Over the years, Pedigree has done an exceptional job of staying true to its brand promise, that everything we do is for the love of dogs. A large part of that promise has been Pedigree’s and TBWA\Chiat\Day Los Angeles’ prevailing Adoption Drive campaign. Now in its fourth year, the Adoption Drive is a multi-million dollar, cause-related awareness and fundraising campaign that rallies dog lovers to help millions of homeless dogs that end up in shelters and breed rescue organizations throughout the world.
This year, in effort to further raise awareness, Pedigree added the Adoption Drive Foundation, a non-profit organization to benefit select breed rescues and shelters, and the Pedigree DOGSTORE — a pop-up store in Times Square which hosted local New York shelters dogs and gave the public the chance to buy branded merchandise, make charitable donations to the foundation and, of course, adopt dogs. The store was timed to Pedigree’s annual sponsorship of the Westminster Kennel Club dog show.
Every year, Westminster recognizes the top purebreds in the world. What they don’t recognize are the thousands of less fortunate dogs in shelters across America. This seemed like the opportune time to “drive” the campaign into dog lovers’ minds. Did it work?
The store was only open for a few weeks, but it managed to attract over 43,000 visitors, over 75,000 was spent on merchandise and the store received over 4,500 in straight donations. Spokesperson, Kate Walsh, from ABC’s (American Broadcast Corporation) television show Private Practice, officially opened the store and even adopted a little black Shepard-mix puppy; after which, the two appeared on popular American talk shows such as Rachel Ray, the Tonight Show with David Letterman, Martha and the Today show. The promotion was also featured on a segment of Donald Trump’s Celebrity Apprentice, which had contestants crafting adoption awareness ads.
If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions please email Marianne Stefanowicz.
Is digital drawing the next big thing in arts? Could be. Is it a PR stunt? Could be. Or is it an expression of brand behavior? Yes, it is.
Jorge Colombo drew this week’s cover of THE NEW YORKER using an iPhone application. And guess what? He did it while queuing to get into Madam Tussaud’s Way Museum in Times Square.
Some people send text messages with their iPhone, others play games or simply talk to friends. Jorge Colombo created a cover artwork. nyt.com reported that Colombo bought his iPhone in February, and the $4.99 Brushes application soon after, and said the portability and accessibility of the medium appealed to him.
In our extremely well-connected world this lucky combination of an artist, The New Yorker and technology delivered through the iPhone, great things become even greater and the PR value for all involved brands is tremendous. Check out the film and read the story in the website of THE NEW YORKER.
And, do one experiment: Google “New Yorker” +iPhone. Amazing.
If you have any comments or suggestions please email Ulrich Proeschel
Especially in changing economic times, disruptive thinking creates sustainable and effective solutions for brands to navigate towards a better future. Jean-Marie Dru first described the phenomenon of disruption for a wider business audience, and has published three books on the topic. Tom Peters, the author of several bestselling books including “In Search for Excellence” and “Thriving on Chaos”, commented on Jean-Marie’s latest book: “Disrupt or be disrupted. Disrupt or die. This is the captivating story of implementing the most powerful idea in business today.”
Venture capitalist and popular blogger Fred Wilson gave a speech at Google a couple of days ago. The topic: Disruption. Google has just posted the video of the talk on YouTube, find it below.
We feel fine crawls through thousands of blogs extracting human emotions. You will see actual feelings of people presented in a charming way but also demographically structured. Basically it searches for the terms “I feel” and “I am feeling”. The extracted feelings are visualized with lots of colorful dots whirring around the screen. At first glance it looks a bit chaotic but the particles have a self organizing behavior. Color, size, shape, opacity or movement are defined by the kind of emotion. Besides information on the gender, age or location of the emotion’s author, an image, if available, is combined with the feeling. These “Postcards” can be sent or archived. Check the Gallery or try the real time results in the application itself. If an image is attached to a feeling the particle is a rectangle; all others are circles.
The project was inspired by the installation “Listening Post“.
What if we would use this technology to better understand the emotions, the relations and the lives of our audiences? Brands could be smarter, fan clubs could be more interactive and great conversations could be initiated.
If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions please email Erik Scholz.
Combining education, research, production and exhibition facilities in the field of art and cultural studies, santralistanbul presents “Uncharted: User Frames in Media Arts”, an exhibition realized. With the contribution of ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, a pioneering cultural institution for the last 20 years in Europe, ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne, also a distinguished design institute in Europe, and independent curators.
The selection of contemporary artworks in the exhibition that call for extensive utilisation of digital and interactive media, enable viewers to become users, participators and creators.
The part of the exhibition entitled “YOU_ser. The Century of the Consumer” presented by the ZKM expresses the forerunning limits of this new user-focused art and enables the viewer to explore the transformation which the relationship between the viewer and the artwork is undergoing.
“User Frames in Media Arts” not only brings art and science together but also discusses the Media Arts concept as updated by the daily advancement in technology. Inviting the viewer to become a user, creative and participant, this exhibition also includes important names such as Marcel Duchamp and Peter Weibel, who have extensively investigated these concepts in the history of art. The exhibition brings together the works of more than 80 artists, from Chile, Brazil, Korea, Japan, United States and Australia, as well as from Europe.
In this video interview, the exhibition’s co-curator Atif Ahmet Akin talks about the changing nature of art and the role of the audience in Media Arts.
There is always a huge gap between the idea and execution of any digital piece of work. A simple sketchbook is a great start. You can focus on relevant facts for your work and keep irrelevant details out of your mind. But a plain old sketchbook is not enough support to develop digital media. Ben Fry and Casey Reas from MIT Media Lab developed a sophisticated and very powerful tool, Processing. It’s an easy-to-learn programming environment with a deeply creative focus. Made for designers, artists, students or anyone who wants to develop without boundaries. The technology has so far yielded multi-touch tables, projections, programmed print media, robotics, audio installations, websites and countless more.
OASIS II is a Tangible Surface by Yunsil Heo. The artist describes OASIS as a “playful space where people feel nature, find life forms, interact with and create virtual worlds” and not a tool to use.
Processing – which is open source software - motivates media artists to think and work beyond screens, mice and streaming video. And it will bring digital creatives a bit closer to the work of a programmer, which will result, if not in love, at least into a better collaboration.
For inspiration, flick through the Processing Exhibition. It’s a collection of beautiful and intelligent projects realized with Processing.
Processing itself was founded in 2001 and won the Golden Nica award from Ars Electronica in the category of Net Vision in 2005.
If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions please email Erik Scholz.
PCMAC.COM recently said “iLife is still the best suite out there.” and Forrester Research published its “Customer Experience Index 2008 Snapshot PC Manufacturers” in April 2009, ranking Apple #1. This is how Apple celebrates the fact that all these PC users love the Mac. Enjoy the two most recent banner campaigns featuring John Hodgman (PC) and Justin Long (Mac), interacting not only with each other but also with the copy on the pages. By doing so, Apple disrupts one of the biggest conventions of most banners campaigns. These banners do not sit apart from the content – they become part of it. Both Apple and TBWA\Media Art Lab obviously love media.
Second Opinion:
Booby Trap:
If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions please email Marianne Stefanowicz.
Fast Company magazine’s inaugural ranking of the 100 Most Creative People in Business puts Jonathan Ive, SVP of Industrial Design at Apple, in the top spot; Lee Clow, TBWA’s Global Director of Media Arts is named #32. In a press release Fast Company magazine said: “In an industry that tends to spit out anyone with a speck of gray hair, the brain behind the Energizer Bunny, the Taco Bell Chihuahua, and Adidas’s ‘Impossible is Nothing’ campaign continues to be one of the most creative forces in the game.Last year, as global director of TBWA\Worldwide, he [Lee Clow] helped the Omnicom-owned agency lure a phenomenal roster of new business, including Pepsi and the global Visa account.”
“Creativity cannot be reduced to a formula,” says Fast Company editor Robert Safian. “There will no doubt be controversy over how we ended up with these 100 individuals, why certain names are missing, why one person is ranked higher – or lower – than someone else. But there is a perspective in our list: Taken in its entirety, it’s a snapshot of the range and depth of creativity across our business landscape – a remarkable and perhaps surprising source of strength in these times of turmoil.”
The list includes engineers from Facebook and Google, movie directors and fashion designers, architects and inventors. “We emphasized those who creativity addresses a larger issue – from the future of our energy infrastructure to the evolution of philanthropy to next-generation media and entertainment,” explain the Fast Company editors, in the introduction to the list. “And while we couldn’t see how lauding Steve Jobs would show much creativity, we also couldn’t ignore the outsized impact Apple has had on our business culture. That’s why Apple’s chief designer heads our list at No. 1.”
Over the years, Pedigree has done an exceptional job of staying true to its brand promise, that everything we do is for the love of dogs. A large part of that promise has been Pedigree’s and TBWA\Chiat\Day Los Angeles’ prevailing Adoption Drive campaign. Now in its fourth year, the Adoption Drive is a multi-million dollar, cause-related awareness and fundraising campaign that rallies dog lovers to help millions of homeless dogs that end up in shelters and breed rescue organizations throughout the world. 
Fast Company