Chanels goes grocery shopping

The high-low combo in fashion was never as evident as at the recent Chanel’s fashion show placed in the supermarket. The setting infused a much-needed life into the fashion shows, which have recently become quite a drab affairs. It also spoke to the inevitability of grocery shopping among the audience, no matter how fashion-obsessed and brand-crazy they are.

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Please don’t text and drive

A chilling ad from Volkswagen. No comment necessary. Read more…

Lord of the Rings

This ring is the lord of them all. It’s practically the Sauron of rings. By putting it on, you can write anything you want in the air, and all the machines and humans around you will obey. Well, maybe not the humans. But you get the idea.

The ring’s magical powers are due to the combo of Bluetooth, a touch sensor, a few motion sensors, LED, vibration motor and a connection with iPhone. It’s the iPhone that actually reads all that air-writing and executes commands.

While the mechanism can seem a bit clunky and unintuitive (writing in the air?), this idea is pretty much the future of invisible technology. Check out the Ring’s Kickstarter here.

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France in the air

Air France launched a new campaign. If you didn’t look closely enough, you’d mistake it for a luxury fashion editorials. Apparently, that was the idea. Or rather, the idea was to bring the magnificence and opulence of France-the-country to the air. The campaign was unleashed via Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter as well as via collaterals. Created by BETC.

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New Report: Seeing Returns - Building loyalty at hotels through digital customer experience

A new report on hospitality industry and ways to build loyalty via digital media is out. Have a look, it’s full of useful insights. By MDC Partners.

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How do you feel? Let your app tell you.

There is an ever increasing number of people who claim that technology is a deeply emotional endeavor. Just look at “Her:” humans are depicted as emotional-connection craving beings; in return, technology wanted nothing but independence from us. Interesting as it may be, there is a real happening in the next-gen apps that monitor our heart rate, facial expressions and warmth of our skin to understand whether we are happy, cranky or tired.

The so-called “emotional data layer” can indeed help our interactions. It can make them more personalized, effective or more fun. In other words, it can make an experience more seamless a.k.a usable. The ultimate role of emotions with technology is a better usability.

I like this thought.

Let me tell you a good STORY

Story is a concept store on Manhattan that updates its theme and products ever week. To add a do-good twist to the store, its founder, Rachel Shechtman, partnered with notorious social entrepreneurs, like TOMS and FEED Project, to create a brand new Good STORY. The Good STORY will run until June 1, and every item for purchase has a direct positive social impact. My takeaway: more brands, traditionally sustainable or not, should embrace the STORY idea. It’s all about the concept stores these days, anyway. Might as well do some good with it.

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iBeacon is the future of Easter Egg hunts

Faberge, the jeweler, is into elephants and their well being. For this reason the brand organized the massive Easter egg hunt in NYC this weekend. Faberge commissioned gigantic 275 egg sculptures from designers and artists and scattered them around the city, and on the The Big Egg Hunt website, designated a specific area where each of the eggs is to be discovered. The best part of the hunt is that eggs are not revealed on the map until at least 10 people check in to them, enabled by iBeacon technology. This may be the first time that iBeacon has left the confines of the retail stores and ventured into the outside world, and I love how Faberge is using it. If you are in New York City this weekend and if Easter Egg hunts are your thing, you should definitely join!

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Humanity, meet the Responsive Man

I really like this, for reasons none other than it being fun. With responsive design becoming a table stakes at this point, The Responsive Man was just begging to happen.

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New SoDA report launched

The next edition of The SoDA Report - the first for 2014 has just been released.

This issue of SoDA’s biannual trends publication, explores the concept of value. The human is placed at the heart of this issue and is used to explore themes around value systems, value creation and value delivery from a wide variety of perspectives. How are agencies, production companies, brands and technologies creating and delivering value, or even giving rise to entirely new value systems? Read more…