a result, the video footage collected from the different European locations was cut into a 90 second online ad (seen below) and a 30 second TV ad which ran during the Stanley Cup Finals.

My blood is red and black

The state of Bahia was experiencing a shortage of blood. To raise awareness of this problem and increase the blood reserves, Hemoba Foundation (Blood Foundation) in Brazil partnered with Bahia football club Esporte Clube Vitoria to run a unique blood donation drive.

For the campaign, the football club changed the stripes of their iconic jersey from red to white. Then over the course of the season as the blood reserves rose, the team slowly changed the white stripes back to the original red.

As a result, the promotion earned Vitoria enormous publicity and helped raise blood donation by 46%.

Smart for two: parKING

Parking in the city isn’t fun. So BBDO Germany turned a regular test drive for the Smart into an interactive parking game based on the age-old game of musical chairs.

During the game an iPhone app was used to play music and direct players around central Berlin. When the music stopped the players had to immedietly find a parking spot. The last team to park and verify their location via a photo upload was eliminated.

The competition was run at the Berlin Smart center, where 8 teams battled each other to become Berlin’s first parKING’s. The result…

Philips Fruit Mashup

Philips launched the Walita Avance, their most advanced blender to date in Brazil. With 800w power and ultra-sharp blades, it mixed ingredients unlike anything consumers have ever seen before.

So to promote it, Ogilvy Brazil got a molecular cuisine specialist to actually physically blend two fruits into one! After 3 months of research the molecular cuisine specialist successfully created three new fruits (Pinegrape, Bananaberry and Kiwigerine) that Ogilvy used to promote the new Philips blender.

It seems Brazilian agencies are the ones to watch when it comes to innovative fruit related communication. 😉 Also see the real fruit boxes campaign from Ageisobar Brazil.

Pepsi Like Machine

Coca-Cola has created a whole bunch of innovative vending machines over the last couple of years. Pepsi on the other hand has created only a couple. Many of these soda vending machines I have featured here on Ramble.

Now to add to that collection here is Pepsi’s latest vending machine…dubbed the “Like Machine”, it is programmed to dispense soda to fans who “Like” the brand on Facebook via their smartphone or via the touchscreen on the machine.

Pepsi piloted the machine at a recent Beyonce concert in Antwerp, Belgium and has received a good response. So don’t be surprised if you see one popping up nearby at some point. 😉

Heineken: UEFA Giveaway

Here are two campaigns that Heineken created in Europe to giveaway seats for the UEFA Champions League finals in London last month. 😎

Heineken: The Negotiation

Heineken challenged football fans at a furniture store in Netherlands to convince their ladies into buying a $1899 set of plastic stadium chairs for their home. If they did managed to pull it off, they would win a trip to the finals. The result…

Heineken: The Seat

In Italy, Heineken hid 20 tickets under 20 Wembley seats and spread them around Rome and Milan. Fans then had only one hour to find them and secure their place in finals. The results…