We saw subway cars coming back from the past, we saw subway stations transformed into football stadiums, but we never saw anything like a “ghost station” coming back to life to promote a movie. Well, if you’re in Paris until May 25th travel on the Metro line 9 (direction Pont de Sèvres) you will be able to see Saint-Martin station (closed since 1939) hosting an advertising installation for Ridley Scott’s Prometheus.

According to the press release, Paris subway passengers will be able to “live for a few seconds the mysterious atmosphere of the cave in which a team of scientists, parties in the darkest corners of the universe aboard Prometheus spacecraft, will discover the origins of humanity.”

To me, this sounds like a great idea on paper, but I don’t know how much of it consumers will really experience. Probably it’s more of a good PR activation than an ambient marketing activation.

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See other examples of experiential marketing in the subway:
- Playstation in Brussels
- Boardwalk Empire NYC metro takeover

Not sure I would classify this as an advertising project, but for sure it’s a social action that takes great advantage of creative thinking. Keep the meter running is initiative by Miami Ad School SF student Bennett Austin. Bennett placed a bed in a parking space on Haight St in San Francisco to draw awareness to a small, local homeless youth shelter that lost 1/3 of its funding that year.

In San Francisco the recent Sit & Lie law prohibits anyone from sitting or lying in public for more than three minutes. By placing his bed in a paid parking space he was able to legally circumvent the Sit and Lie law and gain the attention of multiple media channels. In one week, with only $108 in quarters and a bed, he was able to raise $43,000 for the Homeless Youth Alliance to build beds in their shelter.

The idea recently won the Gold prize at the Clio 2012 Awards.

Lithuanian photographer Tadas Černiauskas held a very special photo shoot. People visiting his studio (as part of Vilnius Design Weekend) were literally blown away by a strong current of air. Tadas called his photo session fittingly “Blow Job”.

“I wanted to do something very fun for myself and the visitors, just laugh and have a good time. I was surprised that there were so many laid-back people who were not afraid to look funny! Spacious studio was bursting at the seams and everyone was crying with laughter, laughing at themselves and at each other. Everyone (and there were more than one hundred!) who dared to stand up in front of my lens that evening will remember this photo shoot for a long time and have an extraordinary shot in his album,” said Tadas Černiauskas.

Visit his site tadaocern.com and for more faces you can check his facebook page.

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Quechua presents its brand, its products, its universe and its partners with its new brand movie. French Advertising Agency Fred & Farid are the creative minds behind it. It’s beautifully shot and puts this adventure brand firmly into the ‘cool’ category. Great stuff.

Privacy laws in Russia show no mercy for jerks. If you park in the wrong spot, if you park without giving a damn about other people this is what you get: ostracism 2.0. Russian magazine The Village has created a free app that allows to take pictures of wrongly parked cars, recognize car number plates, the car model and color. The data is streamed live to banner ads that are targeted through IP addresses to locations where these cars were parked, exposing the owners to the public shame.

The agency is Look At Media.

Messy desktop? Messy office? Your solution is one click away. Just activate the screensaver! Really nice idea and execution for this TVC by Argentinean agency David for Staples. I love when they use sense of humor to promote brands that ain’t so cool nor fancy. I think it really works, at least with me, to generate brand awareness.

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For the last few years I have been convinced that running Facebook ads is a pretty solid strategic choice. At the same time I found them creatively limiting: tiny pics or video thumbnails and condensing the message into a slither of straight-to-the-point copy. In light of Facebook’s multi-billion IPO comes news that Facebook ads are also not quite as effective as we might think. At least when you compare them to those of the other digital ad juggernaut, Google.

This infographic done by WordStream isn’t necessarily well executed. Actually it is quite difficult to orient yourself. But it does contain some interesting numbers. Facebook has less reach, and their ads are less effective with an average click-through rate of 0.051 percent (0.1 percent web wide, 0.4 Google). And since GM just pulled $10 million worth of Facebook ads you might just want to hold off on your Facebook share purchase.

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How can a small new business with zero brand presence on social media gain over 1.5 million impressions in one day? Well, looks like gambling is the answer… Pick five influential tweeters, put them around a poker table and broadcast the game on the Web, allowing their followers to help them playing their hands.

The idea is damn smart, but I can’t help feeling disappointed the concept has nothing to do with the brand which, for your info, it’s a travel agency.

Young & Rubicam is the agency.
Thanks Sebastián for sending this through.

Red Stripe’s “Make Art On The Street” released this animation of a special piece of street art. Scottish artist Spaceboy, helped by his graphic students from Edinburgh College of Art, animated his paste-ups on the shop shutters of Newhaven Harbour. It is a nice animation in itself, capturing and recording each frame of the paper installation. But what I really like about the film is that the interview with Spaceboy (talking in his heavy Scottish accent) is actually woven into the dubby Jamaican soundtrack. Ah sey one!

I think they could have done a bit more to connect this film to the rest of the campaign, to other videos and add e.g. the complete interview/voice over into the comment section. Go to their website to discover more arty, stripey things.

Agency: KK Outlet

In Singapore punctuality among young generations is not a very diffused virtue. To correct this bad habit and promote DHL’s ability to always deliver on time, Uni Lee a student at the LASALLE College of the Arts come up with the DHL Friend Express concept. Select friend, date and appointment time and send a DHL service to pick him/her up to be delivered perfectly on time to your date.

VIDEO CASE STUDY REMOVED*

The concept is pretty fun, and I like that fact that it starts from a real local insight. I do miss the connection with the DHL brand and product a bit, as here the main target audience are everyday (young) consumers, while my feeling is that DHL might look more at the B2B market. Anyways the case study is presented in an awesome way, and it’s great to see that a student has received so much access to the brand and its assets.

*DHL has asked us to remove the video has it violates some kind of licensing. This is super weird and kind of unpleasant. Apparently Uni Lee was only allowed to submit the video to run for advertising student awards. Again, super silly, but we choose to comply not to get him in trouble.

Getting down with the band.

Online art sharing for kids.

There when you need it most.

Brain power in HTML5.

Lettuce alone.

Get rid of that brief.

Naming and shaming bad parking.

Automatic browsing.

Create your own 3D jewellery.

Track America's ailments.