You can always rely on Diesel to deliver unconventional statements and this goes for its marketing as well as its fashion.

To launch its flagship Fifth Avenue store, themed live dinner parties were held in its storefront window for 5 nights. Guest participants included famous New York DJs, sportsmen, models and other personalities.

The store itself exudes creativity and invites consumers to live the brand experience, with DJ booths on multi-levels, store-wide Wi-Fi, e-commerce portals and wireless cash stations.

Recognising that staying in is the new going out, Diesel is clearly mirroring a current social trend, in a highly creative way. But it also proves it’s the kind of brand that has more to offer behind its closed doors.

Thanks to: Diesel, coolhunter.com

T-Mobile is fast becoming the brand known for bringing the sunshine into people’s everyday lives, in the most unexpected ways. The concepts are simple, but execution is huge, fun and inclusive.

Following its infamous dance event in Liverpool Street station in January, the company upped the ante with a grand-scale karaoke event, attracting 13,500 people to London’s Trafalgar Square.

But the exposure didn’t stop there.

The brand experience extended to creating hubs on YouTube and Facebook, offering the possibility of receiving an exclusive invite to its next event. By embracing the viral element, it’s now creating a growing community of followers.

A brilliant example of a brand that is living up to its promise of ‘Life is for Sharing’.

Thanks to: T-Mobile

We all know today’s conversations take place online. Here, we look at how 2 very different brands are using contrasting approaches to build momentum.

Confectionary brand, Skittles, may score points for its brave integration with social media, but its latest campaign also highlights how being brave isn’t always easy.

To market its new range, ‘Crazy Cores’, skittles.com uses a light-hearted, fun approach to embrace independent conversations about its brand.

Visitors to skittles.com can see other people’s feelings towards the brand and even contribute should they feel like it. As you work through the official site’s pages, you are led to a number of different social media platforms - Flickr, YouTube, Wikipedia or Facebook.

Brave? Yes, very. But at the end of the day Skittles has now taken back some control after the campaign stimulated some out-of-hand content, namely crude and pornographic material. To combat this, Skittles now redirects traffic only to sites it trusts is being managed to some extent, like Facebook.
Skittles is achieving a couple of things here. It’s demonstrating to people it understands they want to interact in a social environment that’s more objective than its official brand site. It’s also bravely encouraging all opinions, while choosing to sit alongside them.

Embracing people’s opinion is also on the agenda for the NRMA.

When the 2008 Mini Budget results mentioned no initiatives to improve Australia’s roads, the NRMA decided to provide a platform for people to voice their opinions, with the aim to drive change.

Roadtube.com.au enables people to share what irritates them about the roads.

Look at this example above from Stephen Wright, who attached a camera to the dashboard of his truck and filmed some of the local roads in his village of Dungog in the Hunter Valley. The NRMA is now supporting Stephen by working with the local council, who is in turn lobbying the Federal Government for change.

“NRMA is the white knight here, giving a voice to the voiceless and uniting lone whingers into a vast grumbling army”. Helen Barnes, Research Analyst, Mitchell Communication Group.

An army indeed, let’s hope change is in the making!

Thanks to: Skittles, NRMA – roadtube.com.au, Stephen Wright

Proving that actions really do speak louder than words, Vodafone decided against explaining its latest technology, opting instead to let people see it for themselves.

Teaming with PR firm, Waskman, both companies wanted to promote the benefits of a mobile office. So Waskman had its agency staff moved to a glass container installed on a 3 storey high construction in one of the busiest places in Madrid’s city centre. A PR dream in the making…

The aim of the 3 week campaign was to show that Vodafone Office allows you to do everything you would normally do in an office, all from your mobile phone.

The wider campaign incorporated a blog which detailed the staff members and their technical requirements, all demonstrating how Vodafone technology meets their needs.

We think Vodafone got it right this time, bravely putting its money where its mouth is – this in itself can be a big challenge for many brands. This is a great example of combining creativity with new technologies.

Thanks to: Vodafone

Heard the hype about Fanta’s launch in Canada? In a refreshing way, it has nothing to do with Twitter, Facebook or any other new media.

Like the Vodafone campaign, it’s about creating an engaging brand experience. Could this be a sign that, as we see a shift in consumer values towards what really matters, authentic experiences in advertising are the new black?

Richard Chapman, Director of Impact says, ‘Brand experiences can still be one of the most effective ways to provide a tangible consumer experience. This example from Fanta demonstrates how a brand’s essence can be brought to life while evoking a sense of innocence and playfulness among a broad consumer target.’

By splashing painted puddles on the floors of shopping malls, the playful part of the execution came with the nostalgic childhood sounds of ‘boing boing, children laughing and animal noises’, as people jumped over the play puddles.

The campaign isn’t intrusive, but inviting. It’s incredibly simple, yet effective in its aim of catching shoppers off-guard in a fun and light-hearted way.

Thanks to: Taxi, Fanta, Richard Chapman and Media Post

Picture this, audio-based technology that transmits ads from inside your head. It’s happening. With the capacity to target one person directly with one message, this new technology has already been part of several campaigns in the US.

One example is US television network, A&E. When it launched a campaign to promote ghost buster reality show ‘Paranormal State’, it connected Audio Spotlight to its outdoor billboards. When a person walked by they were targeted with a woman’s voice whispering, “who’s there? It’s not your imagination”.

A little less intense is alcohol brand, Remy Martin, who designed street level billboards to look like nightclub doors. Faint music can be heard from behind the door, but as intrigued on-lookers take a step closer, a sensor enables a small door to open with a bouncer asking the passer by ‘Do you know the password?’. Clearly both initiatives are about generating intrigue and surprise.

We’ve been talking for a while now about the importance of engaging the senses. Normally it’s in the form of an event, but Audio Spotlight is certainly an experience people won’t forget. It just might pay for the advertiser to put themselves in the consumer’s shoes on this one and ask if the experience will draw them closer to the brand - or send them running?

Thanks to: Audio Spotlight, Dr Joseph Pompei, Remy Martin, Paranormal State, Joshua Stein