Cherryflava

Puma promotes biking with i-Cycle movies

Posted on 30. Jun, 2008 by Jonathan Cherry.

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With pertrol going up another 80 cents per litre this week, cycling has suddenly become rather trendy.
To promote their association with the two-wheel revolutionary movement, Puma have produced 5 different pro-bike short films, which you can check out here.

Each movie is about 5 minutes long, and remind us a bit of those old BMW films – but just a bit greener and more affordable. Here in SA, we’re probably a few more fuel hikes away from total bicycle love. A few more cycle lanes and dedicated parking areas at shopping malls wouldn’t hurt however.

[via]

Ikea thinks ‘out of the box’

Posted on 27. Jun, 2008 by Jonathan Cherry.

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Ikea have done an amazing job of creating a brand that everybody considers when needing good quality cheap and cheerful furniture. We don’t even have Ikea in South Africa, but we’re still well aware of the brand even without mainstream advertising.

This guerrilla stunt using balconies in Frankfurt, which were made to look like storage boxes, is a cracker. In Europe, where space is at a premium – your balcony really does turn into valuable storage space. In South Africa it’s often regarded as a convenient location for laundry [shudder]. [via]

Another guerrilla action they recently did was for their store opening in Brooklyn, NY – where this 20×20 box ‘apartment’ was left lying around. The box was packed with Ikea furniture, demonstrating what can be done furniture-wise with a small space. [Via ]

New technology that’s going to make you want to kill somebody

Posted on 26. Jun, 2008 by Jonathan Cherry.

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This gentleman may look like a demented IRA terrorist starring in a Tarrantino movie, but the devise he’s fooling around with is far more dangerous than any nickel-plated .45.

This gun-like camera thing is called an Image Fulgurator. It is a device for physically manipulating photographs. It intervenes when a photo is being taken, without the photographer being able to detect anything. The manipulation is only visible on the photo afterwards.

In principle, the Fulgurator can be used anywhere where there is another camera nearby that is being used with a flash. It
operates via a kind of reactive flash projection that enables an image
to be projected on an object exactly at the moment when someone else is
photographing it. Every photo another photographer takes of an object at which the Fulgurator is also aimed is affected by the manipulation. Hence visual information can be smuggled unnoticed into the images of others.

Just imagine if every tourist photograph of Table Mountain had a ghostly Vodacom logo embedded in the bottom right hand corner of it – just in the name of advertising.
Crappy is not the right word for it, but no doubt some idiot will see merit in the concept and spam us all.

[via]

Nederburg has a wine label that you can take home with you

Posted on 25. Jun, 2008 by Jonathan Cherry.

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On a recent winetasting at Nederburg, we spotted a small innovation which at the time seemed rather clever.
A small tab on the back of the bottle can easily be removed by guest of a party, or diners at a restaurant who want to remember the name of the nice wine they had at ‘that thing we went to’.

The idea is that you’ll rip the tab off and keep it in your wallet for when you’re staring blankly at the vast selection at the bottle store. At which point you’ll whip out the reminder and once again indulge in you’re long lost favourite.

Useful, unless you have a cameraphone, which you can just use to snap a quick picture of the bottle. But maybe the typical Nederburg target market doesn’t necessary make much use of mobile technology.

How the airports profit from your lateness

Posted on 24. Jun, 2008 by Jonathan Cherry.

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After reading this Forbes article – we can’t seem to get the image of greedy airport officials rubbing their hands together with glee behind darkened one-way glass, everytime there’s a nasty snarl up at the airport [which just seems to happen with disturbing frequency these days].

Think about it – your flight gets delayed, first thing you do is head to the Premier lounge and drown your sorrows in a bath tub of coffee and high-sugar cakes. Scheduled departure time axed – so too 5 pints of Guiness draft at the dodgy O’Hagens.
If everything ran like it should, the need for airport hospitality and retail wouldn’t exist.

Crafty buggers may just be behind these all of this recent airport mayhem, just to add a few more zeros onto their commercial bottomline.

Read: How airports profit from your wait – Forbes

When the French really want to get serious about road safety…they call on…

Posted on 20. Jun, 2008 by Jonathan Cherry.

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In South Africa, when the authorities want to remind you that driving while blind drunk is ill advised, we get a soccer star with a past record of poor driving to mumble a few words of encouragement and that’s called a PSA [or Public Service Announcement].

In France, they call in their big guns and dial the number of Karl Lagarfeld to pose in a yellow bib and a feminine tux.
The French text roughly translates to: ‘It’s yellow, it’s ugly, it doesn’t go with anything, but it could save your life.’
Consider yourself warned.

[via Gawker]

What kids get up to if you don’t maintain their toys

Posted on 20. Jun, 2008 by Jonathan Cherry.

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Copy: Never let their toys die – The world’s longest lasting battery

Energizer apparently make batteries that will prevent your kids from starring in the next Jackass movie.
When our toys ran out of juice, we used to throw Mike’s Kitchen peppermints at the security guards in the Golden Acre. Ahhhh – those were the days.
Birthday parties also always seemed to end with thousands of acorns being hurled at an opposing enemy and a late afternoon trip to the eye doctor.

BTW – these ads just won a Press Grand Prix for DDB SA at Cannes on Wednesday.

More: Biz-community

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Needed in Cape Town – a car vending machine

Posted on 19. Jun, 2008 by Jonathan Cherry.

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How often have you….late at night, after a few too many drinks….forgotten where you’ve parked your car and desperately need another to drive to the next party?

Well, in Japan [where else] Smart cars are now available from vending machines in Toyko.

Ok, so it’s not really a fully functional vending machine, but instead an ambient-type marketing campaign that does dispense a branded tube containing pamphlets on
the new models, dealer information, and a sheet of Smart Car stickers
featuring the available colors.

It’s an idea that we’re sure generates even more reaction much later at night after a couple of dozen Jägerbombs have been flowing.

More: Smart Vendor car vending machine in Shibuya – CScout Japan

Nike PhotoID: Nike will customise you a pair of takkies based on your cellphone snaps

Posted on 18. Jun, 2008 by Jonathan Cherry.

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Do you like taking random pictures of ’stop’ signs with your camera phone? Then hey…maybe you’d care to also wear a pair of red and white Nike High Tops which also look a bit like a road sign.
Or you might like the subtle hues of a particular example of graffiti and have fantasies about turning that inspiration into a shoes design.
Well that’s the answer Nike got when they added: product customisation + camera phone + MMS technology.

Nike fans will be able to create their own trainers based on
colourful pictures they take on a camera phone in an innovative
pan-European mobile marketing campaign by the sportswear giant.

The
new service, called Nike PhotoiD, aims to tap into the habits of the
digital generation and the "growing expectations of consumers to
customise their lives".

Nike PhotoiD employs technology that analyses the dominant colours of pictures taken on mobile phones.

The footwear design can be saved as mobile wallpaper or sent to a
friend, and they can also buy a pair of the personalised shoes.

Alas the service is only available in Europe at the moment, but the regional office of Nike is on the same floor as the Cherryflava HQ – so perhaps we’ll pop in for a cuppa tea over there and find out when we’re gonna be able to snap and shop too.

More: Nike Launches MMS PhotoiD Campaign For Trainers – Digital lifestyles
Nike launches snappy mobile campaign – Guardian.co.uk

[thanks Kate]

The next big thing in personal transportation – an airplane for just over R1m

Posted on 17. Jun, 2008 by Jonathan Cherry.

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Imagine having your very own plane, that you could jump in and go…say, to Zimbabwe for the weekend. Sure you may have problems taking off again without any fuel and with a giant hole in your head courtesy of an AK-47 gunshot, but at least you’ve got the option.

That’s what the makes of the Ikon hope to offer you, for just $139 000. Their small sports plane is also small enough to fold up and transport over the border on a trailer ala James Bond Octopussy-style, which impresses us most.