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.

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Gray, rainy days may be about to get more colorful thanks to a new umbrella invented by Japanese researchers. The Internet Umbrella, conceived by a team at Keio University, acts as a photo browser by displaying images from the Internet as the user walks along. The handle of the umbrella contains a projector that displays images on the underside of the umbrella. The Internet umbrella, named Pileus (meaning the head of a mushroom) was created by two young graduate students. Second-year doctoral student Matsumoto Takashi, 27, and first-year master’s student Hashimoto Sho, 22, of Keio University’s Graduate School of Media and Governance were motivated by a desire to make walking on rainy days more enjoyable.Pileus has been presented or displayed in several countries, including the United States, France, and Austria, and won the Innovation Prize at Laval Virtual 2007, Europe’s biggest virtual reality convention.

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A tour of Times Square from Keyframe on Vimeo.

John Woods visits Times Square and explores digital signage and outdoor media.

Most impressive is that One Times Square building is empty and tenant less. Millions are instead generated off digital signage on its exteriors. Great intro video and fun interview with owner of Landmark
Signs, Tony Calvano, whose company has been maintaining and installing
most ads in Times Square when they were painted!!

Sex and the City - Integrated Alternative Advertising from aapglobal on Vimeo.

Warning - Shameless Plug:
Integrating different mediums is an effective way to build and drive a successful client campaign. This is exactly what New Line Cinema has done by integrating alternative advertising mediums Aap!Rails, escalator handrail graphics and Aap!Motion lenticular billboards with traditional flyer and poster work in Norway via Aap!Global distributor MediaLoop. We’re excited by the implementation and will be sharing some more pictures, videos and more shortly. In the meantime check out Sex and City the Movie at your local cinema or learn more about alternative advertising.

[Sex and City - the Movie]

More on

Aap!Motion - Lenticular Billboards

Aap!Rails - Escalator Advertising

W

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 platform and network sites provide a venue for  those with similar interests, conditions, and visions communicate, collaborate, share information and experiences. On WeAre.Us sites, users can share the wealth of their experience and plan for the future with those like them.

The most popular networks under the platform include sites geared specifically to medical communities: WeAreHD.org for Huntington’s Disease, CancerCancer.org for the Cancer community, WeAreCrohns.org for the Crohn’s Community among others.

The sites are growing very rapidly, and are a great way to find people who share similar problems, aspirations, interests and more.

More info @ http://www.WeAre.Us

Japan lags behind most of the world in its attitudes to those with “different capabilities.” Some fairly positive adverts from the JDSN aim to bring attenion to those living with down syndrome in Japan.

Wonder if this will keep families from “hiding” their challenged relatives in the outskirts of major cities?

See the JDSN adverts in their full glory

At Send A Message , a collaboration between Dutch advertising professionals and creative Palestinian youth, web goers can purchase “real world tags” on the 620 Kilometer fence separating Palestinians from Israel.  For a mere 30 Euros, users can elect to have their personal messages spray painted on the fence. Purchasers are given 3 digital photos of the completed work for personal usage.

The revenue from the tagging goes to build new schools, soccer fields, youth centers and other humanitarian projects in the area.

Be it a proposal for a lost love, a web url, or a humorous message this is a great project that brings the world closer to this complex situation in a peaceful and non threatening way.

More @

Al-Jazeera’s Video Report “Painting peace on Israel’s concrete canvas“ 

Send a Message Project Website

“Advertising is a tax you pay for unremarkable thinking.” -  Robert Stephens of the Geek Squad and head of one of the growing number of brands that have been built without the help of major advertising agencies or budgets.

Read more in BusinessWeek’s Re-cap on Advertising and Branding 2007

Based in Paris, Zevs the anonymous Parisian street artist has been active since the early 90s.

Aside from his “shadow” work that consists of painting the outlines of the cast shadows thrown by permanent city fixtures - Zevs does wonderful work that “attacks” billboards and other city advertisements to create new interesting art.

His best known work is when he cut out shapes from a a gigantic Lavazza-poster in Berlin and stenciled above the poster the message: “VISUAL KIDNAPPING - PAY NOW!.” He is also known for attacking billboards and other city advertisements, spraying a dot of red between the eyes of models, letting it drip down like blood. He has taken this drip technique to corporate logos as well, and in his first solo show in London at the Lazarides Gallery, titled Liquidated Logos, he presented them on canvas for the first time.

Other links on Zevs:
- Zevs’ Commercial Work
- Zevs takes on McDonalds with “liquidated logos”