In this month’s edition of First Fridays, we introduce you to Dave Brown, Director of Digital Strategy at MKG, an experiential marketing firm that’s sparking some of the most exciting connections between brands and consumers today. When he’s not designing imaginative online executions for top tier clients, you can find him writing at Holiday Matinee, his blog on creative inspiration that receives 90k visitors a month. Read on for Dave’s thoughts on modern entrepreneurism, the best arts non-profit you might not know about, and why you should be suspect of anyone who declares themself a “social media expert.”
It’s become all too easy to capture an elegant photograph. That’s not to say that professional photographers are in danger of being supplanted entirely by Instagrammers. However, the bar for what defines an impressive photo is continually elevating—which might be why illustration, an art form that’s harder to fake, is emerging as the visual mode du jour among consumers and marketers alike. It’s time to get scribblin’.
Draw Something: No one has gotten kicked off of a plane for refusing to take a break from it (yet) but, just six weeks after launching, Draw Something has already earned a massive league of addicts—30 million of them. The new social mobile game, which is currently the top downloaded game in the iTunes store, is a digital version of Pictionary that leverages a smartphone’s touchscreen. As game creator/OMGPOP CEO Dan Porter noted during a CNET interview, the title stands out in the cluttered game space not only because it forces players to stretch their right brain muscles but also because its strategy hinges on “the mechanics of relationships between people.”
Kids today rack up charges on their parents’ iTunes accounts, but children of the ’80s, too, had ways to spend surreptitiously. When unsuspecting moms and dads weren’t getting solicited by collection agencies for unpaid Columbia House bills, they were being billed by hotlines advertised during Saturday morning cartoon blocks. Tapping into nostalgia for said hotlines, a rash of creative projects has people using their phones for more than texting and apps.
VFILES Toll-Free Hotline: Glossy V Magazine has been artfully, and intelligently, covering fashion and popular culture for 13 years. This spring, V is launching VFILES, a new social media platform “for the image obsessed.” As a teaser for the forthcoming aesthetics archive, the V team created a VFILES hotline (1-855-MYV-3800) that prospective readers can call to get a taste of the types of content one might expect. Press 1 to hear new exclusive music tracks (artists include Brooklyn MC Zebra Katz). Press 2 for party listings (including one that suggests wearing waterproof shoes…?). And, press 3 for what’s hot (Madonna, Red Bull, chunky highlights) and what’s not (Monsanto, neon tracksuits, Monroe piercings).
A recent study may have debunked the theory that delivering CPR to the beat of “Stayin’ Alive” improves the life-saving technique’s effectiveness, yet lately disco has been getting the most airtime since its ‘demolition’ in Chicago’s Comiskey Park more than 30 years ago. Across the country, from Brooklyn to Portland, the ghost of Studio 54 is haunting dance floors and rock clubs alike.
Escort: Fans holding tickets to an Escort live show are advised to leave the polyester at home. Besides the fact that the maligned hallmark of ’70s fashion is something that bandleader Eugene Cho is happy to leave behind, it’s nowhere near breathable enough for the sweaty dance party that inevitably ensues. Known as “Brooklyn’s finest disco orchestra,” the 17-member band of boogie has been releasing singles and performing in and around the borough for the past five years, yet only recently released its first official album. Given previous incarnations of the group, it’s unfortunate that they weren’t included on the soundtrack of a certain puppet movie currently in theatres.
Sponsored events at last week’s 10th annual Art Basel Miami Beach gave attendees a chance to discover new art outside the confines of the Convention Center. Rather than aggressively pushing their own products, this new style of event marketing delivered brand messaging to today’s media savvy consumers by simply, subtly, underwriting the arts. Here are three who did it right:
Smart: The rapid recent expansion of Art Basel Miami has been complemented by a bevy of satellite art fairs all over the city. One, the Gen Art Detour lounge at the Scope Art Fair, provided a relaxing environment in which visitors could escape the exhaustive elbow rubbing of the Basel crowds. In true Gen Art form, the work of emerging artists was featured in an innovative branding collaboration with Smart. The artists created custom wraps for a fleet of Smart cars that were on display, and guests had the opportunity to embellish the automotive canvases, too. Could this idea of original car coverings inspire new looks for the Toyota Fun Vii?
