brandflakesforbreakfast

this week at Plaid

2009-07-18T10:58:00.004-04:00

Here's what happened this week at the world's most Plaidtastic creative agency:

PlaidNation, PlaidNation, PlaidNation, PlaidNation! The annual Plaid summer tour kicks off on Monday, and preparation is in full effect. I'm in Detroit transforming the Plaid Ford Flex into a social media juggernaut. The graphics have been installed, webcams installed, swag has arrived, and we are ready to kick off the most bitchin' Plaid tour that the nation has ever seen.

Bloggers are picking up on the tour and writing awesome things, and the press is beginning to get tuned in too. The Fairfield County Business Journal stopped by Plaid offices to shoot pics of the crew before they left for tour.

Back at the homefront, new client Banfi Vintners sent a few cases of Riunite and Rosa Regale for the crew to taste, taste again, and then taste once more. Needless to say there will be quite a few wine tastings in Plaid's near future. Stop by if you're in the hood and we'll poor you a glass of our best.

Meanwhile, we've hired a new Plaid recruit. She'll be starting when we return from tour, and we can't wait to introduce you. Plaid just continues to fill our office with awesome talent and you're going to love the newest member of the Plaid team.

Have a great weekend of rest and be watching Monday as the PlaidNation kicks into high gear!

everyday brand decisions

2009-07-17T07:30:00.001-04:00

(Cross-posting this from the Plaid tour blog - because I'm lazy, and I thought you might appreciate it.)

Sometimes the difference between brand awesomeness and brand ridiculousness are the simplest decisions.

While on tour, we're getting to experience both. When we hit Kanasas City, we'll get to stay in the luxurious Q Hotel and Spa (a PlaidNation sponsor), who could teach many hoteliers a lesson in brand awesomeness. And we're counting down the days until the Q.

But until then...we're learning brand and customer experience lessons the hard way:

On some random day somewhere, some person with Soooper 8 made a decision. Was it to spend fifty cents more and supply guests with towels that aren't made from sandpaper? Nope. Was it to put a respectable sign on the elevator? Nope.

This decision involved the experience that a guest might have in the bathroom. Not soaps. Not shampoo or other niceties. Somebody said "we can add your logo to this $2 faucet, if you want", and then a Soooper 8 employee replied "absolutely."

Here's proof that branding is more than your old logo on crappy equipment. It's little decisions that affect your customer's experience every day. Thanks, Soooper 8, but I really would have preferred the non-sandpaper bath towel.

just what you needed: a new twitter tool!

2009-07-17T07:20:00.001-04:00

There's a brand new Twitter tool in town. And because you deserve the latest and greatest, you'll need to try it out. Tweet3 is web based - so you don't have to download anything.

It's simplicity is pretty refreshing. You should check it out too. (It's Friday - it's not like you're going to get any work done today, anyway.) From Make the Logo Bigger

an actual useful augmented reality app

2009-07-16T07:20:00.001-04:00

Here's an augmented reality app for your iPhone that helps you locate the nearest subway station. Cool. Useful. Not a total waste of a download.

It's great that augmented reality is growing out of the novelty stage and into the useful stage. From Waxy.

not your everyday fashion blog

2009-07-16T07:13:00.001-04:00

Here's a unique take on a fashion blog.

The Unknown Hipster documents his thoughts and adventures in the fashion world. Instead of the usual iPhone shots that grace most fashion blogs, the Unknown Hipster illustrates everything. Really entertaining writing alongside fantastic illustration reminds you that not all blogs need to be the same.

Oh yeah - if you weren't already hip to the fact, skinny shorts are the rage for guys this summer. Illustration above for reference. From Urban Outfitters

make your kids geeks, too

2009-07-16T07:01:00.001-04:00

Tired of your local tourism board running those stupid "staycation" spots? Looking for something that suits your geek lifestyle for vacation? Check this out: Wired's GeekDad lists 100 Geeky Places to Take Your Kids This Summer.

Some of the items are kind of standard summer spots, but others are totally geekalicious. Like DragonCon. And Atomium.

(Future geeks = more internet for all of us.)

that blockhead is a freak

2009-07-15T06:18:00.002-04:00

Ever wonder what Charlie Brown might look like as an actual human being? You can stop losing sleep over it. Yeesh.

buddha inspired phones. for when karma calls.

2009-07-15T06:05:00.001-04:00

Check out this Buddhalicious collection of phones featured on If It's Hip It's Here.

And these aren't just novelty phones. One comes with TWO cameras - one on the front and one on the back, with two SIM cards. Apple - time for some spirituality?

send this to that girl who writes code

2009-07-15T05:54:00.001-04:00

A wonderous song devoted entirely to girls. Who write code. "Feels like my first LOL." Nice.

stuff you can do with a sharpie

2009-07-14T07:39:00.001-04:00

If you work in the creative industry, chances are there's always a Sharpie within an arm's reach. So we're appreciative of what you can do with the magic markers.

The Future of Ads has an outstanding post on how the new Sharpie site works to transform their brand from a product brand into a lifestyle brand, why the campaign works, and the pros and cons to such an approach. Beautious analysis. And the sweet work on Uncapped will have you drawing on everything you own.

you make your own choices

2009-07-14T07:28:00.001-04:00

Here's a fun choose your own path adventure that you can play out on YouTube. The series educates viewers on why you don't really need to carry a knife around, or get in knife fights. (Unless of course, you work in advertising.)

This is great work that will suck your time away, and all for an educational non-profit cause. Thanks, Lee!

the changing face of the streets

2009-07-14T07:13:00.001-04:00

A new book Store Front: The Disappearing Face of New York chronicles the changing face of retail's facade in NYC.

And you can see select work from the book on display at the Clic Gallery in NYC tomorrow through the end of August. Cool. From Eyebeam.

people helping people. with an email list.

2009-07-13T07:46:00.001-04:00

Chris Heuer announces the formation of Help A Community Organizer Out. (You can call it HACOO, and people will think you're cool.)

Help A Community Organizer Out is a mailing list modeled after Help a Reporter Out, and is geared toward helping organizations and people to connect with sponsors, volunteers and individuals who can help make events happen.

It's the social media community coming together to help build massively awesome tweetups, yo.

tweets, animated like peaceful waves of tweet bliss

2009-07-13T07:34:00.000-04:00

This is how I would like to fall asleep. Watching tweets come in and blow away, like grains of sand. Visible, moving tweets.

Visible Tweets lets you search any keyword and watch an animated stream of tweets devoted to the search. Here's what a search on "plaidnation" looks like.

AWESOME, AWESOME, AWESOME. You should project this in your lobby, or at your trade show booth. From Make the Logo Bigger.

what you can do with your old cassettes

2009-07-13T07:31:00.001-04:00

Back in the olden days, people recorded music onto devices not too unlike your iPods of today. Only these devices needed to be played in a larger device, and they could only hold one album or playlist per device. These devices were called cassettes.

Now, you can archive them and enjoy their history (thanks, Joe Snow!) - OR - you can use them to create linear art. Art Backwash shows the entire process for creating Sinatra, pictured above.

people in california get all of the fun

2009-07-13T07:21:00.000-04:00

Check out Scott Beale's photos of his visit to Sand by the Ton, the Grand Opening of The Big Art Studios at American Steel building in Oakland.

Yeah - indoor beaches, pools, tesla coils, buskers, painters, sculptors, and bands. You'll want to live in this place. Well, if you don't mind getting sand in all of your stuff.

this week at Plaid

2009-07-11T19:21:00.003-04:00

Here's what happened this week at the world's most Plaidtastic creative agency:

Final preparations are being made for the third annual Plaid tour, PlaidNation. Our vehicle prep crew leaves for the tour next week, and the tour kicks off in just EIGHT DAYS!

The theme song to PlaidNation '09 was released on iTunes! The song was produced for us by the greatest band that ever existed, Pop Heroes. We had offers from Cold Play, MGMT, U2 and Lady Gaga, but turned them all down.

Bloggers are starting to pick up on the tour, too. You can see what the blogging superstars are writing about PlaidNation, on the tour dashboard.

If you have a blog (and if you don't, why not start one?) and you write a post about PlaidNation, we'll send you some sweet Plaid swag!

We started working with a couple of new exciting clients - Banfi Vintners and Sikorsky Financial Credit Union. Expect that we'll be drunk on Riunite and giving out financial advice real soon.

We've completed interviews for an open position that we'd like to call the boss of everything. Sara had to leave this position due to illness, and it's been a tough road without her. We'll be making a cool announcement in this department real soon.

This weekend Plaidsters will be attempting to enjoy a summer weekend, even though the northeast has traded weather with Seattle. Maybe next week, we'll actually see summer.

maybe you could do this with some free time and an olympus camera

2009-07-10T07:32:00.000-04:00

60,000 pictures. 9,600 developed prints. 1,800 shot pictures and absolutely no post production. Whoah. That's one sweet stop motion masterpiece to promote the Olympus PEN.

(What happened to his wife and kid??)

darth vader gets cute

2009-07-10T07:26:00.002-04:00

Star Wars chicks are going to freak for this. Only 1,644 of these exist, and they're being sold at Comic-Con San Diego now through July 26th.

10% of the retail sales price goes to Susan G. Komen for the Cure® with a minimum guaranteed donation of $5,000. Get it for your girlfriend to justify the travel expense for a comic book conference halfway across the country. Or just get it for yourself and be all like "what...it's Darth. You got a problem with that??"

From If It's Hip It's Here.

are you ready for the swedish military?

2009-07-10T07:12:00.001-04:00

This site for the Swedish Armed Forces feels very much like a well produced console game. Incredible set design, beautiful Flash work and a series of puzzles that somehow confirm whether or not you're Armed Forces ready.

Clearly, I am not ready for the Swedish Armed Forces. Several failed puzzles and ultimately too short of an attention span to complete the test. You'll certainly do better. Thanks, Devon!

beauty made from ugly

2009-07-09T07:59:00.001-04:00

When we grow up, we're going to build an entire city out of shipping containers. These ugly steel boxes continue to inspire architects to produce wonderful things with them.

Check out this art center in Korea. And the inside is as awesome as the outside! Nice.

some more twitter facts for your powerpoint deck

2009-07-09T07:52:00.001-04:00

News from the Herd points us to loads of new Twitter factoids, graphs and trends.

Go ahead and include all of this stuff in your next PowerPoint deck to the boss. She'll think you're a twitteriffic superstar.

facebook fan pages now embeddable everywhere

2009-07-09T07:41:00.001-04:00

Plaid on Facebook

Facebook just announced a cool new feature for marketers - embeddable fan boxes. Now you can embed your Facebook fan page into other sites. This gives brands more freedom to utilize (and share) their Facebook presence. This brings your Facebook presence outside of the walls of Facebook, and shows your non-Facebook fans what they're missing on the inside.

Smart. This will be interesting to experiment with, and explore the possibilities.

the blog replaces associate press

2009-07-09T07:38:00.000-04:00

Andy Sernovitz points out an interesting development he noticed when Google announced their new operating system yesterday. They did so with a blog post. One of the largest technology companies in the world announced a new product that affects one of the other largest technology companies in the world - potentially big news - and they announced it in a blog post.

Andy thinks that traditional news organizations should be freaking out. (We have a feeling that many already were.)

outdoor ads that know you're there

2009-07-08T07:50:00.000-04:00

To promote the Nikon D700 camera, agency Cheil Worldwide created some fun lightboxes in the connecting passageway between the Seoul Sindorim Subway Station and a shopping mall.

When pedestrians walk by the ad, sensors note their presence, and bulbs from the paparazzi begin flashing. The effect is further complimented by the installation of a red carpet in front of the ad, which leads followers to the Nikon store within the mall.