"No More Awkward Turns"... brilliant!

On my flight back from NY last night, I saw this wonderful print ad for the Dyson Ball vacuum cleaner.  When a new product has a truly revolutionary design, it makes the work of advertising so simple and powerful...

More augmented reality applications

After our Doritos augmented reality case in Brazil, I received e-mails from friends with other real cool applications using the same technology.

James Maul, from Joinville, sent me the story of this new iPhone application from Acrossair - a service that helps people locate subway lines in New York and San Francisco...

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My friend Stuart Meyler told me about a Japanese company called Tonchidot that developed an amazing social augmented reality mobile location-based service called Sekai Camera. The application merges the virtual and real world by using a digital device as a viewfinder. Take a look at a video presented at TechCrunch...

A Movement to save the neighborhood café

One of the best stories I heard last week was about how neighbors got together to save a Brooklyn café from bankruptcy.  The café, called Vox Pop, is not an ordinary coffee shop but a place where people are motivated to express their opinions, have a latte, read a community paper or listen to live music.

Click here to listen to the CNN story...

It's fascinating to see how tough times opens the doors to new ideas... including a bit of communal capitalism.

Appreciation for eating local

This week, my Family and I are spending vacation in Connecticut (which is why I have been less active with my blogging).  It's great to see how the community supportive agriculture and the local food movement is growing and becoming mainstream.  The other night we had dinner at The Dressing Room, an absolutely magnificent restaurant that they position as 'homegrown', located next to the Newport Playhouse.  All ingredients used are from local farms and producers.

 

The next day, we went to The Hickories Farm in Ridgefield for blueberry picking. For our daughters, it's wonderful that they can pick fruits, take them home and help mom bake a pie.  It helps them have a greater appreciation for how things go from farm to table.

At Whole Foods, there are banners throughout the store showcasing some of their local suppliers  signed "food from around here".

It's clear that there is a growing segment of the population who love the idea of eating local food. People who are interested in supporting their local farmers and communities.  People who are looking for the simple tastes and aromas of more natural and organic eating.... close to home. Wasn't this how our grandparents used to do?  

It will be interesting to see how food marketers will leverage this trend at a broader scale.

What's in the head of Brazilian Millenials? And how this inspired us to develop a new potato chip

We start the month of July airing our new Ruffles TV campaign to launch a limited edition called Ruffles Do Seu Jeito ('your way'). Two new flavors developed with the input from our online collaboration panel. There's a guy version: BBQ Ribs. And one for girls: cream cheese.

For those who don't know Portuguese, the first spot starts saying that we got into the head of girls to find out what they like in order to develop a new flavor for Ruffles. Well, they like guys, shoes, guys, shoes... and to kiss (which in Portuguese rimes with cheese). So, the joke is that that's what inspired us to launch a cream cheese-flavored potato chip for girls.

When it comes to the guys, it's pretty much single-minded: girls, girls, girls. In this case, the joke is that girls came from ribs, which inspired us to make a BBQ Rib-flavored potato chip.

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The campaign was created by AlmapBBDO.