Our friends over in Ireland haven’t been getting much love lately. FIFA robbed their team of a World Cup appearance, their government limited their free speech and the global recession has burst their economic balloon.
Looks like the Irish could use a little luck.
UK-based Vodafone has come up with a plan to “Cheer Up Ireland.” In January, the phone company began hosting a Flickr photo pool, encouraging the Irish to submit original photographs that might lift the Emerald Isle’s spirits. While the feel-good promotion is running in tandem with a discount for Irish cell phone users, its true brilliance is in reminding us that there are inexpensive and creative ways to foster goodwill.
And as extra incentive to boost their photo count, and Ireland’s morale, Vodafone will reward the best entrant with a 3000€ shopping spree. For those of you already doing the math, that’s $5324.34 – or 887 pints of Guinness. And if that doesn’t do the trick, nothing will.
We’re pretty lucky to live in a city like Austin and have so many great local businesses to support. And it seems like everyone who lives here has that same attitude. Even though “going local” is second-nature, we were still struck by a grassroots call-to-action to support local banks, a type of business that hasn’t gotten much attention before. That is before all the large, national banks became the target of ire because of bailouts, bonuses, forclosures, etc.
It all originated in an article written by Ariana Huffington on her site Huffingtonpost, which has been following the financial crisis carefully and has been very critical of corporate banks. Since that article was published, a few sites have popped up, notably MyCommunityMyBank and MoveYourMoney that provide resources and other opportunities to get involved.
While one could correctly argue that the sudden drive to support local banks comes directly from the extremely sour public mood towards bailed-out national banks, any reason to support a local business is good in our opinion.
For what it’s worth, we’re proud to bank locally with (and create branding and advertising for) our client American Bank of Texas.
Check out Trendwatching.com’s “10 CRUCIAL CONSUMER TRENDS FOR 2010.” Number 3 on the list: Real-Time Reviews. As people continue to share (in real time) everything they buy, watch, eat, wear, attend and so on, and with even more search engines and tracking services making it easy to find and group these ‘live dispatches’ by theme, topic or brand, 2010 will see ready-to-buy consumers tapping into a live stream of experiences from fellow consumers.
Don’t believe the hype? Don’t think the opinions of fellow consumers weigh heavily into our purchasing decisions? Well then explain what led us to purchase 100 of these from Amazon.com back in the spring.
image from trendwatching.com
Saw this license plate on the way to the agency this morning. It ranks right up there with other vanity gems like JETSETA, HIOFCER and I8A4RE.
More often than not, friends’ tweets can be lackluster to say the least. Reading about being stuck at work or how much traffic there was this morning clogs up Twitter feeds around the world, leaving readers comatose with boredom.
Now it’s time to take action and convert all this cyber-trash to cyber-treasure by recycling their lame and uninteresting tweets. GetTRASHED.org has partnered up with social media firm McKinney to rid cyberspace of pathetic tweets. Recycle a tweet and McKinney will donate a penny to the campaign. This is how it works:
First, @reply to someone who posted a lame tweet. Copy and paste their lame tweet, and add #recyclethis to the end. Click reply.
Recyledtweets.com will recycle it and send them a new, transformed tweet using some of the characters from the original. Not only will you have generated the donation of another penny, but you’ll get people to seem a lot more interesting than they actually are.
What are you waiting for? Start recycling.
Ever lost a hotel key card? Perhaps we know where it is.
Holiday Inn commissioned Bryan Berg, a world record-holding ‘card stacker,’ to construct a 400 square-foot hotel in New York City made entirely of 200,000 plastic key cards. The stunt is Holiday Inn’s way of promoting the brand’s re-launch featuring 1,200 new hotels in 2009.
The two-ton construction was Berg’s largest card-stacking challenge to date and the only card creation he has ever made to full human scale. The hotel itself includes a guest bedroom, bathroom and lobby, all fully equipped with functioning life-sized furniture. So, next time you’re in New York, check in and check it out.
Note: This author is not a professional card stacker, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn.
Throw out the chisel, toss the pick and hang up the paintbrush. Korean artist Gwon Osang has reinvented sculpture.
From a distance his pieces look like they’re ceramic, but upon closer inspection it becomes clear that they’re made entirely out of original photographs. Curiously titled “Deodorant Type,” the collection features 14 freestanding sculptures of everything from people to luggage.
Osang, one of the most recognized contemporary artists in Korea, began creating 3D photographic works because he was physically too frail to pursue the demands of traditional sculpture. He hoped this appropriately modern new material would free him from the weight of traditional materials as well as the strenuous process of production.
In the end, Osang married photography and sculpture to come up with this creative and innovative twist on traditional art – carving a name for himself in the art world.
If your parental instincts aren’t on point, and you don’t know why your baby is crying incessantly, don’t worry - there’s an app that’s going to make it all better.
The Cry Translator works by analyzing the pitch, volume, tone and inflection of a baby’s cry, and provides you with an answer in only ten seconds. You’ll know whether your baby is hungry, sleepy, stressed, annoyed or bored. This doesn’t mean, however, that your role as parents has become obsolete; it just means your iPhone understands your baby better than you do.
The application is aimed not only at easing new parents’ anxieties, but teaching them the meaning of particular types of crying; well worth the $9.99 investment. And it promises to work not only infants, but crybabies of all ages. Hmm. Wonder if it works on interns?
