Goodby Silverstein & Partners 2

Dali Museum iPhone App

To build awareness for “The Dali Museum’s” fantastical new building, ad agency Goodby Silverstein & Partners developed a customized picture-editing app that created dreamy surrealist overlays over photos.

With zero budget, they turned to Hipstamatic to help bring the smartphone app to life. The team at Hipstamatic liked the idea so much that they waived their fees and pledged to donate the proceeds from the app to the museum. Plus, their 1.2 million loyal followers provided the critical mass needed to reach the general public.

In the first couple days after the release, the Hipstamatic site crashed due to extremely high traffic. The blogosphere bubbled with over 19,000 mentions and in the first month alone 50,000 people purchased the app.

Why the “zero budget” part mattered

Most museum awareness efforts struggle with the same constraint. Great content, limited reach. This solved it by building the campaign inside an existing distribution engine. Here, a distribution engine means a platform with a large active audience and a built-in habit of sharing. Because Hipstamatic already had the audience, the use case, and the sharing behavior, the museum could turn a niche cultural launch into something that traveled through everyday iPhone photography. The business intent was simple: make the new building culturally visible far beyond the museum’s owned audience.

Extractable takeaway: When budgets are thin, do not start by buying reach. Start by embedding the idea in a tool, platform, or habit that already has distribution.

For museums, destinations, and other cultural institutions, the scalable challenge is usually not creating content but accessing a behavior people already repeat.

The real question is not how to advertise the building, but how to turn public participation into distribution.

The smarter move is to build the awareness mechanic inside a behavior people already want to perform and share.

What to borrow if you are marketing a place or institution

Turn the subject into a tool. A museum became a creator utility, not a brochure.
Partner for distribution, not just production. Hipstamatic brought the audience and the habit.
Make sharing the default output. Every edited photo is a piece of media that carries the idea forward.

A few fast answers before you act

What was the Dali Museum iPhone app?

A customized picture-editing app that applied surrealist, dream-like overlays to users’ photos to build awareness for The Dali Museum’s new building.

Who created it?

Goodby Silverstein & Partners developed the app concept and execution.

How did they launch it with zero budget?

They partnered with Hipstamatic, which waived fees and pledged to donate app proceeds to the museum.

What did Hipstamatic contribute beyond technology?

Distribution. Their 1.2 million followers provided the critical mass to reach beyond the museum’s natural audience.

What were the early results?

Hipstamatic’s site crashed from high traffic, the campaign generated over 19,000 mentions, and 50,000 people purchased the app in the first month.

Chevrolet: Then & Now

As a way to celebrate turning 100, Chevy creates a spot titled “Then & Now” that shows people staying connected to iconic moments, locations, and Chevrolet vehicles as if those moments are with them right there, right now.

A simple device that does the heavy lifting

The mechanism is beautifully restrained: vintage photographs of Chevrolets and the people around them are held up to the camera in the exact same locations today, aligning past and present into a single frame.

In automotive heritage storytelling, the fastest way to communicate longevity is to make time visible with a device that needs almost no explanation.

In heritage-heavy categories, anniversary storytelling lands best when it helps the audience locate their own memories in the present, not when it asks them to admire the brand.

Why it lands emotionally

The film does not argue that the brand matters. It shows that memory matters, and lets the vehicles sit naturally inside that truth. The hand-held photos are the emotional bridge. They make nostalgia feel personal, not corporate.

Extractable takeaway: If you can make time visible with one repeatable in-scene device, you can earn nostalgia without turning the work into a corporate victory lap.

The business intent behind the sentiment

A centennial can easily become self-congratulation. This avoids that trap by focusing on the audience’s continuity. The brand is the thread that runs through people’s lives, places, and rituals, rather than the subject demanding applause. The real question is whether your anniversary work makes the audience feel time passing in their own life, not whether it proves you have been around. Anniversary work should prioritize the audience’s continuity over brand self-congratulation.

Transferable moves for anniversary work

Choose one visual metaphor and commit. One repeatable device beats a collage of “greatest hits”.
Let people be the hero. Heritage feels earned when the customer’s life is the storyline.
Use restraint as a quality signal. Minimal copy and slow pacing can make the work feel more truthful.
Anchor the past in the present. Showing the same place now keeps nostalgia from drifting into museum mode.

A few fast answers before you act

What is “Then & Now” in one line?

A centennial film that aligns vintage Chevrolet photos with the same real-world locations today to show continuity across generations.

What is the core creative mechanism?

Hand-held historical photographs matched precisely to present-day scenes, creating a single frame that contains both time periods.

Why does this approach work for anniversary advertising?

It makes time visible instantly, and it ties the brand to lived memory rather than to corporate milestones.

What should you avoid in centennial storytelling?

Avoid making the milestone the hero. If the audience cannot see their own continuity in the work, the film risks reading like self-congratulation.

What is the most transferable takeaway?

If you can show the passage of time with one simple, repeatable device, you can tell a heritage story without overexplaining it.

Tostitos: And Then There Was Salsa

Frito-Lay teamed up with online video sharing site Vimeo to create a new advertising campaign for their Tostitos Salsa. The video began with some beautiful CG which then quickly swallowed the viewer’s browser to become a full-screen experience.

When the player becomes the canvas

The execution starts like a normal hosted film. Then the interface itself becomes part of the performance, as the visuals expand beyond the frame and turn the browser window into the stage.

The takeover mechanic in plain terms

The mechanism is a deliberate break of expectation. Here, the takeover mechanic means the film expands beyond the player so the browser window itself feels absorbed into the ad. The film uses high-polish CG to earn trust, then escalates into a page takeover that makes the viewer feel like they have crossed a boundary from “watching” into “being inside” the world of the spot.

In digital brand experiences, fullscreen takeovers work when the format shift is the message, not just a louder container for the same footage.

Why this lands

It delivers a physical sensation in a purely digital space. That moment of “wait, my browser is gone” creates surprise and attention, and it also flatters the viewer by treating the screen as a cinematic environment rather than a box with controls.

Extractable takeaway: If you want immersion, do not only add detail inside the frame. Change the frame itself in a way that reinforces the story you are telling.

What Frito-Lay is buying with the Vimeo partnership

The intent is to make a salsa film feel like an event. A takeover turns a standard online view into a shareable “you have to see this” moment, and it associates the product with craft, spectacle, and a bit of controlled chaos.

The real question is how to make a salsa ad feel bigger than a pre-roll without losing the viewer in empty spectacle.

What to steal for your next immersive video

Earn attention first, then escalate. Start simple, then make the environment change once the viewer is already hooked.
Make the format shift meaningful. The jump to full-screen should feel like part of the narrative, not a gimmick.
Design one unforgettable beat. The takeover moment is the memory. Everything else supports that single peak.
Pick the right host for the idea. A platform partnership matters most when the platform’s norms are part of the contrast you are exploiting.

A few fast answers before you act

What is “And Then There Was Salsa”?

It is a Tostitos Salsa online film distributed via a Vimeo partnership, designed to shift from a normal player view into a full-screen browser takeover for a more immersive effect.

What is the core mechanic that makes it feel different?

The experience changes the viewing container. It starts as a standard video, then expands beyond the player and takes over the browser window, so the interface becomes part of the execution.

Why does the Vimeo partnership matter here?

It matters because the idea depends on contrast. A familiar hosted-player environment makes the takeover feel more dramatic when the film suddenly breaks out of it.

When is a fullscreen takeover a smart choice?

When the goal is to create a memorable moment rather than maximize completion rates. It is especially useful when craft and spectacle are part of the brand story.

What should you be careful about with this pattern?

Overuse and irrelevance. If the takeover does not reinforce the idea, viewers experience it as interruption. Performance and compatibility also matter because the format depends on smooth playback.