out of the box :: The awesome world of digital

Audi: Start. Stop.

Audi’s new energy saving technology stops the engine when you stop at the lights. They wanted an interesting way of getting this idea out there. The Audi Stop-Start app takes the same thinking and applies it to a smartphone. The app shows the user what other apps are open and allows them to close them to save the energy of their phone. Simple, smart and energy efficient. Nice one Audi.

Durex Fundawear

Digital advertising needn’t be about finding another channel to spread your message, and only a handful of brands are truly realising this. Big brands such as Nike have innovated the space with products such as Nike+ and Fuel band, giving people new ways to experience the brand ethos through digital forms. And now we are seeing Durex experiment in the space too.

‘Fundawear’ is the first of a series of Durexperiments. It’s a new line of underwear that allows your partner to control the vibrations through a mobile app. Perfect for couples over long distance, or just those that want something a bit different. It’s not just advertising, but a new product innovation, brought to you by a brand. I am excited to see what other products come out of the Durexperiements, let’s hope they innovate as much as this one.

Facebook Holiday lets people experience Cape Town

Everybody knows the iconic things in Cape Town. But do they really know the real Cape Town? The stuff happening on the ground everyday or the wonderful things going on outside the city? 

This is the problem with many cities around the world. There are so many things that make up a city that it can be hard to get people to discover them all. Enter ‘Facebook Holiday’, a campaign from Cape Town Tourism that lets people virtually live a weeks holiday, experiencing the things they didn’t even know existed. By logging into the Facebook app and connecting your account, the app posts amazing first person content on your timeline for a whole week - photos, updates and videos. It’s almost like you were there for real.

It’s a pretty clever way to show someone the ‘other side’ of a city, while using those people to publicise to their wider group of friends. It’s also a pretty extensive execution, with hundreds of pieces of content created over the course of the campaign to make everyones experience unique. A really nice digitally-led tourism campaign.

Renault Clio - The first car lifted by likes

Renault wanted to prove that passion could indeed lift a vehicle off the ground… god only knows why. But they did. So they built this app. Every time someone ‘liked’ the app, a real-world thumbs up was placed in the box on the seesaw alongside the car. After over 16,000 likes, the car was finally lifted into the air, one lucky person won the car and the world became a happier place.

As much as I ‘like’ the idea. I’m a little confused what the link to the product is, apart from it being a nice mechanic to win it. If you can indeed decipher this cryptic for me, please feel free to let me know. Until then, I’m off to ‘like’ some brands to try and win some free shit, catch you later.

KLM creates a social map for your next trip

When going on holiday, nothing beats a good recommendation from one of your mates. The places, the views, the things to do. What if you could aggregate all of the best stuff from the people you knew and take it away with you on the go?

KLM’s latest campaign, the ‘Must see map’ thinks it has the very answer. By inviting your friends to add tips to a particular destination, the app creates a real-world printed map that is then sent to you for free ready for your next trip. It’s an amazing way of taking the online world, offline. It also tackles the age old problem of roaming when you are on holiday, as you can take a printed map with you anywhere. Lovely idea guys.

Track My Maccas brings Augmented Reality to restaurants in Australia

Have you ever been sat in Maccas late at night, staring longingly at your empty food carton and thought to yourself, where did this delicious morsel come from? How on earth did it come to be? For the love of god won’t somebody tell me!

…. So have I, you’re not alone. And that’s exactly why McDonalds in Australia have brought us the TrackMyMaccas iPhone app. The app uses your location, data about the food you have just popped in your mouth and a vast database of knowledge to whow you real time information about where exactly your food came from. The beautiful part? It’s all brought to life in front of peoples eyes in glorious 3D using Augmented Reality. The animations are slick and the character style adorable. It’s beautifully executed and a really nice combination of technology to bring to life a product story. Nice work from DDB.

Fingi reinvents the hotel experience

This has been a long time coming. We all use hotels, but rarely have we seen a smart way to interact with absolutely everything in our rooms. Fingi may have just the solution. Check in to the Aloft Hotel in Bangkok and you are given a mobile phone. This then becomes your ‘remote’ for your entire stay. Use the NFC chip to enter your room, control the lights, the temperature and even control the TV and order films.

What takes the idea to another level though is the ability for the guest to take the phone with them while they are out and about in Bangkok. As it’s a local sim, they can make calls, surf the internet and more, all on the go. This becomes a great tool for visitors concerned with paying large data charges.

For those looking to book their next trip, you can find out more about it here.

IKEA Klippbok

It seems that recently, IKEA are embracing digital in all the right ways. First came their interactive extension to their printed catalogue (using Augmented Reality to bring to life the content in interesting ways). Now, they have brought us Klippbok to help people design their home using IKEA products. Simply drag and drop the products, rotate and scale them and create moodboards for different rooms for your house. Then, at the touch of a button, share your creations with friends, and ultimately purchase your combinations. 

I absolutely love it when a brand thinks as digital as a space in which to give their consumers utility, and not simply entertainment. A scrap-booking app like this makes it easy for customers to see on the fly how IKEA’s range of products work with each other. It’s not something to be picked up and thrown away, more something that  brings to life the products in a new, magical way. Like everything IKEA put out, the interface and user experience is clean and very well considered. Nice work guys.

Your Man Reminder App gets a ‘hot’ update

Fresh from the guys over at Rethink Breast Cancer comes this interesting app designed to make the process of checking your breasts a little ‘hotter’. With videos from hot guys showing how to check them, reminders of when to check them and a handy little man-o-gram feature to send a reminder to a friend, it’s a much raunchier take on quite a serious subject, and perhaps a very good example of ‘sex sells’. 

I unfortunately do not have breasts myself, but for the 50% of you in the world that do, you can download the app now from the app store and take it for a spin.

Wonderbra ask people to ‘Decode’ their ads

Here’s a cool idea from Wonderbra in the UK and France. It’s called Wonderbra DECODER. People download the app on iPhone or Android and then they can interact with the campaign across a number of channels. Hold your phone up to the print ads, the window displays or even the YouTube video and see the model in her underwear. It’s a clever use of Augmented Reality, especially in the YouTube experience, as it reveals video content that is otherwise hidden.

For those of you like me that are not lucky enough to live in the UK, you can download the ads here and try it for yourself. And if you have the app installed, check out the YouTube video, it’s pretty cool.