No wonder Pantone has selected emerald green for its color of the year. It's Heineken's 140th anniversary, and the Dutch beer giant is unscrewing all the caps to celebrate.

Today in Amsterdam, the Dutch brand is debuting a video wall projection made from 5,000 beer bottles on the side of its headquarters building. Not in Amsterdam? Worry not — fans can check it out from 4pm ET to 10pm ET, every day from Dec. 7th through January 2nd, on Heineken's Facebook page and post on the brand's virtual wall.

And that's not all it's doing on Facebook.Continue reading...

Has your favorite musician died? Stick around long enough and he or she will surely make an appearance again via hologram. At the rate things are going, and for the right "appearance" fee of course, you may eventually invite your own hologram Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Famer to perform at your wedding or other private event.

The "virtual performance" business kicked off in April when Dr. Dre debuted a hologram of Tupac Shakur on-stage at Coachella. As Entertainment Weekly notes, that was followed by plans to resurrect Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes for live shows and the re-creation of Elvis for a concert series.

It also got the Jackson family talking about whether they should bring Michael back on the road — after all, he's already on the comeback trail with Pepsi this summer as part of its (ironically) "Live For Now" marketing campaign.Continue reading...

It's a well known fact that the brand value of dead celebrities lives far beyond the celebrities themselves. Bob Marley may have died in 1981, but his name has made him immortal, at least in terms of earning power. Elvis continues to have perennial brand presence, getting an extra boost from Graceland's year-long celebration of his life in this, the 35th anniversary of his death.

But this past weekend, a whole new form of dead celebrity worship came to life at the Coachella music festival in California. On Sunday night, Dr. Dre and Snoop Dog performed "live" on stage with Tupac Shakur, the rapper who was killed in 1996. Of course, Dre and Snoop performed live; Tupac's performance was a holographic video with updated audio tailored to the crowd. Still, the image was so seemingly alive and so stunning that it may prompt a Tupac tour, according to The Wall Street Journal.Continue reading...

Sir Richard Branson is indeed taking over the world. And now he may be taking over your money.

The billionaire Brit and founder of all things Virgin on earth — including Virgin Atlantic Airways, Virgin Records, Virgin Mobile — and beyond, with Virgin Galactic aiming to talk regular folks into space — is this week pushing Virgin Money, the Virgin-branded bank that's taking over Northern Rock's 75 branches in the U.K. and 21,000 staff members for £747million ($948.3 million), according to the Mirror.

After the Northern Rock acquisition was announced, Virgin moved to add an annual £60 ($78) fee on every account, but then changed course and decided to offer it as an option, the Mail reports. As a sweetener, the bank will likely “offer perks such as discounts on Virgin flights or gym memberships,” the paper notes.Continue reading...

Skyscraper? Check. deadmau5? Check. Light Show? Check. Nokia Lumia 800 phone with Windows? Check and show time!

On Monday Nov. 28th, Nokia illuminated the Lumia brand by teaming up with deadmau5 (pronounced "dead mouse" for those wondering) for a free music and light show spectacular at London's Millbank Tower. The skyscraper's 800 windows were covered with vinyl as 16 projectors beamed 3D images onto it. Three dimensions not enough? deadmau5 created exclusive remixes for the performance which added another.

This isn't the first type of launch event of its kind, and by "its kind" we mean using large projectors for free shows at launch events— witness Jordan Brand's Carmelo Anthony M8 launch event in New York, where a holographic projection of Carmelo walked on water (the Hudson River, to be exact).

While projecting on a building is always an attention getter, the envelope has been pushed further still.Continue reading...

Saks is back with a seasonal 3D holiday projection at its flagship store in New York. The Saks Fifth Avenue Snowflake & the Bubble projection show is bigger and even more spectacular this year. The 3D Projection mapping show runs every night for 5 hours through Jan 6th, making it the longest outdoor video mapping experience in the world. Also new this year: a Fiat 500 — the Gucci special edition — in one of the Christmas windows.Continue reading...

IHT fashion doyenne Suzy Menkes today highlights Ermenegildo Zegna's digital retail experience, with its new 3D in-store app featuring model/actress Milla Jovovich (and directed by Hollywood special effects director James Lima) leading luxury retailers into cyberspace.

Launched in July in tandem with the opening of its new Paris flagship, Lima tells Menkes about the challenges of creating a virtual experience for a brand on the iPad, a 3D trend that Burberry and Ralph Lauren are also exploring.

“It is a very interesting problem, using high-end Hollywood visual effects and animation software, transported into a different Internet format," Lima comments. "In Hollywood, we design by story, it’s all from a script — but this is not Brad Pitt, it’s brand narration.”

After doing well with the Evo smartphone last summer, Sprint is going back to the well to release new 3D 4G version of the phone as well as a tablet version.

The wireless brand will start shipping the new products from HTC on June 24th for $200 and $400 a pop. Both devices run Android 2.3.Continue reading...