Earth Day
May 21, 2012 § Leave a Comment
Earth Day was on April 22 – as it is every year. I didn’t know it before, but Earth Day has actually been around for a long time. Started initially in 1970, the first Earth Day aimed to raise environmental awareness among Americans. Over the years, it’s grown a great deal, with this year seeing 192 countries participate in Earth Day, involving over a billion people. Canada was one of those proud countries.
Of particular interest to me every year are the promotions that pop up in time for Earth Day. For a day that is dedicated entirely to generating awareness and action towards global sustainability and environmental stewardship, it’s always ironic to see the mass flyers, posters, and ads encouraging consumers to buy more stuff, albeit stuff claimed to be “green”, at a special price on that day. A little (or a lot) counter-intuitive to the mission of the day.
This year, as I walked down the neighbourhood streets of our fair city, one particular one struck me. It struck me so much I actually stopped and took a picture of it. Although well intentioned, it took the Earth Day promotions of the years past to an entirely new level.
The company? Kiehl’s.
The promotion: a limited edition rare earth deep pore cleansing masque.
The concept is… an earthen mask for your face just in time for Earth Day. Perfect! What could be better for Earth Day than actual earth for your face? I may be going out on a limb here, but I don’t think Earth Day had anything to do with soil from the earth, outside of protecting it. That said, what does soften the blow is that all proceeds from the masque go to a not-for-profit organization focused on promoting recycling. The limited edition masques are also sold in limited edition containers produced with their own Limited Edition Art Label series.
That’s better. A little art, a little donation, and a pore cleansing earthen masque for your face.
Apple sued over transmission of personal information by mobile apps
December 29, 2010 § Leave a Comment
Credit WJS blog
Last week on December 23rd, a lawsuit was filed against Apple for allowing the transfer of personal information through third party iPhone and iPad applications to advertising networks without the consent of the owners of the mobile devices. The complaint was filed by a Jonathan Lalo in a San Jose, California federal court according to reports from Bloomberg.
According to Mr. Lalo’s lawsuit, Apple’s mobile devices are equipped with “identifying devices” that allow advertising networks to track how users use available applications on their devices, which applications, and for how long. The lawsuit further claims that:
“Some apps are also selling additional information to ad networks, including users’ location, age, gender, income, ethnicity, sexual orientation and political views”.
Earlier in the month, the Wall Street Journal had also released reports relaying the prevalence of the information some applications are tracking and transmitting about their users. The WSJ had tested 101 applications for the occurrence of information tracking and transmission. What quickly became concerning was how many of the top, most popular apps fall into this category. (For a more detailed breakdown of the apps in question, see the WSJ blog.)
Kinect: YOU are the CONTROLLER
November 29, 2010 § Leave a Comment
Last night, an ad for the XBOX Kinect came on tv. I was on my computer, and so was only partially paying attention – but the last statement of the ad really jolted my attention back to the tv: “YOU ARE THE CONTROLLER.”
How profound. Are we here in the future already? How incredible is it that technology has now evolved to the point where you don’t need a controller to play video games anymore. Microsoft has completely changed the playing field this time, like Nintendo did with the Wii. And collectively, we are charging towards the reality that anyone and anything can be a vehicle and platform for technology, connection, communication, and interaction.
The rest of the ad itself is expressive in the simplicity of this concept. Just do what you know how to do already: move.
It made me go find it on YouTube to share – so they did something right.
Baby Carrots’ junk food-esque marketing campaign
September 23, 2010 § Leave a Comment
Bolthouse Farms and Crispin Porter + Bogusky have assembled a great satirical marketing campaign for baby carrots in the style of junk food ads. Entertaining and fun. And if that’s not enough, the campaign comes with its very own microsite, and iPhone app that boasts of being “the world’s first ever carrot-crunch-powered video game. Ever.”
Future:
Indulge:
Extreme:
