Real to Virtual Innovation - Nerf Wii Blaster

I saw this product and absolutely loved it! Sometimes toys are the greatest source of inspiration and innovation.

Nerf has never been high on my list of innovators but this product does several things well. According to Kotaku, the product is "probably intended for EA's upcoming Nerf N-Strike title". This blast combines a fully functioning Nerf blaster with the ability to turn into a Wiimote for the game.

What makes this great is the ability to translate a real-life behavior into a virtual one. Nerf is a fun toy, but quite often lives within a fantasy world. The ability for a product that can stretch between real and virtual adds a tremendous amount of depth and meaning to the product. Giving it the ability to be a peripheral for other games adds even greater functionality. Peripherals have never been hotter (guitar hero, rock band), but this is a first giving it physical world benefits.

Given the change in the nature of kids behavior, catering to a virtual crowd isn't a bad step, in fact its probably better to face the music these days. This does a great job in bridging that gap, and it could even work in reverse and get some kids to get out and play. This creates more occasions for usage based on kid's current behaviors.

One of the biggest challenges of virtual worlds, software or sites is translating into real behaviors. In the future we can expect RFID chips and all sorts of E-hancements to mix the virtual and real seemlessly. I just never expected to it so soon in an foam toy for kids.


Nerrrf

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Van's Finger Fracture

All hail Advergaming. Vans has created a nifty videogame for the iphone that is part advertising, part casual game, and all smart. Decorate your rider with real-life Van's Models. Participate in a worldwide leader board. It implements a touch screen to do tricks, think of the mini finger boards 2.0. Which makes for intuitive control. Great use of media here. Rumor has it, its from a Miami Ad School Grad. All you early adopting Mac-heads pick this one up.
KickFlip Fakie

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Portal Flash

How do you know when you have a success on your hands?



When consumers are creating their own mini-games before the actual product's launch...



Also you have to love the way Valve have branded their game as the "Orange Box" clearly defining it in a sea of games that usually try to blend in within their system. Personality really makes for nice value proposition.

PortalFlash

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Halo 3: First Impressions

I have a friend with a relationship with the big M and was lucky enough to take a spin on an advance copy of Halo 3. A few quick and dirty thoughts.....

Is utterly amazing I have to say…..Give you a little lowdown without giving anything away. Definitely found myself looking at all the little graphical enhancements. My friend asked if it was as pretty as Gears, and while I don’t know at first, the little details on everything from plants swaying to the rusty guardrails really popped. It could be better, because I haven’t played too many games in HD yet, but the graphics were well above the beta. I would put it up there with some of the best ever on xbox360. Oh and the explosions are incredible. They seem completely unscripted even though I know they cant be.

Gameplay was very tight, similar to the beta, but they definitely tweaked it a bit. Will let you discover that for yourself. Level design (so far) is super sharp, definitely better than 2, reminiscent more so of the first one. A.I. is waaay better, all the way through the little guys(grunts), who are braver and more accurate. I have definitely had some tough moments, and i'm 5 chapters in…Some of the battles are on a grand scale, which was spectacular. I had moments where the adrenaline was really rushing, and i was totally immersed in the environment. And it’s tough, so I can see tons of replay value. Not to mention the new weapons and vehicles, mmm mmm you are in for a treat.

The multi-player servers weren’t up yet, but I was definitely itching to get online. Guess we have to wait till the launch.

All in all, no one should be disappointed. Its everything they promised and then some. And more.

Bungie.net

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Best Buy Phasing Out Music?

Just an observation; but was down at the Best Buy on Broadway in Noho this weekend and low and behold the entire music department was gone. Entirely! Unless its been regulated to a small room in the back, all CDs have been replaced by a best buy mobile department and digital cameras. Sign of our (digital) times indeed...
YouBestBuy

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Redscout Goes Live

Redscout's new site has gone live. See what all the clamoring is about.

Redscout

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PSFK London Conference

Piers put out the call earlier today to let everyone know that his next conference has now started selling tickets. Similar to the NYC event its "A morning will focus on evolving new trends and ideas; the afternoon will look at future design and new marketing." NY was a home run with excellent speakers, a vastly immersing array of topics and some superb business networking. Do check it out and tell Piers Lifefilter sent you!

Confirmed Speakers:

* Niku Banaie, Naked Communications
* Mike Butcher, TBites
* Russell Davies, Open Intelligence Agency
* Regine Debatty, We Make Money Not Art
* Jeremy Ettinghausen, Penguin Books
* John Grant, BrandTarot
* Tamara Giltsoff, OZOlab brand
* Beeker Northam, Bloom
* George Parker, Madscam
* Justin Quirk
* Simon Sinek, Sinek Partners
* Stan Stalnaker, Hub
* Iain Tait, Poke
* Diana Verde Nieto, Clownfish
* Johnny Vulkan, Anomaly
* Faris Yakob, Naked Communications


PSFKLondon

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Battle of the Brands: Rockstar vs NYC

If you live in New York City, you may have noticed this yellow sticker popping up everywhere in site. This sticker is the logo of Rockstar Games. They are the makers of the notorious Grand Theft Auto Series. Wired recently wrote a great story about the rise and fall of the company which got in quite a bit of trouble over the whole hot coffee incident where code was left in the game, which when hacked allowed players to virtually have sex. Not a generally a good idea, but if you read Wired's story you will have an idea of what goes on over there.

One of the best things about GTA is its level of immersion within a virtual city environment. Miami was a virtual replication of of its self in the 80's during the cocaine wars, and LA/SF were mirror images during the 90 gangbanger days. Well GTA IV is set in NYC aka Liberty City. Looking at the trailer its full of Chrysler buildings, grand central, Tribeca building, the seaport docks, and even the statue of liberty. Instantly the NYC Politicos got upset at this.

Now comes the fun part. Since the initial trailer launch, NYC has been plastered with GTA IV billboards and now the flood of Rockstar stickers. I have counted around 500 in a small block radius around my apt in the alphabet, but the city is plastered. Got me thinking that no matter what NYC can do to fight it, this city has already been branded a GTA city. Very clever to brand it before it happens. No politician can clean up all the graffit or stickersi. Unless the game gets banned, GTA is here to stay in the city. And NYC is Liberty City. If you live in NYC how many stickers have you seen? And i have a nice giant rockstar sticker myself, any suggestions where to stick that sucker?


NYSeeit

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Future of the Rock Band

Yesterday was a fairly important announcement when it comes to video games. Ok not just video games but rock n roll. Guitar Hero has been an enormously successful game on video game platforms, allowing players to "play" a simplified guitar to real songs, making it the karaoke of music games. Peripheral games have been leading the innovation charge as of late in the video game category.

Now comes Rock Band. Created by EA and MTV "Rock Band is to completely change the way people interact with and enjoy the music they love," said Jeff Yapp, EVP, MTV Program Enterprises. "By joining forces with EA and the music industry's largest record labels and publishers, we are striving to create a groundbreaking new platform that allows people to connect with their favorite music and artists in ways they never have before."

Rock Band will allow gamers to perform music from the world's biggest rock artists with their friends as a virtual band using drum, bass/lead guitar and microphone peripherals, in addition to offering deep online connectivity. Built on unprecedented deals with the world's biggest record labels and music publishers, the music featured in Rock Band will span all genres of rock. EMI Music Publishing and Warner/Chappell Mussic will be opening up their catalogs for the game and EMI, Hollywood Records, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Universal Music Enterprises and Rhino Entertainment are going to be supplying master recordings for the game.

Rock Band represents a huge evolution in video games, but also in music and the MTV model. MTV has capitalized on the social aspect of music to build a huge (often mis-managed brand that sometimes doesn't resemble music) that continues to remain cool. This is the perfect marriage of social networks with music, allowing the ultimate connection of consumers in gaming activity to create their idol music fantasies. MTV is really taking the idol trend to a new level and by combining it with video games is genius. With the legitimization of air guitar, who knows MTV may be finding new talent from this. All in all a brilliant idea!

Legendary

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Super Mario or Spreadsheets? NES games online @ work

Lifehacker brings you quite possibly the greatest way to piss off your boss ever. vNES is a website that lets you play over 200 old-school NES games straight from your browser. From Mega Man to Super Mario Bros, the site even has some Japan-only games in case you want to play games you can't read but are inevitably fun. The emulator works on both Macs and PCs meaning no one gets left out. Metroid, Super Mario Bros., TMNT, Tecmo Bowl, and even Yo Noid! is here...

**ed note** (Yo Noid! is one of the first examples of advertising creating gaming content for branding purposes. Coca-Cola had an internal one on the atari 2600 called Pepsi invaders that is one of the most rare video games ever produced. Retroboy has a nice article on the most elusive video games)
Rarities


up up down down left right left right select start
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Gaming comes of Age

Ever want to know how much a culture is impacted by a hobby? Just look at its prominence on today's television cablewaves. Video Games are enjoying a huge presence right now as Microsoft's 360 has just launched and Nintendo prepares to launch its Wii console. I myself love some Halo and whatnot, when the little lady doesn't have me hauling stuff around. Below is a current & minor sampling of how video games are living in pop culture today. The building above is from Madrid and architect Blanca Lleo. The Pong ad is one of my current favorites. Kudos to the agency for creating that (ogilvy?). All hail Youtube and streaming video.









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Cool Hunting Summer 2006: 10 minutes of Ideas

I used to do quite a bit of cool hunting back at my last agency. NYC is the perfect town for it, and i quite never had as much fun sending out my interns to do the dirty work. Chuco/JWT has a nice cool hunting video which gives you the latest in under 10 minutes. And i didn't even break a sweat from the office. Some are great creative, some are just cool and some are actually great ideas that work.
Cool Hunt
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I know what it means...

Well at the time i did. SUPER street fighter II that is. But then again, im not your average person. I played my share of video games back in my heyday. Ok well i still play excessive amounts of halo2, but 1up.com has a hilarious retrospective look at awesomely bad advertisement's from gaming's rad 90's. All these ads proliferated the gaming mags of yesteryear. Ziff DAvis, the largest publisher of these sorts, is supposdly looking to share what built its congolomerate(not the online stuff where blogs like kotaku.com and joystiq.com are leading the charge now). TIme's have changed and while i don't think that online ads for games have made any revolutionary leaps from then, take a look at these horrible horrible ads (ok i like metroid) and drift off to a place far, far away. Looks like bad advertising is timeless..
So Awesome It Hurts
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Can a virtual world change a real brand image?

The second life has produced quite a following. PSFK has gotten quite addicted it seems. I myself am more addicted to halo, but thats another story. 2nd life is a virtual world, which can be inhabited by 250,000 residents at any given time. It's also a great place for brands to test and research ideas and good PR, so blogs like Influx/psfk/(dare i include) lifefilter will write about them. I have to give the thought prompt here to influx who wasnted to see if American Apparel will be able to compete with local merchants who operate in Second Life or if the brand power of AA will force them out of business. Fashion is the second biggest industry in Second Life. Its not surprising considering its the most accesible form of alteration on the web and the very reason many of the people behind the screen log on. It will be intriguing to see how brands invade the medium. Will it experience growth or will it reach its limit at 250k and become the mall? Much to the way that myspace has lost some steam.
I myself already have issues with AA. They champion themselves as progressive/ charitable cause, yet undermine this value by exploiting workers through soft-core porn advertising...Im thinking this move could damage the brand by positioning it as exploitive and somewhat unoriginal. I dont think moving online will change this. Can a virtual world change a real-life image of a brand? Clearly not if they are juxtaposing each otehr... The brand has experienced phenomenal growth though, and today's society is less cogniscent of the overtly sexual overtones. Time will tell
Xmarksthespot
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Oh the Possibilities

Business Week has a fantastic issue everyone is buzzing about. Its a great conglomeration of strategy, creativity and research. Gareth Kay's Modernista helped design it, they give quite a fair shake to the innovation world. This was seen as having a bright future in advertising by Alex Bogusky at the Future Marketing Conference. One of the issue's highlights is Google's Marisa Meyer's with 9 Rules For Innovation. These rules are smart because they turn corporate convention on its head, the kind of convention that usually stifles ideas.

1. They expect everyone to innovate, including finance
2. Share everything you can
3. Your brilliant, we are hiring- experience doesn't matter, smarts do
4. Employees get a day a week to develop new ideas
5. Innovation, not instant perfection- get the idea out then refine it
6. Don't politic, use data- idea evaluation should not let subjectivity get in the way
7. Creativity loves restraint- give people guidelines and a vision
8. Worry about users and usage and not money
9. Don't kill projects, morph them- salvage the best out of everything

Finally we are getting a little recognition, even though we didn't make the mag. Scary though cause that means more of you guys are coming for me. Gotta keep with the times i guess.....
BAM
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The Code That Ruled The World

up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, select, start


1up
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How much for that Wii in the window?

Im always yammering about the existence of convergence. To the utter disgust of my gf, i have been swept up in the latest console wars. (Im a bungie/halo fan so I will leave it at that). Curmudgeon Gamer put together this above inflationary chart graphing the price of all major consoles according to relative prices. So how bad is the PS3? As you can see above, the only consoles in the last twenty years more expensive than ithe PS3 are the Neo-Geo and 3DO... Gizmodo states that the "two consoles that obviously never controlled the market. Goping back to the late 70's and early 80's, there are a few consoles that were more expensive... but that's back in the days when video game consoles were still being built out of the shattered femurs of neolithic monkey men. Also note that, despite Sony's claims, the PS2 was a good 250 bucks cheaper in inflationary dollars." I remember shelling out 300 bones for an xbox and boy was that thing worth it. Another note is that nintendo's have been 200 bucks since the dawn of time.
Running Riot
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Pirate Baby's Cabana Battle Street Fight 2006

WOW. This is top-notch animation at its finest. Its inspiration is the double dragon days of NES and big wheels. If you aren't a gamer you might not appreciate this(could be squeamish if you are super-sensitive). If you are, check it out. The amimation is absolutely phenomenal/incredible/mind-blowing and its no wonder how this chap secured himself a job in the industry after doing something like this.
See it
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Xbox Marketplace: Cars?

Here comes the newest (freest) Speed Pack for Project Gotham Racing 3, which offers up a dozen hot, fast cars, by the Cadillac V-Series Collection. Kotaku sees it (me too) as the perfect example of advertising in gaming. They’re willing to give something to gamers for no cost, in exchange for the very obvious product placement. So gamers get to tool around in some new cars, and Cadillac gets to have potential car buyers do virtual test drives adnauseum. Burger King is currently developing some sort of mini-game, possibly full-fledged but this is a signal of shift in the marketing world. The trend is moving from representation and reflection in advertising to a complete integration of the idea the business process. I dont think its the end of the ad agency, but presents some interesting collaboration issues. I do think its more organic for the brand. This expansion is booming with new consumer media content channels and myriad of ways consumers create their own products/advertising/movie mash-ups etc. Ahhh now its getting good people.

Holla at the Lac Lac
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Video Games + Tagging= heaven

Space Invader is a French graffiti artist that does tile mosiacs on public places. He also designs sneakers. Similar Space Invaders dot the megapolises. Apparently, there are over a hundred of his little retro designs sprinkled across the blue spinning ball called Earth. This is a fantastic way to 'accidently' tag the ground around you. This was spotted in Tokyo’s hip Harajuku neighborhood, which is near the BAPE store.
Invade Paris
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