A bus-stop ad in Spain is making headlines worldwide. The client, the Fundación ANAR or Aid to Children and Adolescents at Risk, is running two different messages in one campaign: one aimed at adults, the other visible only to those under 4 feet 5 inches tall—the average height of a 10-year-old. 

The innovative outdoor campaign shows two versions of a boy; one clear-faced, that adults see, and the other battered and bruised that's visible to kids' eyes, with a message that reads: "If somebody hurts you, phone us and we'll help you," along with a hotline number.Continue reading...

The powerhouse Coca-Cola brand will be feted at France's prestigious Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in 2013.

The multinational beverage giant will be recognized with Creative Marketer of the Year Award, formally known as the Advertiser of the Year Award, for innovative marketing across multiple platforms and creativity in brand communications. That the award is no longer called "advertiser" but "creative marketer" tells how far the the industry has come in almost 60 years of Cannes Lions awards — as has Coca-Cola.

“Creativity has been and always will be at the heart of our brands. It fuels our business — with consumers, customers, fans, agencies and partners all over the world,” said Joe Tripodi, EVP and Chief Marketing & Commercial Officer, Coca-Cola.

Coca-Cola won its first Cannes Lion award in 1967, and has since garnered more than 100 Lions including a Design Grand Prix in 2008 for the US entry "Coca-Cola Identity" and most recently, the 2012 Outdoor Grand Prix win for China for its Coke Hands outdoor activation (above) by Ogilvy Shanghai.Continue reading...

Everywhere you look are advertisements: on your clothes, on your gas-pump handle, on manhole covers, or on the front of your subway card. But one man is aiming to create a special spot where consumers will be advertising-free. Strangely, though, it’s a place that has long been a home for advertisements: the billboard.

Artist Stephen Glassman believes that drivers shouldn’t have to be looking at advertisements when they are stuck in traffic. Instead, wouldn’t it be nice if they were looking at gardens floating in the sky? Glassman, who has been creating large-scale bamboo installations in L.A. since the 1992 riots there, would like to transform the world’s billboards into a sea of floating bamboo gardens, NPR reports.

Well, if we can bring clouds indoors, why not help more of nature float outdoors?Continue reading...

Tesco made headlines a year ago when its HomePlus retail subsidiary in South Korea tested a virtual store in a Seoul subway station, showcasing items that could be scanned and ordered by smartphone for home delivery, while Peapod is testing virtual grocery shopping in the U.S.

Now Walmart is testing a similar idea in Toronto in partnership with Mattel. The retail and toy giants are teaming up on what's described as Canada's first pop-up virtual toy store, enabling QR code-based shopping of Mattel brands — including hot toys from Barbie, Hot Wheels, Fisher-Price and Thomas & Friends brands — to holiday shoppers.

The pop-up is located in the city's massive PATH underground walkway, a retail concouse that connects downtown buildings and and an array of businesses to Toronto's Union Station rail commuter hub. It may find a ready pool of virtual shoppers, as it will run for four weeks in the same location where Wells.ca tested a QR-enabled store in April.Continue reading...

The latest move in Greenpeace’s Save the Arctic campaign saw British eco-activists shutting down 74 of 119 Shell petrol stations in Edinburgh and London against the brand's plans to drill for oil in the Arctic, leading to the arrests of 24 campaigners on Monday, according to the Guardian.

The campaign is targeting Shell as prepares to begin drilling in the Arctic with Russian oil company Gazprom, a plan that U.S. activists rallied to sue and spoof campaigns to pop up. Protesters scaled the roofs of Shell stations and deployed emergency shut-off switches to stop petrol going to the pumps, removing a fuse that delays it being switched on again, while posting a message on Twitter that, "We're being careful not to destroy property. Even the carefully removed components will go back to Shell."

Greenpeace UK website elaborated, "It's part of the global week of action against Shell that kicked off with the occupation of the head office in the Hague – as well as our live TV channel, follow #tellshell on Twitter for all the latest from around the world."Continue reading...

As an official sponsor of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic (that part, sadly, often gets left out), McDonald’s has already invested a lot of money to support the event, from building the world's biggest restaurant and to encouraging youths to get in the spirit and get moving. The next phase in this McOlympics: a £10 million responsive advertising campaign called “We All Make The Games.”

Leveraging multiple media channels, the plan is to document, replay and celebrate the people, moments, and emotions of the games in three phases:Continue reading...

Sony Mobile’s first 4G LTE smartphone, the Xperia ion (now available exclusively in the U.S. from AT&T), is tying into Sony's movie release of The Amazing Spider-Man on July 3rd in Sony’s first-ever national TV spot for the new device. (The Experia was promoted in a campaign directed by Wes Anderson that kicked off in Europe.)

The new :60 U.S. spot, titled “One Block,” takes viewers on an entertaining, imaginative journey following an Xperia ion-engrossed user walking to his apartment, as the experiences on his phone come to life around him. It's also a bit of a game for brand-spotters, as it comes with a pitch: "To show what it's like when everything's in HD, we hid different movies, TV shows, songs, bands and games from the Sony universe on a city street. See if you can guess all of them."Continue reading...

Everybody is looking for cash these days, but how to drum it up when everybody is also paying extra close attention to where a wallet’s contents are disappearing to. Cities are no different. Government services are hurting for cash and there are only so many ways to generate more dough.

So cities are getting creative, the New York Times reports. Baltimore is currently trying to sell space on its fire engines to raise some extra pennies. And why not? The city’s current budget has made the elimination of three city fire companies necessary this summer.

Philadelphia is selling ad space on its subway fare cards and one of the city’s main train stops is now named for AT&T. Chicago is selling naming rights to its eleven "L" subway stations. As for the Times' hometown, the naming rights for the Atlantic Avenue subway station at the new Barclays Center in Brooklyn were sold in 2009, and the MTA implemented the Barclays name change in May.Continue reading...