Aap! - Alternative Advertising Possibilities

“A bewildering mass of billboards at the corner of Harrison Street
(Burra Bazar) and Strand Road. One of the oldest sections of Calcutta,
at the foot of Howrah Bridge, it is a fine vantage point for
photo-graphing the passing parade of oddly dressed natives and curious
vehicles.”

Billboards, Calcutta (1945) from a WWII Military Photograph Album

One can’t help but be inspired by the wonders of Metropolitan Calcutta with great hand painted outdoor signage, street lief, commerce and energy. Explore the series to see even more vintage life.

Japan Office as Seen From Google Maps Street View…

Google’s hardworking wizard camera vans have finished traversing the labyrinth that is Tokyo; which means today you can tour some of the world’s most wonderful advertising and general real estate in Tokyo without leaving the comfort of your desk. No flight required….

While most foreigners will be happy to virtually tour the wonders of Meiji Shrine, see the shopping district of Ginza or visit the tourist spots of Tsukiji fish market,… we’ve put together a quick tour of some of our favorite outdoor media spots in Tokyo for the virtual world to enjoy.

Hachiko Square Shibuya Tokyo - one of Tokyo’s busiest railway stations, Shibuya is known as one of the fashion centers of Japan, particularly for young people, and as a major nightlife area. The central meeting points features some of the largest and most expensive media real estate in the world. With full building digital displays to street teams - this is a great place to start on your tour of Japanese outdoor media.

Shibuya 109 - The iconic building owned by the Tokyu group is the original of the 2 and displays some of the finest building wraps in the world.

Read the rest of this entry »

Standard Chartered has choosen to use escalator advertising for branding purposes. A great simple campaign highlighting its brand colors and logo.

Showcasing the importance of sticking to a delivery deadline a New Zealand courier “Deadline” rigged a billboard to explode at a particular time featuring a giant LED countodown and the message: “This will self-destruct in exactly . . .” alerting regular passers-by would know when to watch for the big event.

A web cam on the www.self-destruct.co.nz website provided a live video feed of the billboard counting down and the subsequent explosion.

DEADLINE EXPRESS COURIERS EXPLODING BILLBOARD

The billboard has generated tremendous buzz for the company with over a million people online seeing footage of the exploding billboard.

We’re big fans of the campaign. Great work BBDO.

Credits
Agency: ColensoBBDO
Creative Director: Richard Maddocks
Creative Team: Jamie Hitchcock and Josh Lancaster
Producer: Paul Courtney

Sources: Scoop

Our parent company - the Aedeas Group recently launched into beta WeAre.Us - a set of very cool, online “social support networks“  that bring together thousands of individuals in a social networking community geared specifically to their needs.

The WeAre.Us platform is a finalist in this year’s VenCorp’s Community Powered Venture Capital contest.  Competing against 8 other companies, WeAre.Us is in the top 9 of start-ups being judged by a panel of community venture capitalists, founders, and facilitators in the IdeaWare contest.

Learn more about the WeAre.Us project - find or start a social support network today!

Aap!Global, being an alternative advertising company fittingly uses an Aap! (Dutch for Ape) as our logo.
As you can tell we’re big fans of gorillas (guerrilla marketing) and found the above sculpture by David Mach, a talented sculptor, to be the potential art piece for our entrance.The Coathanger Gorilla (and other works, viewable via the link below) was made from welded-together coathangers over a plastic base. Great stuff.

Seems like QR Codes (those fancy bar codes that provide cellphones with bits of info, trivia, information) are finally making it to the United States in a significant manner. Citysearch is experimenting with 500+ restaurants/shops/businesses by linking their review database with printed QR Codes. At tourist locations throughout the city - the small QR feeds will bring users 15 to 20 second audio snipped of what or where they are looking. We’re excited since we’re big fans of QR Codes have integrated them into some of our past campaigns. Linking different media both digital and traditional is always fun.

Via SFGate

More on mobile marketing + outdoor media.

While there are countless  websites providing a creative outlet for review and critique of advertising (Ads Of The World, etc) - Oshiuri (オシウリ), a recently launched Japanese site  throws something new into the mix.

Besides providing a space for the advertising community to share work - the forum provides a mechanism in which any idea/pitch hosted on the site can be bought and sold.

The site aims to become the creative agency of the internet allowing brands to scope pitches for brands directly from creatives.  Brands can also submit ads for creative pitches and will provide the best with contracts.

Not sure how the site is going to work collectively and avoid “idea” theft but so far there are some creative ideas for brands ranging from Axe to National Geographic that have been purchased through the site.

With pricing starting as low as 100,000 yen to priceless - the venue might be an opportunity for brands to connect directly with creatives.

The site was launched by Design Barcode, Inc - the little design studio that specializes in Barcode Design (Read our coverage on their amazing work for artistic product barcodes)

Visit Oshiuri [Sadly only accessed from Japan...]

VIS.VC, a “Tokyo Video Magazine” covers the works of Tokyo-based video artists both in film, music video, and advertising/commercial work.  The site recently  launched in beta,  includes over 100 clips from some of Japan’s top creative directors.

According to an interview on HitsPaper on VIS.VC, the project hopes to bring attention to a creative class that is under appreciated in Japan or so feels to Rightning Inc. a studio based in Tokyo.

For those working in video content creation.  VIS.VC is a shopper’s guide to some of the best video director related talent in Japan.

Visit VSC.VC

The Pecha Kucha Night(PKN): A Celebration book is finally available online for international order.   Pecha Kucha Night for those new to the series is where presenters take the stage to present 20 slides, about which they will speak for 20 seconds each.

Pecha Kucha is now running in over 100 cities around the world in which over 3,000 people have presented their views of design in 20 slides x 20 seconds.

Featuring some amazing presentations by Toyo Ito, Marcus Fairs, PKN founders Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham, Strange KInoko, Namaiki, Mark Dytham, Mark’s mum and Sebastian Conran + even Aap!Global, the bi-lingual montage covers the history of the event, and shares with the world this is amazing design “show and tell”.

Aap!Global’s PechaKucha Presentation in San Francisco is available for those curious to see the interaction between Graffiti and Outdoor Media > Watch Now.

We highly recommend the book for fans of the series at 2800 Yen with global shipping.

Even better - we recommend those creative individuals share with the world at their next local Pecha Kucha