McDonald's Augmented Reality World Cup App

About 5 years after we first swooned to this, is augmented reality finally going to go mainstream?



Get the app here (iOS & Android only)

Danny MacAskill in Epecuén

Red Bull does these so well.



Also on its own site

Book Review - Without Their Permission by Alexis Ohanian

Read this book!

Alexis Ohanian founded Reddit with university friend Steve Huffman in June 2005, and sold it to Conde Nast in October 2006, having been on a whirlwind start-up experience.  Since then he's spoken at TED (all about Mister Splashy Pants - see below), marketed travel site Hipmunk, set up a not-for-profit company Breadpig, and campaigned for internet freedom, all in a mission 'to make the world suck less'.



All of this makes for a very entertaining, readable and inspiring book about what it's like to be a tech and media pioneer in the age when 'software is eating the world'.  While he's an acknowledged geek, he also confesses that he stopped coding about a month into Reddit - his strengths in other areas are arguably more important.

Alexis is clearly a great marketer, and willing to put this to good use, whether it's showing comic book writers or musicians how to run Kickstarter campaigns, or explaining the number of jobs being created by the open internet for politicians in Capital Hill.

He also gives insights into what it's like for a start-up to be incubated by someone like Y Combinator (I never realised that the sign of a start-up that will make it is growth of 8% a week or so), and you can see all of the ones that he invests in personally on his own site here.

Finally, as you'd expect with such a book, it's littered with footnotes, giving links to articles, videos and other sources to illustrate or back up what he's saying.

Buy it here

L'Oreal's Make-up Tutorial with Google Glass

This is a good use of Google Glass - get to see a make-up tutorial from an expert's POV, using the built in camera.



From our clients L'Oreal

Cisco's Speed-targeted Billboards in San Francisco

This is a great example of creativity in data.  Cisco has a billboard in San Francisco near to the airport, where the message changes depending on the speed of the car approaching.

The faster the car, the fewer the words, as the driver will have less time to read the message.

There are 4 speed ranges, but I'm sure this could be done with much more granularity

Not rocket science, clearly, but very clever.

See more at AdAge here

The first ads on Pinterest

Ads on Pinterest are finally here, according to a blog post.

I haven't seen any yet, but launch brands include Kraft, GAP, Target, Walt Disney Parks & Resorts, and Expedia.

More here

Inspired by Vine

Turkish Airlines has just produced this


Clearly inspired by this



& Lowe's has commissioned Vine expert to make more of its' #FixInSix films, with tips crowdsourced on Twitter.


I think Vine isn't for everyone - you need far greater technical ability than you do for Instagram for example - bit it's clearly a huge hit.

Using Mixed Martial Arts to raise awareness of domestic violence in Brazil

Quite astonishing.  Amazingly brave work; the client (Disque Denúncia) could have lost it's nerve at any point.

Coca Cola's Happiness Drones

An imaginative extension of the Happiness Machines theme (earlier, earlier, earlier, earlier)



(Except when do 'remote controlled helicopters' become 'drones'?  & wouldn't it have been easier if the camera crew have taken the Cokes up up with them?)

See also this one where Coca Cola bottle tops can be used as payment for phone calls home for migrant workers.

Hollyoaks on Snapchat

The British soap opera uses Snapchat to give teasers for that day’s episode every day at 4pm

Sometimes a pic, sometimes a video, I think.

Very good!

Twitter and #AmazonBasket

A Twitter integration with Amazon has just been launched:

Brands can post out offers from their Amazon inventory using the #AmazonBasket hashtag.



Shoppers can connect their Twitter account to their Amazon account, and then when they reply to a tweet that uses the #AmazonBasket hashtag (making sure to use the hashtag in the reply) that item is added to their Amazon basket.

Commission goes to the tweeting seller (definitely), and to Twitter (presumably)

Brands are already experimenting, for example:

The easy way to get your Cadbury Dairy Milk Oreo with just a click. http://t.co/7ZHepeVPXK reply #AmazonBasket to get yours!
— Cadbury UK (@CadburyUK) May 6, 2014

& also:

Pre-order @edsheeran's new album 'x' on Amazon now (out on 23 June) http://t.co/BgGaQyZlQl Reply with #AmazonBasket to add it to your Basket
— Atlantic Records UK (@AtlanticRcrdsUK) May 6, 2014

I think that this is potentially very useful for Twitter users, and very good for Amazon.  Amazon must know what % of items in baskets eventually get bought, and I'd guess that it's pretty high.

I think that it fits my trend of 'Frictionless Payment' from late last year, by cleverly taking the payment aspect of it out.

However I'm more positive about it than many.

Econsultancy thinks that it's a gimmick, and Vice isn't impressed either.

Oh - and a nice 'explainer' Vine from Amazon

The return of Subservient Chicken

The classic campaign idea from 2004 has been revived with this new film.



Also viewable on the SubservientChicken

What I loved about the original was that BK kept the site live - now it seems that you can't still access the old stuff.

Rio 2's 'Dani Alves' post on Facebook

Last week at the football match between Villareal and Barcelona, Barcelona's Dani Alves was racially abuse by a Villareal supporter, who threw a banana on the pitch.  Alves calmly picked up the banana and ate it, generating lots of admiration around the world.

Our client 20th Century Fox then placed this photo on the Facebook page for Rio 2 using the hashtag that was already being used:

(Translated it reads #We'reAllMonkeys)

To date it's had 100,000 Likes and 200,000 shares.

You can also see the hashtag on Twitter -