Street art ads spotted around New York City appear to tout Microsoft’s Surface, though so far the company is mum about their appearance.

Microsoft seems to be taking to the streets to promote its upcoming Surface tablet.

Eagle-eyed residents of New York City have discovered new street artwork gracing the walls of certain buildings, as reported by The Verge. The colorful art depicts the word Surface in a tablet-shaped rectangle with a keyboard below.

A Facebook user named Surface Evangelist posted one photo of the artwork appearing on an unnamed street, while a Twitter user named Amanda uploaded another photo of a billboard-sized Surface ad on a building near East 2nd Street.

CNET contacted Microsoft, but the company said it’s not commenting on the ads.

Assuming Microsoft is behind this latest campaign, it’s not the first time the company has used the streets to market new products.

In 2010, Microsoft chalked up some of the sidewalks of Manhattan to promote a couple of concerts to kick off the launch of Windows Phone 7. In 2002, the company heralded the debut of its MSN network by sticking images of MSN butterflies on sidewalks and street signs, The Verge noted. In neither case were city officials too happy with Microsoft’s graffiti art.

Here is the post that our friends of podio create it for show how we use podio in the agency. It also show our new offices that i guess you will like it!!

Enjoy it!!

How do you know when you’ve come up with the perfect marketing campaign idea that your client will love? You could lay on your office couch, have a nap, and wait for your secretary to think of it – à la Don Draper from Mad Man – or you could take the innovative approach of event marketing boutique, A Small Job.

The team at A Small Job have created an Ideas App on Podio to capture their ideas after creative meetings, before voting on them to decide which to pitch their clients. At times they’ve extended this process to include clients from the very beginning. On a recent project with Volkswagen, A Small Job set up a workspace with a team from VW to run the project, from sharing initial ideas to presenting renderings.

Creative Executive Director, Juan Pablo Sánchez has made a great video with his team to show you how they run their company, from handling supplier invoices to managing client projects on Podio:

“The increased transparency made possible by Podio has really improved our clients relations and the process of selecting campaign ideas. We’ve found by sharing a workspace on Podio, our clients understand our creative process better. It’s also a faster way of sharing ideas and selecting the best ones to take forward. As projects proceed Podio’s a great way to present and discuss work with our clients, without having to email things back and forth.” – Juan Pablo Sánchez, Creative Executive Director at A Small Job

This approach has certainly paid dividends for A Small Job. Juan Pablo explains: “we develop really creative ideas, a bit crazy you might say,” a dancing polar bear arriving on Oropesa beach for example. Their recent work for Trident chewing gum has landed them a nomination at the Cannes Lion festival. You can check it out here. The world’s largest puppet show from the Mestalla stadium, at half time between Valencia vs. Barcelona:

1. Playstation Projection Mapping

I came across this on the Digital Buzz Blog. It’s projection mapping with a nice twist. Instead of being emblazoned across some big building this is done within a confined space, it’s very clever and all done in one take.

2. The Ikea Apartment

Underground/metro/train stations are all the rage for pulling off stunts from flashmobs, to a virtual shopping store to a subway piano and even Ikea themselves are no strangers to using such locations. This time around they whacked it up a notch by building a fully functioning apartment using Ikea products – and even stuck a few real people in there. It’s a bit ‘big brother’ but with less annoying people, and there’s no toilet, but I don’t think Ikea make toilet bowls.

3. Ikea Sleepover

I’m sure you’ve heard of this – there was a Facebook Page called ‘I Wanna Have a Sleepover in Ikea‘ set up over two years ago. Ikea took inspiration from it and gave 100 of their Facebook Fans a chance to win a sleepover in Ikea Essex. It’s almost like crowd sourcing marketing ideas, which is exactly what social media is great for. But for all the great idea’s there’s countless others that are just not worth pursuing. The trick is to find and act upon the right ones.

4. Mini Fan The Flame

Car companies are pushing the boat out with social media, maybe seeing social media as a path to replicating the real world communities that built up around the Harley Davidson or Jeep brands. It’s lead to some interesting developments as you’ll see in the next few points.

This Facebook Campaign from Mini allows fans to win a Mini by liking its page. That sounds pretty dull so far but the Mini you could win is attached to a rope, you will be given a shot of fire to burn through that rope – if the rope breaks, the Mini is yours.

While I’m talking about Mini they did a great little Facebook game called Mini Maps last summer that seemed to have gone un-noticed by many. The game used Google maps to allow players race anywhere in the world. You could build tracks, race friends or even race strangers. The game is still available here.

5. Chevy Sonic Lets Do This

The Chevy Sonic brand are trying to entice consumers to do something new and fork out a fortune on buy a new Chevy Sonic. They’ve done a bunch of stunts so far – thrown one out of a plane, did a kickflip in one and made a music video with Ok Go. But the one that stands out for me is this one, where online clicks helped pushed a Chevy Sonic – attached to a bungee cord – closer to a 100 foot drop. After 2.5 million clicks the car was pushed over the edge. Admittedly I would’ve preferred this to hit the ground or blow up at the push of a click but the public vote/click angle is a very cool move.

6. Fashion Industry Exposed

Without giving too much away, this made me laugh.

7. Reebok Crossfit

This is the worlds largest, and longest, 3D street art created in London at the end of last year for Reebok. It may also give you vertigo.

8. Frog Marketing

Finally I thought this was sufficiently odd for inclusion. A French restaurant had difficulty in overcoming the perception of French cuisine in Russia. It was seen as over priced with small portions and involved frogs. Upon this premise bloggers, journalists, radio DJ’s and food critics were all sent a frog in a container, which caused a bit of a stir online and in the media. The frog could be exchanged for a free meal which earned the restaurant a load of publicity in return. The VO gets a bit OTT towards the end, claiming to have changed the perception of French food forever, but lets forgive it for that.

Here a great example of how to use tech to blended with car atrributes. i guess we don´t need more words to descrive this action. just check the video

Experiential marketing is a powerful way to obtain customer engagement with brands.

The theory on experiential marketing will tell you that it integrates emotions, logic and general thought processes to connect with the consumers.

It usually appeals to a variety of senses and taps into that special place most human beings have, a deep down inside place that is closely related to thoughts about comfort and pleasure.  To do this effectively, marketers need to know what is in the minds of the target audience they want to attract.

The goal here is to entice the consumer into acting on that impulse to purchase and ultimately drive sales and increase brand image and awareness.

The following campaigns will at least demonstrate that emotional connection between brand and consumer is what is sought by the brand and that pleasure, although in a very different way… is present in all cases .

The first example is the Twisted Metal Playstation game.  This campaign created by the Deutsch Inc agency has to be applauded for its usage of Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and a dedicated website to promote this unusual gig, this is digital convergence at its best.

Twisted Metal - ShootMyTruck VIDEO

Twisted Metal - ShootMyTruck VIDEO

Try to put yourself in the shoes of the average hard core gamer who is usually between 16 and 25 and who is crazy about ‘’Shooter’’ games, you know, the ones that have all sort of guns and war scenarios and that you can play for hours on end.

Now imagine you are told that by registering via Facebook or Twitter, you can fire a real M249-SAW machine gun mounted on a control desk in the middle of the desert.  The gun happens to be aimed at a replica of the game’s hero van and other objects laying there on the desert… is this emotional enough?  Does it produce pleasure to the target audience?  I think so

A Small Job agency from Barcelona did something similar…well not with real bullets but with paintball balls and a paintball machine gun.

Trident's ''Dude where is my chicken'' reality show VIDEO

The  campaign was called Pointless fun and it was done  with JTW for Trident to promote  Senses Gum in Spain last summer.  The event’s main idea was to create a  reality TV show set on a chicken farm called ‘Dude, Where’s My Chicken?’ In order to get to fire the paintball gun onto a wall of t-shirts through your computer or mobile phone, the chicken you had previously selected  had to lay an egg.  In order to know if it had done so, you could follow your chicken through the different cameras that where set up around the farm, cool ideas that had people loggin on the website and participating most of the day.

The second example is the Coca-cola Happiness Machine for Couples.  Here is a perfect example of how to mix pleasure, emotions and brand.  The video does a great job at relaying that ‘’emotional connection’’.

The Coca Cola Happiness Machine for couples VIDEO

And last but not least we have the ‘’Budweiser Poolball Experiential Campaign that was created by Ogilvy Argentina.  Just imagine the emotional impact the idea of mixing soccer and nightlife can bring to certain…I was going to say men but there are certainly quite a few ladies out there that enjoy their soccer as much as men do

Budweiser "Poolball" VIDEO

What do you think about the ”Experiential Theory”?  Does it work for your brands?

Daniel Arenas Tello

Los domingos, los conTÚmistas somos practicantes… del slow sunday, claro. Dedicamos el día del Señor a pasear por la ciudad, tranquilamente, con tiempo para descubrir y sorprendernos con cosas, como estos dos árboles cubiertos de knit graffiti en plena plaza del Museo Reina Sofia. Aquí os dejamos las fotos, y os animamos a pasaros por si las autoridades competentes han tenido a bien no quitar el colorido ganchillo de los troncos y las ramas.

Experiential marketing is all about customer experience.  It’s about the engagement and interaction with brands products and services using the human appeal for sensory experiences.

Experiences allow people to connect to a brand or a message which in turn allows them to make intelligent and informed purchasing decision, or as you will see in the following video, life saving decisions… at least that’s what Shell and JWT Ukraine had in mind when they launched ‘’The Pedestrian Ghost Campaign’’, but at what cost?

Being that speeding and pedestrian safety seems to be a big problem in Ukraine with the highest percentage of pedestrian collisions in Eastern Europe (56%), an ambient advertising in the form of human shaped balloon popping up right beside the speeding car was designed and implemented to educate motorist about the dark side of speeding.

What an experience and brand connection!  I bet all the drivers senses where put to the test here.   Imagine yourself speeding in the middle of the night when suddenly a ‘’Pedestrian’’ pops almost in front of you…

Take a look at the video and let us know what you think about this campaign:

The JWT/SHELL Pedestrian Ghost Campaign.

For my part, even though the ‘’Experiential Theory’’ seems to be present at all levels (although in regards to brand association… it is still not clear how Shell made it’s presence clear during the whole thing… maybe another balloon popping out a few meters away saying: This scary moment brought to you by Shell!), I feel that this is way to dangerous and if I was JWT and Shell, I would be worried about the possibility of actually provoking that same accident the campaign is trying avoid, never mind the law suits that could follow…

Daniel Arenas Tello

“A football match has just broken out at London Victoria Station.”

Watch to see how four footballers use fancy footwork, along with the brilliant screen and innovative S Pen of the Samsung GALAXY Note, to transform a routine commute into a spectacular event for Londoners.

This days i been reading few books and i will like to share with you some of my highlight sentences. Hope you will enjoy it.

• You will find that a good idea has, as it were, self expanding qualities. It stimulates those who see it to add to it. Thus possibilities in it withc you have overlooked will come light.
• In advertaisment an idea results from a new combination of specific knowledge about product and people with general knowledge about life and events.
• The habit of mind wich leads to a search for relationships betweem facts becomes of the highest importance in production of ideas.
• Pareto: namely, that an idea is nothing more nor less that a new combination of old elements.
• Coworking provides a way to be independent and connect with others, but just finding a room with desks and internet won´t cut it. Someone MUST step forward to create and hold the space where productive work and a saturated sense of community can happen at any time. In a coworking space, the catalyst prepares the space so that no attention needs to be paid to the environment, and instead attention can be paid to each other and the work.
• Coworking is a state of mind, a community and most important a unique global movement. But figuring out how to get the most out of this new, rapdly expanding concept of working can be difficult if you don´t know where to look.
• Indivivuals often seek out membership at a coworking space becouse they either feel isolated or becouse they are coming up against productivity barries. These folks don´t need an internet connnection and a desk. they already have that. What They need is a coworking community where they can work alongside others.

So with this inspirational quotes i will like to share with you what is going to be asmalljob the next year. It´s going to be a space where creativity flows with an enviroment and agency design that will help and encourage people to have fun, enjoy and play. A space where ideas will flow like the water.  I will like to present you the new asmalljob!..

BE WATER MY FRIEND..