Author Archive

Cat Café: In Japan, there are cafes were you can enjoy your tall Americano with felines. Cats lounge around in the shop and it’s encouraged you sit on the floor and play with them while drinking your morning brew. (cc: Jen Teitler, @woodlandalyssa, @michkd, etc.)

Tweet for a Deal: Relying on their customers and social media, Uniqlo is offering a unique deal – tweet about a featured item and that item will decrease in price. Final prices will be set-in-stone on Thursday and consumers can start purchasing after that.

The Final Countdown: Something we would love to have attached to our computers – the Google Reader Unread Items Analog Meter.  The needle on the meter shows you how many items are left in your reading queue. (made by @mattrichardson of Tweet Receipts fame)  

Tape Up: In attempts to fix the common problem of losing the tape’s edge and breaking your fingernail every time you try to find it, Zhichuan Tang designed “V-tape” – a V-shaped indent helps to find the edge.

Click here to let us know that you’d like to be added to the mailing list for the monthly edition of “word.”

—Lauren M.

Read original here:
word. daily. (september 9, 2010)

Mercedes-Benz Fall Fashion Week (M-B FW) starts this week and before you hit the streets of Manhattan with your Louboutins gnawing at your feet, I thought I would arm you with three cocktail conversation starters. These fashionable trends bridge the gap between fashion, consumers and technology. So in case you find yourself sitting next to she who wears Prada at Posen’s show, remember:

1. For investors: It was recently reported that FashionStake, which enjoys the backing of an early investor of the retail darling Groupon, allows consumers to help fund and shape designers’ collections before they’re produced. Consumers can: Provide Feedback; Become a Buyer; Become a Funder or Become a VIP.

Designers like Nicholas K were commissioned to produce exclusive collections for the runway at New York Fashion Week. Aside from serving as a platform for burgeoning designers, FashionStake also markets the clothing, adding a vital function to the thinly lined pockets of its designers. Now this is what I call a savvy fashion investment!

2. For frugalistas: If you’re lucky enough to be “discovered” on the streets of New York, Chicago and Seattle, you could enjoy modish prizes, including gift cards to your favorite shops or tickets to M-B FW. You can thank Starbucks’ partnership with M-B FW with the fall collection-themed Frappuccino Coffee Drink Fashion Patrol for this campaign. Remember to put your best fashion statement forward!

3. For fashionistas: You’re decked out in designer wear that’s now and/or trending for fall and you’ve landed a spot along the catwalk; now, turn to your neighbor and ask, “Like, what did you think about the e-mail invitation and bar-coded confirmation?” Personally, I think the age of public relations interns wielding clipboards is as passé as hating on Rachel Zoe, but for fashion legacy gatekeepers, I wonder if this doesn’t seem on par with an unfinished hemline (read: unacceptable).

It’s not difficult to see why if you check out Thread|NY’s ode to beautifully designed M-B FW invitations. However, I think any publicist would agree that this new type of electronic efficiency would save them on postage and potentially make their events gatecrasher-resistant!

As a parting thought, I wanted to share with you one of my favorite quotes from a man who exercised much energy on his appearance:

“Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.” – Oscar Wilde

Remember: Be critical and shop lightly!

- Pedro

Read original here:
3 Conversation Starters for Fall Fashion Week

Never again will I badmouth my best friend for indulging her husband’s Madden 11 obsession. I have become addicted to making my virtual boutique, Love This, into the most successful boutique in Facebookland! PopSugar’s Retail Therapy game lets players merchandise and design their very own fashion boutiques. The super-stylish virtual clothes are replicas of real items from brands like Tory Burch, Diane von Furstenburg, Elizabeth & James and more. Players can also download their personalized characters and outfits to social networking sites in order to share their style (and your brand) with their network of friends. The coolest aspect is that virtual customers who visit my store are given the names of my Facebook nearest and dearest!

How Can Brands Get In On The Virtual Action, You Ask?

Brands can host in-game virtual stores and provide clothing from their current fashion lines for players’ characters to wear, order and stock in their own boutiques. Retailers can also sponsor in-store events, give clothing as gifts to players, and — prior to an actual new collection launch — introduce limited-availability items that will be coveted by players of the game.

Banana Republic, Barneys New York, Gap, Juicy Couture and Topshop all have virtual merchandise in the game. Diane von Furstenberg and Topshop also have in-game virtual stores where players can shop. Brian Sugar, founder and CEO of Sugar Inc., says:

Our goal is to constantly add innovative offerings that entertain and delight our large audience of women.  We wanted to create an addicting game that would appeal to one of their greatest areas of passion: fashion. Retail Therapy allows women to mix and match dream outfits from their favorite retailers and feel the experience of running their own high-end fashion boutique.

To read more about the Retail Therapy game, check out this article on Fashionably Marketing.me.

- Kim

Read original here:
The Madden of Fashion

Strangers in the Night: As a part of Ryan Brennan’s “Living Exercises,” he placed these posters around the city to encourage human interaction.

Paint Me: At the ARS Electronica Center in Linz, Austria, passersby can use an app to paint the building in real time. By using a color wheel, the facade of the building is controlled by the user. There is also a second app that allows you to play a jigsaw puzzle game using the windows of the building. 

Baby BBQ: Take a look at this teeny, tiny grill – made from an Altoids can – that can actually cook food (for your Jersey Shore bobbleheads, but still). There’s even instructions on how to make your own!

Smart Stamp: The national postal service of the U.K. has introduced the “world’s first intelligent stamp” – scanning your smartphone over the stamp will launch relevant additional content. 

Click here to let us know that you’d like to be added to the mailing list for the monthly edition of “word.”

—Lauren M.

Read original here:
word. daily. (september 7, 2010)

What is one thing that Oprah , Dakota Fanning and Barbara Walters have in common? They all Skype on TV. According to a recent AP article picked up by many outlets, including the Huffington Post, the trend of Skype interviews on national TV newscasts and talk shows is on the rise because it serves as an efficient tool to cover stories. Skype allows journalists to report from virtually anywhere, even from submarines, and makes it possible to deliver breaking news if a crew cannot arrive on the scene in time. Although nothing is a valid substitute for an in-person, face-to-face interview, that ideal is not always possible. I find it interesting that people from all walks of life can use Skype for free (which I hope doesn’t change) and it has really revolutionized the way news comes to us. Plus, it’s kind of fun to see where someone is Skyping from and what their background looks like.

-Cynthia

Read original here:
Skype’s Hype

Every day, we come across various contests and sweepstakes online where all you need to enter is a Twitter or Facebook profile, but recently Sprite and the National Basketball Association took it to new heights (pun intended).

While I would love the chance to attend the 2011 NBA All-Star Game in Los Angeles, I don’t think I would’ve qualified for the “Sprite Slamdunk Showdown,” a “nationwide NBA contest to pick top amateur dunkers,” unless, of course, I was dunking on a Nerf rim in my childhood bedroom. Entrants to the “Slamdunk Showdown” were asked to submit videos of their dunks for a chance to move on to one of 10 cities, where they would be judged by current and former NBA stars, including the one and only LeBron James. From there, the voting is in the hands of online fans via a microsite at NBA.com/dunk. 

The combination of experiential marketing (mobile tour), digital marketing (Facebook, Twitter and microsite) and a strategic partnership with the NBA give this campaign the chance to be quite successful for Sprite and their branding. I couldn’t help but check out all of the videos on the site, and would be very interested to see the “time on site” statistics for the microsite.

Sprite may want to look into changing the size of their custom “Cities” Facebook tab, though. It looks like the changeover from 720 pixels to 520 pixels as of August 24, was overlooked by their community managers…

- Rob

Read original here:
High Flying Contest from Sprite and NBA.com

Airport Slide: Delayed at an airport? Well, hopefully you’re at Changi International Airport in Singapore, where they just installed a four-story slide.

Fur & Friends: In what we see as another unusual collab this year, Opening Ceremony teams up with Parisian taxidermist Deyrolle to create a silk scarf printed with exotic animals. Speaking of dead animals, the latest from neozoon, a collective of female street artists, is wall art using old fur coats. They cut second-hand coats into silhouettes of the animals and place them around the city to give the appearance of wild animals frolicking.

BeerVault: Australian design firm, Jones Chijoff created this functional and aesthetically-pleasing BeerVault, used to preserve and display ze finest beers. The pilot vault found itself in Melbourne-based bar Biero – we know it’s a 10-hour drive, but @jesabe13, could you go and let us know if it’s as fantastic in person? Thanks in advance!

Turn Me On: Take a look at this switch plate from Chris Haines – shaped like an ear, the lights come on when you whisper sweet nothings into it.

Click here to let us know that you’d like to be added to the mailing list for the monthly edition of “word.”

—Lauren M.

Read original here:
word. daily. (september 3, 2010)

Virgin America consistently impresses me with their unique marketing tactics and the latest campaign by the hip airline just affirms my love for them.

According to Techcrunch:

On Tuesday Virgin America and Loopt partnered to offer people two-for-one tickets to Cancun or Los Cabos from California. All you had to do was check in on Loopt at SFO, LAX or one of a variety of taco trucks in San Francisco and Los Angeles in a four hour window.

Loopt, which has four million users, is a small competitor to Foursquare, however the Taco stunt proved to be extremely successful.  Over 80% of people who checked in at the Taco trucks booked a flight on Virgin America, making it the airline’s fifth highest revenue day ever.

This is an awesome example of how social media can have a major impact on sales ( a highly debated topic).

Now if only Virgin would do a promotion like this with the Van Leeuwen ice cream truck conveniently parked on 23rd st. during lunch everyday.

-Maria

Read original here:
Virgin America Rides Loopt Taco Truck Special To Fifth Largest Revenue Day Ever

Now Smell This: Replay, an Israeli perfume company, has a molecule in its perfume called cyclodextrin.  Now, I don’t want to talk down to you because you probably already know cyclodextrin is – but essentially it releases the scent of the perfume when it comes in contact with water.  To play up this technology Replay tied thousands of water guns to trees, bikes and benches in order to encourage the best-smelling water fight ever.

Paperless Class: The University of Notre Dame is testing an iPad-based class model. The Fightin’ Irish who are taking Project Management 118 Section 7* are encouraged to use the pad for class – as well as everyday life.

 *completely inaccurate

FashionStake: Founded by two Harvard grads last fall, FashionStake allows consumers to help fund and shape a designer’s collection before it’s been manufactured. Members can provide feedback to a designer, pre-order from the to-be collection, and/or throw some dollars the way of the designers so they can produce their pieces. (via @ARBetts)

Click here to let us know that you’d like to be added to the mailing list for the monthly edition of “word.”

—Lauren M.

Read original here:
word. daily. (it should be noted that today’s date is 9-02-10 – see you at the peach pit)

Now that we’ve recently launched our M Booth Facebook page (please “like” us, by the way!), we’ve been trying to add all sorts of fun features to it, to keep M Boothers and friends posted on what we’re up to. So far, this includes everything from information on open positions, to photos from our parties and softball games, to posts from our two blogs (this one and Better4You).

Unfortunately, it was tough to find an easy way to import both of our blogs’ RSS feeds to the page. Facebook recommends doing it through its Notes application, but you can only import one blog and it wasn’t updating regularly for us. There are other applications that allow you to add a “Blog” tab to your page but again, it only allows one blog feed to be imported. We really didn’t want to have to manually put up a link every time someone blogged, but we were having trouble finding another option.

Luckily, Rob happens to follow a 13-year-old technology wunderkind named Jack DeFuria, who mentioned a free tool called dlvr.it on Twitter the other day. Rob asked me to check it out and I promptly fell in love (with dlvr.it, not Rob…or Jack). Not only will dlvr.it import multiple blog feeds to your Facebook page (and Twitter, LinkedIn or Google Buzz too, if you so desire), it also provides analytics on how many people are clicking through on each post. Now each of our M Boother-penned blog posts seamlessly shows up on our Facebook page within minutes. Problem solved!

—Alyssa

Read original here:
Now that we’ve recently launched our M Booth Facebook page…