13.01.14

This Week...Print tweet ad, double grill, interactive print ad, heroic women, shark tweeting

Print tweet adCBS

Double GrillRestaurant in Yekaterinburg

Interactive print adMoto X

Heroic WomenMicrosoft

Shark tweetingSurf Live Saving WA

Last Saturday, the print edition of the New York Times carried a full-page ad for the movie Inside Llewyn Davis with a single tweet by A.O. Scott, a film critic for the newspaper. While he tweeted the words of praise for the film's soundtrack, the version of the tweet quoted by the movie's studio, CBS Films, while mocked up to look like a real tweet, actually omitted his first sentence, which mentioned competing movies The Wolf of Wall Street and American Hustle.

As a publicity stunt, it worked: Even Scott himself marvelled at the idea that a tweet could become an ad, as did many others.

CBS Films publicist Grey Munford did not respond to a request for comment from ReadWrite, but he seemed aware of the controversy: On Twitter, he retweeted a couple of tweets about the controversy and Scott's reaction. Scott, asked if he gave permission for the tweet's use, was cryptic: "Kind of.”

Print tweet adCBS

Print tweet adCBS

Double GrillRestaurant in Yekaterinburg

A steak restaurant in Yekaterinburg/Russia uses a billboard to promote their flame-broiled steaks by setting the entire billboard on fire.

In a tease and reveal campaign, the billboard starts off as a large photograph of a raw steak, with no branding. But one night, a pair of men dressed in chef outfits and armed with a flamethrower set the billboard alight along eight lines, mimicking the effects of flame-grilling.

After the stunt, a panel was revealed showing details of the restaurant.

Interactive print adMoto X

A new type of interactive print ad for 2014 that doesn’t use QR codes.

Running in 150,000 New York and Chicago editions of January's Wired magazine, the ad lets readers change the colour of the handset on display by tapping controls located at the bottom of the page. The ad uses paper-thin components including a battery, LEDs and a keyboard-like button to achieve this.

There are mixed opinions about whether or not this is truly innovative or a high cost gimmick which is unlikely to be replicated. Most are happy that there is an alternative to QR codes though!

Heroic WomenMicrosoft

Instead of just copying Google Zeitgeist with the top searched terms for 2013, Microsoft did something different for Bing.They made a video about inspiring women of 2013.

In Western Australia, the region with the distinction of having the most shark attacks in the world, more than 300 sharks have been outfitted with acoustic transmitters that signal when the animals are heading close to the beach. When they get within one kilometer, the Surf Life Saving Western Australia twitter account will automatically send out a Tweet that includes the location, size, breed, and distance from the shore.

SkyNews reports that the system is a faster warning system than radio and newspaper, and makes it easier for patrollers to monitor high-risk areas.The unique alert system is an extension of Western Australia’s Shark Monitoring Network, which tries to improve beach safety in addition to studying the movement of white sharks.

Shark InternetSurf Life Saving WA

Shark TweetingSurf Life Saving WA