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BGH Argentina – Big Noses
Grey Canberra Digital featured this on their 5 Links for Friday today — also saw it featured at the APG’s Cannes recap last week — great concept, needs to be shared. Have a watch:
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The Future is Coming… Replicators? Almost!
We wouldn’t say this is as revolutionary as personal computing… but it’s pretty darn close.
Just as Microsoft and Apple brought one computer to every household in the 1990s, Bre Pettis’s Makerbot Industries is now bringing 3D printing to the masses.
If you think that any object can be sliced into hundreds of thin horizontal planes, 3D printers construct physical objects by depositing layers successively on top of each another. Companies have used the technology since the 1980s to rapidly prototype new products in development. This year, Makerbot Industries started selling personal 3D printers for just $1,299.
Think about it. For the price of a MacBook Pro, you can “print” a physical, 3D version of any object, smaller than a bowling ball, from the comfort of your home. This is absolutely incredible. Break the handle of your hammer? No need to go to the store to buy a new one – just download a 3D rendering of the file from the internet and print a new one. Need a new nozzle for your hose? Print one.
And the technology can be used to print out many parts that fit together – check out this Rubik’s cube for the blind, printing instructions available as a free download on Makerbot’s sister website, Thingiverse.
Makerbots aren’t being used for much more than printing shower curtain rings at the moment, but the possibilities are almost endless.
Ideas with the ability to capture the imagination are ripe for exponential growth. 3D printers that print in glass and silver already exist. The next generations of this technology should be able to print a greater variety of materials in less time at less cost. Imagine a 3D printer capable of printing circuit boards. Break that remote control? Print a new one. Want a new phone? Download and print.
This is one of the most compellingly inevitable technological progressions we have seen in ages—so we’d bet on mass adoption in the next few years.
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Tesco’s Subway Supermarket
Check this out — a really awesome idea from Cheil Worldwide.
We love how the agency stepped outside what we tend to think of as “traditional advertising.” This is more than just an ad. It is a business solution to a business problem that hits the mark strategically, tactically, and creatively. Here, the agency actually created a new sales channel for its client by thinking creatively about emerging technology and consumer behavior.
More than making us smirk or think of a brand in a new way (as good advertising should), Tesco’s subway supermarket actually solves a problem in our lives – a problem we might not have been aware of before seeing the solution (as Steve Jobs said, “It isn’t the consumers’ job to know what they want”). It is something truly new and truly interactive, and therefore truly memorable. It delights by surpassing my expectations of what a product in this category (supermarkets) is meant to deliver on, and it makes us think that Tesco really cares about making their customers’ shopping experience better.
We think we will start seeing more and more work like this come out of ad agencies. Just as people are better judged by what they do than by what they say they do, advertising that delivers on a brand promise in and of itself is more effective than advertising that simply relays a brand promise creatively. Importantly, seismic shifts in the way consumers interact with media are now allowing marketers to create unique and engaging experiences – like this one – that stand above advertising in print or on television.
It is the agencies that can think creatively at the intersection of technology, strategy, and consumer behavior, and who aren’t afraid to develop products for their clients, that are best able to produce groundbreakingly effective work today.
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So what is “Space Beer” anyway?
A lot of people have been asking, “what is Space Beer anyway?” Fair enough. The radio spots we did for 4 Pines let people know that 4 Pines sent the first Aussie beer into space. We haven’t really delved much deeper than that into the concept behind the beer – yet.
But the science behind it is actually pretty cool. In outer space, two things happen that alter the experience of drinking a beer.
First, things taste differently in space than they do on earth. Astronauts since the first Apollo missions have complained that food tastes blander in space than it does on earth. Though scientists are undecided on the cause of this, evidence points to the idea that it may have something to do with taste buds expanding slightly at microgravity.
Second, gasses and liquids separate differently in the stomach than they do on earth. As NASA’s Shuttle and ISS Food Systems Manager, Vickie Kloeris, said:
Not only is carbonation difficult in microgravity, it causes you to burp. On earth, that’s not such a big deal, but in microgravity it’s just gross! Because there is no gravity, the contents of your stomach float and tend to stay at the top of your stomach, under the rib cage and close to the valve at the top of your stomach. Because this valve isn’t a complete closure (just a muscle that works with gravity), if you burp, it becomes a wet burp from the contents in your stomach. I’ve been told this is NOT pleasant!
So… to free future space tourists from space bars filled with floating, regurgitated bubbles of mediocre beer, 4 Pines brewed a stout specially crafted for enjoyment in orbit.
Here’s a video of Jaron Mitchell of 4 Pines Brewery, explaining some of this on ‘Today’ to Karl Stefonovic. Nice work guys!
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