Alibaba and Ford have signed a deal to build a vending machine for cars in Guangzhou, China. The vending machine has a capacity of 42 cars and allows prospective buyers to book a three-day test drive before they buy. All the prospective buyer needs to do is select the car model they’re interested in, put down a deposit electronically via the Tmall app, schedule a pickup time, and snap a selfie so that the vending machine can recognize them when they pick up the car for a test drive.
The Moby Mart is set to turn every parking space in the world into a new 24-hour store. About the size of a small bus, the store carries a selection of everyday products like snacks, meals, basic groceries, and even shoes. To use the store, you have to download an app, register as a customer and use your smartphone to unlock the doors.
The store is currently undergoing trials in Shanghai, thanks to a collaborative effort between Swedish startup named Wheelys Inc and China’s Hefei University. For now, the trial prototype is stationery i.e. based permanently in a carpark. But the company says that it is currently working with tech companies to develop its self-driving technology as seen in the below video.
For more information visit www.themobymart.com.
For the 50th anniversary of the Porsche 911, Shanghai based ad agency Fred & Farid recorded the sounds from all 7 generations of 911’s. The sounds were then made availble on the web via a musical keyboard, where Porsche fans from China and around the world could login and compose their own tunes.
The official “Birthday Song tune” from Porsche received over 6.9 million video views and the musical keyboard was played over 1.5 million times.
Kuka is the Chinese market leader in industrial robotics. To provide a realistic vision of what robots can be capable of in the future and at the same time celebrate the opening of their new robotics factory in Shanghai, they got German Table Tennis champion and former world number one Timo Boll to take on a Kuka robot in what was dubbed as the first ever man versus robot (arm) table tennis match.
The match took place on March 11th in Sofia, Bulgaria. Since then the results of the match have been sliced and diced into the below final cut video that celebrates the inherent speed, precision, and flexibility of Kuka’s industrial robots in tandem with Boll’s electrifying and tactical prowess in competition.
A making of video is also available at the official campaign microsite www.kuka-timoboll.com.
There are many sources for people to find things to see and do in Shanghai. So Time Out magazine decide to promote its Shanghai city information guide via a marketing stunt created with the help of Energy BBDO China.
The insight for the stunt came from the product itself i.e. Time Out Shanghai digs deeper into the city to find hidden gems that might not otherwise be discovered. To demonstrate this Time Out purposely “lost” a cell phone on a random street in Shanghai. Any passerby who picked it up was in for a suprise, as to return the phone they had to get into a London Taxi that pulled up infront of their location. Here is a video recording of the entire stunt through specially placed hidden cameras…
3D has become quite a fad in the last couple of years, with all major Hollywood movies coming in that format. Not to be left behind and to set a whole new standard for live streaming in fashion, German fashion brand Hugo Boss decided to live stream its Boss Black Fall Winter 2012 fashion show in Beijing directly in 3D.
For the lead up to the show, all promotional material online i.e. Website, Mobile, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube were also made available in 3D. Free limited edition 3D glasses were given away to consumers who answered trivia questions and signed up for the Hugo Boss newsletter. Participating consumers were also entered to win a trip to the show in Beijing.
If you own a pair of 3D glasses, then put them on and check out the below Hugo Boss 3D fashion experience.
In June last year I had covered how Homeplus in South Korea had created a virtual store in a subway station in order to blend into people’s everyday lives. Since then Procter & Gamble has set up the same virtual stores in four of the busiest subway stations in Prague and Chinese online supermarket Yihodian has also borrowed the idea and installed virtual supermarkets in 15 subway stations around Shanghai.
This year PayPal has also launched the same QR code shops in 15 Singapore subway stations and enabled commuters to buy Valentines gifts from eight different retailers by simply scanning the QR code on their smartphone…
In USA, PayPal has eliminated the need of a wallet or phone altogether. In a partnership with Home Depot, PayPal has begun to roll out an in-store service that enables payments at stores using only a mobile phone number and a pin number at checkout…
Money is truly being re-imagined and contactless payments is going to be a norm by late 2012.
Subway was facing massive competition from other fast food chains in China. Mobile agency iconmobile was given the task to claim the mindsets of their target audience in an innovative way that also triggered sales.
A mobile game was created to let users step into the role of a subway delivery guy. Rather than just providing an emotional benefit, the app also included…
Thousands of Hong Kong’s alternative music fans crave the raw energy, focus, passion and participation of a live performance. Zoo Records, Hong Kong’s most celebrated alternative music store faced the challenge to bring this live experience directly to the fans.
Zoo Records with Leo Burnett Hong Kong created a campaign called “Hidden Live” that went on to became the world’s first live mobile music festival!
As a result more than 10,000 people packed into the festival each night and countless more got involved as constant clips were shared online. Zoo Records sold out 80 percent of the albums for those eight performing bands. But most importantly, alternative music came alive in tens of thousands of venues all over Hong Kong.
Lenovo, one of the world’s largest laptop brands, has developed a series of online viral videos for their latest flagship product – the ThinkPad T420. In a series of videos they have tried to highlight all the extra time one can have as the laptop has proven features such as faster graphics performance, faster boot up, faster wireless connections, faster data transfer, etc.
However only one of these videos caught my eye. Please enjoy it responsibly. 🙂
Lenovo’s emerging marketing team has developed the virals for use in Russia, India, Middle East, Eastern Europe, Turkey, South Africa, South East Asia, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
