On my way to work each morning, i drive by an artificial geyser installed on the seashore near Oeiras. Just watch the tilt-shift video below to check the sparkling ideia by the folks at Black Milk Media:

The geyser at Paço de Arcos was transformed into an installation in the shape of a bottle of Schweppes. Black Milk Media was the media agency responsible for activating this project that not only will advertise the brand Schweppes but will allow for maintenance and cleanup of the geyser for 12 months, in partnership with Câmara Municipal de Oeiras and Parish of Paço de Arcos. This process took about 10 hours and envolved a transport truck and a helicopter to move the installation of 500 kilos.

Source: Invisible Red

Ever since Tim Tim O’Reilly’s essay “Work on Stuff That Matters” over one year ago, and being so close with social marketing as a blogger at Osocio.org, i’m always on the lookout for marketing campaigns that go beyond the shallow one-hit tactics.

From the writings of Umair Haque at HBR on Betterness and the value of Social Enterprise to shift on marketing budgets like the recent Pepsi Refresh Project (that is now commiting additional funds to the Gulf), it feels as if the financial crisis brought a renewed interest in corporate responsalibility and ethics in business.

One of the most remarkable examples of this trend is the joint project between Levi’s and the burrough of Braddock, Pennsylvania. You can get acquainted with the town’s hardship by watching Mayor John Fetterman on the talk below at PopTech, where he shares the story of a city with not much hope a few years ago.

Levi’s and ad agency Wieden Kennedy also became a part of this tale of city reinvention, when creating their campaign Levi’s Ready To Work, built around the spirit and hope of Braddock.

The TV, Outdoor and Print materials are much more than meets the eye; all the people you see in it are residents of Braddock.

You can discover the stories behind the communities inspiring the rebirth of the town on the YouTube channel, and almost feel the spirit of pioneers so dear to the brand. Even if i’m not sure how much Levi’$ is committed on helping Braddock, it’s a shame the channel doesn’t get more reach.

More about the reinvention of Braddock on David Streitfeld’s article on the NYTimes, last February. Hint: good journalism is usually a great source of inspiration for relevant marketing campaigns.

On a related note, fill in the blanks on Bogusky’s interview where he tries to get his genuine voice back.

And if you find this anecdotal, let me toss a few numbers also.

Hat tip to @LisaBarone. Photo by Dean McBeth.

Whatever that means. At least they don’t have a flashturbated website, and Evan wants to Be Fucking Awesome. And they have skull pictures and are hiring.

Rejoice ad people. You can now get your own Mad Men (the Tv series) avatar at MadMenYourself.com.

A classy way for AMC to promote the third season, which starts Aug. 16., letting you customize your character from body to accessories (a bow ties for the gents, a fur stole for the ladies) with lovely illustrations by Dyna Moe.

Source: AMC blogs

Speaking of TV series, check out the Lost folks unveiling the end of Season 6 at ComiCon.

UPDATE 2: It’s now [June, 30] live at beta.cpbgroup.com
UPDATE: CP+B has kindly let me know that they’ve temporarily cloaked the site, as it’s not quite ready for prime time. Stay tuned the next few hours.

When @bogusky announced CP+B was about to release their new site, the curious Armando had to sneak at the rather obvious url beta.cpbgroup.com, thus finding the new version of the agency’s Internet presence.

Crispin, Porter + Bogusky is now aggregating all the content related to the agency, from employees tweets to references on blogs (let’s see if they pick this post), from Flickr accounts to their Wikipedia entry, and huge doses of Youtube commercials by the agency.

The agency applies the same principle to their client work. Here’s the page screenshot for Microsoft (shame for not having a permalink):

For now they released only 8 client pages, but i got curious again and peeked at the source code and a few more are planned :). Props for massive jQuery usage.

Nothing really groundbreaking, kind like PopUrls, but a reminder that the days of “immersive” Flash experiences are almost ending, at least in digital agencies land (see also Barbarian, Juxt Interactive, EVB and Big Spaceship). It’s all about multiple digital touchpoints and real time, these days.

Just for reference, here’s the current version:

Welcome to the long now, CP+B.

With Cannes Lions Advertising Festival starting to roll, maybe the ad people enjoying the sun and booze take a few minutes out of their time to reflect on a better way to spend their talents and convince the organization and rest of the industry on creating advertising that does make a difference, instead of using it as an excuse to get a piece of metal.

Last year, on a short Twitter exchange with Marc from Osocio on the subject of awards and social marketing, i replied:

We’re in the business of changing behaviours, not winning awards.

Fast forward to Cannes 2009, and on a great collaboration with the duo from StealOurIdeas.com, Osocio presents their draft concepts on how your brand should be used for the right reasons,

Every year hundreds of PSAs are done for the wrong reasons.
Help us to create social advertising that actually makes a difference.

The next time you catch a creative doing spoof work just to win awards, forward these concepts so he or she could get a few really noble ideas.

Since Cannes doesn’t matter anymore, we’d better start thinking about a new kind of awards, that are somehow different from the usual creative masturbation, more in tune with the future of advertising.

Lisbon Ad School and Torke are announcing the first Guerrilla Advertising Awards, showcasing works in categories as diverse as ambush marketing, urban intervention, PR Stunt, ambient media or viral and interactive. And just to make sure guerrilla is for everyone, there’s an Old Croquette Awards, for senior creatives.

You can submit your work for FREE, as a team or on behalf of your agency, with winners announced the next July, 24th.

Disclaimer: I’ll be one of the online categories jurors

Following my last post where i mentioned your mom as a metaphor for the way Data Portability should be made easy, here’s a series of mom videos that have been making the rounds lately on the latin-american advertising community. Considering the hit that Mad Men was, we do love to look at ourselves, don’t we?
The videos, in spanish, show the mothers of creatives trying to figure out what the fancy advertising jargon really means.

Viral. Qué es.

Qué es para 2 madres Crispin Porter

From Briefing to Art Director, it’s a hilarious self critic.

Created to promote the IMAN awards, LaMadreQueTePario.com has also some serious take on our profession, and is based, whatelse, on PowerPoint presentations. Because, if your mother can’t figure it out, it’s impossible she’s proud of you.