When snack food brand SunChips decided to go solar to make its chips it seems that they thought “why not use solar energy for everything?” In a very creative out-of home-campaign, they created billboards that depend on the sun to form its content by casting shadows.

SunChips is a California company and this is definitely a California idea. I mean, although its immensly creative, the billboards don’t “work” at night and poorly, if at all, on cloudy or rainy days. Anway, the video below explains it all.

Nicely designed site, sexy bottles…wonder if the wine is any good?

If the LCBO workers don’t go on strike, does anyone want to bring me a bottle down from Ontario?

Although the promo sheet above states otherwise, this Amnesty International ad isn’t the “first poster that responds to people looking at it”–but that doesn’t really matter. This great interactive out-of-home ad in a Berlin, Germany, bus stop features the image of matrimonial bliss when you’re looking at it that morphs into domestic violence when you look away.

The Jung von Matt-created poster uses a camera and eye-tracking technology to change the image on the display. There’s a small delay between the change of image so that the viewer can understand the message.

So many novel technologies are being developed, like the facial recognition, multi-touch interaction and hand-held device interaction, that scream “use me to cut through the clutter”. You don’t blame advertisers and marketers from wanting to use them. Unfortunately, sometimes the integration of the technology overshadows the message or the goal, making the use gimmicky, but other times, the content prevails leading to some great ads like the Teehan+Lax Telus ad, this Marks & Spencer’s campaign on London Underground digital LCD screens, or the above-mentioned Amnesty International installation.

The sad part about this Anti-domestic violence ad is that it was created to win a Cannes Lion (Silver, outdoor category) and is only in one location that likely won’t be installed elsewhere, so the important message its trying to communicate won’t really be seen by anyone.

Via Copyranter.

What do you get when you fuse the tastiness of Korean BBQ and the portability of tacos? Some LA entrepreneurs think its the answer to late night hunger and decided to call it Kogi.

While your first guess might be that it’s some quick-serve joint, what makes Kogi special is that its luxurious dining room is whatever curbside its mobile restaurant (no, nothing to do with cell phones) is parked at. Kogi’s big white vans hide a full kitchen within and ride around like an ice-cream truck, satisfying the hunger needs of night owls and party-goers.

Although the idea of Korean-Mexican fusion cuisine and a certain feeling of nostalgia of my all-too-brief trip to Seoul stir up the want to try one of their Kimchi Quesadillas, I mention Kogi for a totally different reason. Recently, Kogi received some press (CNN, Current TV) due to its use of Twitter as a marketing medium.

A few years ago, every business had to get a website (well maybe a little more than a few). Now, the big trend for businesses is to tweet. Finished are the days of full-blown blogging, micro-blogging through Twitter, is quick, concise and can reach your audience through multiple avenues. The problem is that, like blogging, many businesses start on these trends just because its the “thing to do”, but don’t ever develop a plan how to use them or, like in the case of Twitter, even understand what the medium is about.

The people behind Kogi, on the other hand, took a new medium and used it creatively. Kogi tweet the location of their taco trucks, an idea that sparked something of a little phenomenon where people, not familiar with the site, have joined Twitter through word-of-mouth to follow the mobile restaurateur.

While the hype and PR will inevitably die down and the Twitterers (Twitterees?) won’t be making a Kogi night an event, most will keep following because there’s nothing like a little alcohol to bring on the need for some late-night grilled meat and corn flour tortillas.

Also, check out Ben Hoffman’s comical report on the Asian taco peddlers from Current.

One of the great things about digital signage is the posibility of making ads dynamic. If your organization is using digital signage and you aren’t taking advantage of this then go back to the drawing board. At my company, we always try to push the “real-time” and dynamic capabilities of digital signage.

This ad shows that Teehan+Lax know what they’re doing when it comes to new media marketing. Appearing on Toronto subway platform, food court and retail digital signage, the ad featured animated dynamic weather conditions fed by RSS to sell the capabilities of your next Telus smartphone.

Teehan+Lax took home the Best Point-of-Sale Campaign nod at the 2009 MediaPost Digital Out-Of-Home Awards for their work with Telus.

Let’s face it, marketing and advertising ain’t easy in this modern world. Product exchangeability and consumers’ brand skepticism is making it real hard to engage people. The German ad agency Scholz & Friends created this great little video on the evolution of sales and advertising these past 60 years and the harsh reality of the new marketing landscape.

Letterpress, custom die cuts, engraving—there are plenty of ways to get your business card to stand out from the rest. And you definitely want your business card to stand out (without being ‘too much’ or illegible) because two months down the line, when you’ve forgotten about that lead, it can possibly be the only way for you to communicate with your potential client.

This site of user submitted cards provides endless inspiration for your card design.

Clean, legible, Helvetica is possibly the most commonly used font in design. Heck, they even made a movie about it. That said, it’s still surprising how many of the world’s most recognizable brands use helvetica as the basis for their logos—many with no change to it all! Here are some examples, but get forty of them on webdesignerdepot.com:

Direct Daily reported on this bus shelter ad in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, that displays the weight measured by a scale integrated into the shelter’s bench. The ad promoting Fitness First is definitely a hard sell…come to us, you’re fat.

Taxi Montreal developed cool inter-locking beer coasters to promote internet dating site Mate1.com. The blue for men and pink for ladies coasters match the opposite sex’s piece like a jigsaw puzzle. The idea is that the prop is a good way to break the ice. Although originally designed for singles events, its currently being tested in Montreal at diverse bars and clubs.