Coca-Cola and marketing agency Definition 6 recently set up a new viral campaign featuring ‘happiness’, free gifts, and a Coke Machine.

The special machine was placed on a college campus, and once students traded their coins for Coke, they got a little more than they originally expected.  Not only were they shocked and overjoyed to receive excess bottles of Coke from the vending machine, but they were also pleased to be given pizzas, animal balloons, flowers, and 20 foot subs from it as well.

Some students even showed their appreciation by hugging the machine while praising the world famous pop brand.

[Ed - After the students woke up from the sugar coma a few days later they went back and kicked the stupid thing in the head.]

Free food, drinks, presents, and publicity; it doesn’t get much better than this.

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Just in case you’re easily confused by customs regulations, the officials at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam have come up with a creative and comical guerrilla campaign meant to help.

What's inside?

As holiday passengers went to collect their luggage from their designated carousel, they were surprised to find ivory tusks, turtle crates, and coral reef boxes [traditionally banned items] mixed in amongst their suitcases and oversized surf boards.

Nothing says Merry Christmas like an ivory tusk

Each piece had a tag attached to it that read “Something to declare?  Please go to the red channel” [the red channel being the place to declare your questionable goods].

'Banned items'

Although they did something similar with crocodile tails protruding from suitcases in the past, it’s still a brilliant concept that grabs attention, and gets their point across.

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McDonalds and Cossette are really pumping out some creative advertising lately.  One of their latest includes this steamy Canadian bus shelter.

The bus shelter billboard features a lifelike cup of coffee that periodically expels steam and uncovers a hidden message saying “Your free coffee is ready.”

It’s simple, eye-catching, and effective. Wonder what’s next?! It almost doesn’t look like steam, but rather the entire SA cricket team toking on a giant bat and blowing the smoke via the cuppa.

YouTube: Link

McDonalds: newspaper posing as breakfast burrito
Wicked McDonalds breakfast campaign in Vancouver

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Follow the White Rabbit

In order to promote their four-hour reproduction of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, ‘Alice’ [with Kathy Bates as the Queen of Hearts], Syfy and Fallon came up with a massive campaign urging people to ‘follow the white rabbit’.

Promotion for 'Alice'

They did everything from street projection, to dressing up 50 white rabbits and parading them around the streets of Manhattan. They even used Twitter and the web, where viewers were able to follow the white rabbit from webpage to webpage before finally coming to the Syfy website for details about the shows. 

Talk about trying to keep people’s interests!  Looks like this one had a little bit of everything.

Website: Follow the white rabbit

YouTube: Link

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Next floor, divorce

Normally divorce is a very serious, cut, and dry subject.  So much so that you probably wouldn’t expect to find a creative and almost comical advertising campaign associated with the process. Perhaps then this is why this advertisement for a German divorce lawyer really stands out.

Printed on the front of the elevator doors stands a happy couple on their wedding day.  However, as the doors open, the couple separates from one another, and the logo for the divorce lawyer becomes visible at the back of the elevator wall.

It’s simple, to the point, and well executed.  Classic!

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Volkswagen has come up with a website revolving around their new and inspirational initiative called ‘The Fun Theory’. 

Basically, the whole concept focuses mainly on using innovative ideas in order to “change things for the better.” 

So far, they’ve posted three videos each expressing how simple it is to get people interested in doing mundane tasks, as long as you make them fun. 

This campaign is genius in so many ways.  Not only does it make Volkswagen [a car manufacturer of all things] look good environmentally, but it also does a brilliant job of demonstrating how simple it is to get people involved in these sorts of experiential activities.

Cant wait for their next instalment!

Website: The Fun Theory

YouTube Link: Bottle Bank Arcade
YouTube Link: Piano Stairs
YouTube Link: The World’s Deepest Bin

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Tastes like paper...

Recently, McDonalds teamed up with the Toronto Sun in order to promote their breakfast burrito.

The fast food giant had copies of the daily newspaper rolled up in promotional wrapping that made the publication look like a breakfast burrito.

Commuters making their way to the office [faux burritos in hand] would have gotten the attention of non-‘burrito’ carrying commuters, which may have inevitably caused them to check out if McDonalds was having a special, or a give-away that day.

Not a bad idea.

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Creative packaging by the Chocolate Company

Just in case being able to enjoy a nice mug of hot chocolate on a cold winter’s day wasn’t already enough, the European based Chocolate Company have now made the experience of drinking a hot chocolate even better with their ‘Hotchocspoon’.

In addition to having 46 tantalizing flavours such as praline & nougat, strawberry & pink pepper, and [get this] even seaweed, they’ve come up with a really simple yet funky packaging design that makes their product even more unique.

Chocolate Company - The Factory

Basically, instead of selling a traditional HC powder, the Chocolate Company has rather molded their product into individualized ice-cube shapes [stirring spoons with cool looking tags attached], and wrapped them up.

We love the extra touches to each chocolate base, especially the amaretto syringe.

Website: The Chocolate Company

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Sonia Rykiel and H&M team up for lingerie collection

In order to promote their new lingerie collection by designer Sonia Rykiel, H&M and Ubi Bene transformed two Paris Metro “ghost” train stations into huge branded experiences for the public to enjoy.

H&M Campaign

Passengers were able to witness the whole thing at the “Red Cross stations between Mabillion and Sevres-Babylone and St Martin, between Strasbourg-Saint-Denis and Republic” (Line 9&10).

The campaign included colourful lighting, curtained walls, in-house images by Solwe Sundsbo, and apparently a price tag of just under 1 million Euros.

H&M takes over Paris Metro

Although this sort ‘underground’ advertising has been done before, it’s still a nice change from the boring bubbled print ads seen inside most trains world-wide. It demands excitement and attention.

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An advert that makes you drool

Here’s one way to show the world that your product is desirable.  Royal Canin, the German dog food brand, and Heye & Partner have created this dual side by side advertising campaign in a pedestrian alley way somewhere in Hamburg, Germany. 

On one side they’ve posted a product shot of Royal Canin dog food, and on the other side they’ve posted a picture of a hungry dog. 

What makes this billboard is that the picture featuring the hungry dog is not just a boring old picture; this picture actually salivates onto the road.

The image itself is cute, and the overall concept is creative.  Suppose it would be a pity though if you saw it on a rainy day.

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