We recently wrote about the Urban Games trend that is fast blurring the line between the virtual and the physical worlds we wander in. An Aussie company has recently discovered a way to transform online customers into real world visitors. Or in this case - drinkers. Read more »

Remember the old trading cards? the AFL cards? the NBA cards? I’m sure plenty of children, tweens and teens still collect various forms of them. The concept however has been taken a step further by US broadcaster CBS and technology partner (patent holder) Hook Mobile. Combining multimedia messaging, promotional marketing and social gaming the old “Nathan Buckley rookie” card has been redefined for the “content” generation.

The Survivor Promotion
The campaign offers viewers the opportunity to receive, trade and collect mobile trading cards in an effort to win cash prizes and merchandise.

How it works:
Sign up online or via text message.
Receive 3 random picture cards per week sent direct to your MMS enabled mobile.
Store these e-cards on the Mobile Asset eXchange (hosted by Hook).
Trade these cards with friends by sending the card via MMS to their phones.
Continue to update and register new cards with MAX until you have the complete set.
Instant Win cards for prizes and cash are also dispersed randomly to collectors.

Hook Mobile believes “that digital assets will become the social currency of our generation, so compelling multimedia content like this will fuel the coming explosion of MMS in the U.S. Now content providers and marketers have a dynamic new way to build loyalty and grow revenues through the mobile channel.”

This seems like a very interesting concept, especially with the rising popularity of the so-called social networking sites, I’d be interested to see how much “hook” its got. Its another good example of the convergence of media while the mediums used to deliver it continue to diverge.

This one comes courtesy of PSFK. Part alarm clock, part Smart toy, part Flickr, Chumby is has been designed with the aim to merge our ever increasing Real life and Net life…Alpha geek I hear you cry, well you wouldn’t be reading this blog if you didn’t have some sort of “Net identity” about you. Read more »

How can anyone forget the delivery of Ezekiel 25:17 by Samuel L. Jackson in Tarantino’s cult classic “Pulp Fiction”. Well, Jackson is back out on the big screen this month in the movie “Snakes on a Plane”. Not a very creative name for movie if you ask me, but the people responsible for the marketing and PR have taken a more unique track - Personalised messages deilvered by the consumers in a hope to go viral.

There’s nothing new about the technology used over the internet and the phone lines, but points for the application and we at Accure got a kick out of sending it to all the people we know just to hear the different combinations Samuel put together. Even if you don’t go and see the movie (I won’t), you and your friends can at least say you heard about their marketing campaign.

I guess Hollywood needs to find a way to stay with their more agile and independant competition (who probably don’t need a camapign like this to sell tickets). Anyhoo, for a bit of fun, send a personalised Samuel L. Jackson message here.

Link via Random Culture

Coca-Cola has red-designed their whole flagship website. Random Culture points to it here and credits the handy work to AKQA. We believe this is an international push by Coke to re-position its brand an incorporate more user-generated content. This re-branding has been tied to the Coke Side of Life camapigns which has kicked off world wide for Coke. We believe it will hit Oz sometime soon. More at ClickZNews. Read more »

The latest in what is a great example of combining flash with video is the Vodaphone Journey.

The site is very well built, enticing, extremeley easy to navigate and despite the fact I had to use the low bandwidth version, it loaded like a gem.

We are told by random culture and Llamamelola.com that the site was built by North Kingdom. Well done!

No this is not a horse race but a quick note to let our readers and clients know what’s going on in the internet world of late and how some upcoming changes unleasehed by Microsoft may alter the interactve experience of our website and many other creative websites out there. It looks as though even Mr. Godin is having trouble with IE Read more »

The latest trendwatching feature delivers a detailed review of our ever increasing demand for information on the go. But if you’re thinking “information overload” then you couldn’t be further away from the truth…“this desire for relevant information is insatiable, and will soon move from the online world to the ‘real’ world to achieve true ubiquity. Get ready for a click-and-know, point-and-know, text-and-know, hear-and-know, smell-and-know, touch-and-know and snap-and-know world.”

Here we are going to preview some of the latest in smart codes, funny little graphical scribbles that is turning the somewhat unresponsive and undynamic real world into an eco-system of ready-to-know information that fuels the curiosity of info-lusters.

Here are some the codes we found amusing…check out the rest at the trendwatching.com

QRcode | While a barcode contains data in one direction only, QRcodes contain information in both vertical and horizontal directions, meaning they can hold a considerably greater amount of information. All the rage in Japan, 30 million Japanese already have special QR-code reading software installed on their cameraphones. With a single snapshot, the QR square’s information is decoded, directing the phone’s web browser to further details on a product: from a dedicated page to e-coupons to games to promotional videos.

mCode | And yet another one! In the US, Nextcode is pushing its mCode, a QR-like code that can be molded into any shape, including company logos. The codes connect to consumer-centric info, especially product info. Think codes on boarding passes linking to flight status, or codes on movie posters linking to a downloadable movie trailer.

SemaCode | Even more ‘open source INFOLUST’: semacodes. Like the aforementioned QRcodes, semacodes are two-dimensional matrix barcodes with embedded URLs. Using the Semacode Software Development Kit, any user can create visual tags for objects and contexts. Software running on another user’s phone will then deliver the appropriate mobile content. And because it’s an open system, anyone can create as many semacode tags for as many different URLs as they wish.

We support Make Poverty History, so it was fitting when we came across a fantastic online campaign for Oxfam.

Brand Kudos points us in the direction of the latest from a London based agency Daft London who put together a package that incorporated a bit of TV with Online to gain support for the cause. Play bit unfair here. It’s a fictional gameshow format where luck is always on the side of the rich, and never on the side of the poor. Very well built, with fantastic interactive use of video.

Are you in?