It's kind of scary to realize that 20 years have already passed since the fall of the Berlin Wall. 1989, looks like yesterday. I hope you haven't forgotten those days but if this is the case or if at the time you were too young or not even born I strongly suggest you to visit an educational website launched in Germany by the newspaper Berliner Morgenpost.

The website features a lot of content to remind us of an event that changed the history of the contemporary world. Photographs, videos, interactive animations explain us the end of the Cold War and the changes that have taken place in Berlin during the last 20 years.

No printing is necessary to activate Burger King's new augmented reality banner showcasing the fast food giant's Value menu. Viewers can hold up any old dollar bill to their web ams and get a taste of what the greenback can buy. They can also use their faces to make like The King.

via Creativity magazine

This is cool. Little animation about the Google street view drivers, using Google street view images.

October 24, the day the world runs in the second edition of the Nike+ Human Race. In Argentina, you can follow the race live thanks to an innovative idea that transforms selected runners' comments into text messages which get automatically published online.

On top of the smart use of technology I also like the PR power of this initiative as among the live tweeters during the race there is also a journalist who already has a good amount of followers on Twitter.

The race in Buenos Aires will begin at 16.00 local time. If you are GMT based it means in 40 minutes.
Get ready, watch it live here: http://thehumanrace.com.ar/envivo/

Vodafone New Zealand just released a great follow up on the successful AKQA Christmas wish. In stead of microwaves, they used 1000 cellphones to play Tchaikovsky's 1812 overture. It took 53 different ringtone alerts to recreate the famous classical piece. Continue reading for the making off..

13eme rue is a French Tv channel specialized in thriller, action and supense. They just launched a provocative site which, for information and warning, is rated 16+.
You start by hiring a professional killer (I suggest Monika or Oliver...) to kill one of your friend ...

You give details and a picture of your target, and one of yourself. You will then be able to watch the violent execution, as the site allows a movie personalization, via a 3D integration of the picture.
Your victim receive a mail with a link to the site, and after he has watched the video, he is invited to investigate who is behind this crime, and can possibly release a new sequence.

To celebrate its 40th anniversary Pritt has launched in The Netherlands a website that aims at engaging kids in crafts. The design nice as it reproduces paper, scissors and all the small tools and gadgets you can use to create your own small artworks.

The website is targeted to a very young audience, so voiceover plays an important part in the storytelling. To be honest I'm (slightly) out of target to fully appreciate it, but I definitely like the gimmick on the homepage that allows you to play music by moving the decorations.

Martini Netherlands released this entertaining film, featuring some pretty people having their 'Martini Moments'. Interesting is the fact that it is a web only film, which is still pretty unique in Holland. When distributed right, such film can set the emotion around your brand, which can be very valuable. Hope to see more..

Music is by Dutch singer Caro Emerald.

Via DutchCowboys

I'm a big fa of Yves Saint Laurent so I definitely have to post about the manifesto they have recently launched. It's an online video experience, pretty rock and unexpected I would say that take us through the shooting of the Fall/Winter advertising campaign in an engaging way.

It's a video that mixes campaign images with behind the scenes shots offering a rather emotional dive in the world of YSL.

The title of this post could apply to a lot of situations. But this time we stick to the easiest link: garbage we produce in our daily life as consumers. Let's face it, it's a lot. It's a monster quantity, bigger than a human being. But this amount of garbage can be reduced if only we start thinking before buying our goods. So let's have a look at the campaign launched in France by DDB Paris to teach consumers a smart behavior in order to produce less garbage and create a "smaller monster".

There's a lot of buzz today around the Editors smart use of Google Street Views to promote their new album In This Light And On This Evening. The whole thing is pretty simple: on their official website you can explore the streets of London that inspired their songs and consequently preview the tracks.

While browsing around visitors can also experience a series of beautiful stills by James Royall. These photos are usually not available on Google Street View and provide Editor's fan with unique access to the band around London at night.

I very much like the idea of integrating real and virtual life. But to be honest, my feeling about this execution is "smart, cool, well done" but not "wow" in the sense that this kind of wise approach to digital tools should be the norm (and maybe it's beginning to be the norm) and not the "wow" exception. What do you think?

via Creative Review

Tagging it #interactivemonday, Kubus shared a very nice online media campaign from France to promote a new crime TV series called Braquo. Two special execution, one on Youtube, and one on MSN homepage that prove really impactful.

I know this kind of stuff might be quite expensive from a media buying point of view, but at this point I'm quite convinced that either you create online media that make the difference, or you just invest your money somewhere else. Let's be brave, let's be (very) rich (media)

Pt 2 of Birds Vs Humans this afternoon. I was delivered a locked wooden box which had a tag on the front that asked me to revisit the website. Once I did that I was given a code to unlock the box. Inside was a stack of fresh apples and a cooler filled with ice and bottles of the new cider 5 Seeds. The facebook page also had further content uploaded revealing the creative idea behind all the hype. Cool hype campaign and looks like the production values are huge! The agency is Holler.

In Japan, Shisheido has launched a website featuring an interactive manga to connect with its young consumers. It's a kind of a weird experience for a Western European consumer as I am, but it's pretty interesting to see how beauty communication changes from country to country.

To me, it's quite unusual to see a website for a beauty product without a single photo but again, it's a good lesson to learn. For global brands one size (one tone of voice/visual style) doesn't fit all.

Remember when automotive CEOs went to Washington DC asking for loans? This website called "Shocking Barack" from Brammo powercycles seeks to redo the same route but instead of asking for aid, they will try to show President Obama a proposal based on electric energy as a feasible solution to the transportation crisis. So this site is to follow the trip (starting tomorrow) and asking people to spread the word and collaborate if possible with a place to stay or to charge the vehicles, go check it out or follow them on Twitter.

(via @bogusky and a post of his)

Robinsons Drinks is one of the most famous juice brands in the UK, and now they're looking for a star making auditions all over the place. This website, "Put on a panto", is a fantastic place to start your rehearsing, with beautiful content and animations done by Pirata London for BBH London.

I liked this one by Tribal DDB London for the new Volkswagen Polo, what does it take to be considered timeless? Assuming that the car has been built under that idea, the site VW Timeless Polo collects different options from worlds such as fashion, food, design, music and television for people to choose what do they consider the 50 of them that will become as timeless as the car, so it's a good way to rediscover lots of time and history.

Funny site done by Dachis Group (a company that optimizes businesses through technology) for themselves, all the current activity within their offices is monitorized and published in their home page, such as blog posts, reading emails, twitterings, and so on.

Luli Fernandez is one of the most beautiful stars in argentinean television and now she's also starring on this website called "Sin pelo no es lo mismo" ("without hair it isn't the same) done by BBDO Argentina for Head and Shoulders shampoo (emphazising the hair protection factor), where you have to pick the right lines to get a date with her.

Nicely done and making a good use of 3D sound, what a pity it's only in spanish, would be nice if there was an english version or at least some subtitles to get its audience bigger.

MySkyStatus is a fine website-app by Profero NY that sends altitude, location, departure and arrival updates to your FB or Twitter account from the different flights you choose (in any airline). Ideal for those people who have to pick other people up at airports. Wouldn't be nice a mobile app for this?

"In bed" is a wonderful and well-crafted site on a non-easy subject as it is erectile dysfunction. Through a series of beautiful animations we can follow a man's journey from being so troubled because of his problem to become a self-confident guy with no problems at all in this field anymore.

Probably you remember this fantastic work that was released almost a year ago for the new Mario game for Nintendo Wii. One of the most interesting things about it (beyond its quality) consists on the category schizophrenia under which this piece was submitted to festivals. It's a banner, but also a viral intended video, or a landing page or even an online branded content... but in the end, who cares about that?

Now, that was the first thing i thought when i saw a new website continuing the adventures of White Gold and Got Milk?, the one where Goodby Silverstein & Partners and Hi-ReS! have teamed up to create the first opera rock about milk: The Battle for Milkquarious, an hilarious and insightful (about milk) movie with new stories coming from the trip of White Tiger trying to save his beloved Strawberry Summers and finally discovering a terrible secret (LOL)

Besides that, there's plenty of information and stuff on how to relive each scene, making-off, and so on, in a fantastic experience even though it's not very much interactive, but the film is so great that does anybody care?

As in previous cases such as this one and this other one, "Battle for Milkquarious" is an online film shown under a URL instead of being in a video website, and i spent like twenty minutes in it because it was entertaining enough as to catch my attention that long, even if i don't know, again, the category of that.

Ok - so I walked in this morning and found a WW2 artillary case on my desk. Inside was a rolled up note saying Adverblog. Your kind needs you. www.birdsvshumans.com.au/nointeractive It also contained some creepy photos of people all beaten up, a birds nest, feathers and eggs and some paper bark. The link took me to a customised teaser vid that looks kind of like the Blair Witch Project - weird!! The box had a tag on it that said - More to follow. A whois check on the domain owner revealed nothing... I guess I will have to wait until package two arrives. I love a good teaser...

JWT's Ty Montague and Big Spaceship's Michael Lebowitz are co-chairing 2010 Andy Awards, and with those two places taken, the rest of them are going to be chosen by public ballot. Go visit the site and vote for 5 of the already nominees or nominate your own candidates. A lot of names up 'til know, many of them not coming from the ad world, might be interesting what the final result is gonna be.

You can also follow the twitter account or post under the #electthejury hashtag to get things going for all the people involved, good luck to all nominees :)

In the first years of this decade, DoubleYou released an interesting project for Audi in Spain called Attitudes, Audi's commitment to protect the environment and enforcing road safety education in schools, so that's the context in which i can explain this new project from Volkswagen in Sweden called Rolighetsteorin ("the theory of fun")

Yesterday this video dropped into my inbox and although is absolutely fantastic seeing people interact with the stairs, resembling that Tom Hanks' famous scene from "Big", just because i know a few words in swedish i didn't get the point about the relationship between Volkswagen and the whole thing.

Luckily, there was a link taking me to the site of the campaign (english translation), where i understood that, a campaign trying to make people happier as happy people is more disposed to change things for the better. Go and visit the site, there are some other funny videos as well, cute.

(agency is Tribal DDB Stockholm)

The exceptional Gustavo Dudamel has been appointed as new Music Director at LA Philarmonic Orchestra, and what a better thing to do than making people available the passion of conducting an orchestra in a Guitar Hero style. That is the highlight of this microsite called "Bravo Gustavo", where you can also download an app from the AppStore that makes your iPhone a baton.

Funny way of engaging people with classical music using state-of-the-art technologies, the work done by Hello Design.

Absolut is one of the brands that better understands the concept of branded content, and this new site for their "Rock edition" vodka bottle, called "You're with the band", is another proof of that: a documentary made by Danny Clinch on how's the life of a rock band such as Wolfmother (site by Great Works)

In the UK the government has launched an online campaign to encourage more children to study maths and science.

It's a smart educational project, with a rare and strong practical focus. The website shows a series of cool aspirational jobs (from game developer to snowboard designer to food technologist) while describing the educational path to start those careers. I like it because it wants children to think (at least for a couple of seconds :) in order to realize the variety and breadth of careers that science and maths qualifications can lead to.

The team at Holler Sydney have created an iPhone app that is basic (as far as apps go) but huge as far as the environment goes. Just download it and do it... type Vote Earth into iTunes. It's free!!

Steak restaurant Maloney & Porcelli aren't the cheapest restaurant in New York. They have come up with this fun and useful tool to get your bill past your expenses department at work. You simply enter the amount of your bill and click download and it gives you a pdf of mixed reciets from generic retailers. Sweet! Steak tonight!!!

Are looking for more cool interactive ideas? Check the archives