PSFK Author:
Anjali Ramachandran

Amidst the budget cuts all around, one brand that is actually increasing their ad spend is Adidas. Most of their spending is going to be digital. For their new Adidas Originals initiative - the ‘Celebrate Originality’ campaign which includes 17 celebrities from music, sports and fashion - the brand wants to make sure that they reach as many consumers as possible. From WWD:

While Simon Atkins, business unit director, adidas Originals, North America, declined to reveal how much the company is spending, he said the timing couldn’t be better to roll out the campaign, because “while others are cutting back, we are going to be aggressive in the marketplace,” adding the campaign will celebrate three-stripe’s 60th anniversary. Adidas will begin by running TV commercials, but digital initiatives such as Web home-page takeovers and Facebook will account for more than 50 percent of the spending.

Their partnerships are pretty interesting as well, such as the one with Diesel which explores ‘10 Original Ways to Successfully Waste Your Time’ (!!!!).

[via WWD]

The Economist did something interesting in Philadelphia, USA recently. They branded pizza boxes that went out from 20 pizzerias in the city with global statistics of food consumption - like the amount of wheat consumption or cheese imports. Apparently, most of the pizzerias were near universities or colleges, so they had the aim of getting young people interested in the magazine. From Cool Hunting:

While undoubtedly a promotion for the British newsmagazine, the pizza boxes represent a creative, through-provoking method of essentially force-feeding information. Perhaps it’s a subject matter slightly heavier than the average pizza consumer is expecting. Do we need to know that 96.8 percent of American mushroom imports come from Canada? Probably not, but it’s definitely food for thought.

via CoolHunting via AdFreak

AdverBox points us to an interesting endeavour by Absolut in Barcelona. In order to transfer the brand’s concept to different global realities, Absolut is trying to promote the idea of a smokeless, bike-filled Barcelona. On the initiative’s webpage, users have to answers questions through an interactive game to see if they are ready for such a Barcelona. And it’s not all pointless - the site ties in to Barcelona’s 1st Bike Film Festival, which will include films like E.T that feature a bike! One warning though: the Absolut site is in Spanish (because its for Barcelona, duh!). We just wish that we English-speaking people could log in and see what it’s about as well.

Dido is back with her latest album, and this time she’s decided to make it, resounding with the title of the album (’Safe Trip Home’), a true journey for her fans. Over the last month, Londoners might have noticed a number of cryptic posters around tube stations. The posters end by asking the viewer to google terms like ‘Lady Landfill’ or ‘Mother lay-by’ - essentially a range of words linked to the songs on ‘Safe Trip Home’, the album. Visiting the website for the album takes you to a number of videos based on cities around the world - Rio, Mumbai, and London for starters. The videos are short films, each set to a different song from the album, made by film directors that Dido contacted. When you view a film and share your thoughts on it, it creates a mood palette that will influence the mood pools around each film on the globe at the center of the site’s menu. There is also a Facebook group for the album. 

It is interesting to see how more musicians, like brands, are embracing social media to market their work. Careful and innovative execution is key, and this one certainly has been executed in keeping with those guidelines. 

The Travel 2.0 blog has an interesting post on Pepsi’s social rebranding. The fact that they’ve changed their logo is now common knowledge - Seth Godin recently blogged about it as well - but it hasn’t been done in a vacuum. Pepsi has actively reached out to 25 of the most influential marketing bloggers, sent them a set of Pepsi cans that captured the brand’s history, as well a set of the new cans and an invitation to join their FriendFeed room to post their comments. FriendFeed, for the uninitiated, is a site that captures all your social activity in one place - so if you are on Twitter, Facebook and Flickr, for example, every time you make an update to these sites, the information is updated on FriendFeed. By creating a separate room on the web to record user comments about the rebranding, Pepsi has shown that they are actively listening to consumers and not just dishing out changes without any concern for how it has been accepted. 

[image courtesy Greg Verdino's blog]

One of the best strategies for brands today is to adopt one that harnesses the power of the community and that provides information that gives some insight into the rapidly-changing world around us. Kenneth Cole, already known as a marketer with a difference who often makes a social statement with ads for his brands, has started a movement, in a sense, called Awearness. On the occasion of the brand’s silver anniversary, he is bringing out a book called ‘Awearness: I spiring Stories About How To Make A Difference‘, with contributions from 86 people from different fields of life. In addition, the Awearness blog provides opportunities to sign up to volunteer, as well as blog posts that highlights efforts to change society for the good, that are being made by  people across the world. Most of the information is not something that we are likely to have read a few times already - which is refreshing. For example, there’s a post detailing sources that parents can use to explain the American elections to their kids, and another one mentioning 90’s teen group Hanson’s efforts to spread awareness about AIDS. There are also links to upcoming TV specials of potential interest to readers. Awearness looks like it is something to watch out for - and if that helps Kenneth Cole, more power to him and his brand. 

[Via WWD]

Carphone Warehouse in the UK has undertaken research with the London School of Economics on the impact of mobiles and the internet on our daily life, titled Mobile Life 2008. It was a foregone conclusion that the mobile and internet have literally taken over our lives in this day and age, and this report serves to confirm that with its findings. Some of the key findings are:

1. The post-TV entertainment age has arrived. 

2. For most people, a holiday would be incomplete without some online interaction.

3. The internet plays a central role in planning free time. 

4. Nearly one in three young people prefer chatting with friends online than face-to-face. 

5. One in three UK kids and one in four US kids argue about the amount of time they spend online with their parents. 

6. The internet is crucial to maintaining networks of family and friends. 

7. One third of adults admitted checking their partner’s email. 

8. 14 per cent of kids have found themselves in a situation online which made them feel uncomfortable. 

9. The day of the pen looks set to be over. 

[via Putting People First]

Renowned fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg is bringing out a comic book in line with her new Wonder Woman collection. The DC comic authored by DvF, titled ‘Be the Wonder Woman you want to be - Featuring the Adventures of Diva, Viva and Fifa’ will accompany the launch of her holiday collection. The comic will be sold for $25 at DvF stores and online at dvf.com, along with a $50 T-shirt and a $230 tote, and will benefit the charity Vital Voices which supports women entrepreneurs. 

Furstenberg has apparently always wanted to write a comic. She says:

“I am Diva, Viva and Fifa altogether, I am DVF,” von Furstenberg said. “It’s not so much that I identify with each of them, though. The idea is that if you feel insecure, look at yourself in the mirror, and through the reflection remember to be the Wonder Woman you can be. That’s my message.”

[via WWD]

An ad that may have drawn some attention by its ‘Make Face Time’ posters on subways and other forms of public transport in the US, Dentyne’s eponymous campaign aims to encourage people to go out and spend time with the important people in their lives, rather than sitting cooped up facing a computer instead. It’s a nice concept, and made all the more interesting by initiatives such as the Make Face Time website, that automatically shuts down after 3 minutes. It doesn’t count the time you spend checking out various parts of the site though, so I don’t know if it’s as good an initiative as it sounds, though the premise certainly is. The site, for example, also has a ‘Smiley Chamber of Doom’ that purports to smash all smileys into bits because they try to subsitute those faces for actual human emotions, which, Dentyne is trying to tell us, isn’t quite right. 

[Via International Herald Tribune]