Hot Wheels…we all remember them, and if we don’t…then, umm…well, we don’t. We were probably doing something a lot more interesting with our day. I’d hazard a few guesses but one likes to keep things family friendly don’tcha’know? Anyway, here’s a little bit of loveliness from Oglivy & Mather on a Bogota motor-way in Colombia. How they did it and other installations from Hot Wheels inside the break…

Source: Paper Plane

Imagine life if all the drab and dreary grey buildings and structures were brought to life in vibrant colour. What a different journey to work we would all have. Surely it would be a better start to the day, being surrounded by colour rather than boring grey.

Well that’s the idea behind Dulux’s ‘Let’s Colour Project’…

One year on and the above advert for the Let’s Colour Project has been nominated by TED (a global non-profit devoted to Ideas worth spreading) as one of the “Top 10 Ads Worth Spreading.” The project started last March (2010) and has already brought colour to Brazil, France, the UK and India, where the local communities joined together in painting schools, streets, homes and squares.

Founders call the project, “the beginning of a colour movement that will spread around the world.”

A nice idea I think , that could brighten up everyone’s day!

To find out more, or to join them in their effort –  visit the Let’s Colour Project website by clicking Here.

Is there any better way to feel warmed on a blisteringly cold early morning, than to be confronted by the sight of some hot buns huddled in a bus shelter? Of course there isn’t…it was a rhetorical question…

These installations for Caribou Coffee by Colle+McVoy turned transit shelters in Minneapolis into ovens complete with real heaters to keep the commuters warm and toasty…and to highlight Caribou’s ‘Hot n’ Wholesome’ new menu items.

Stunning.

Source: www.adrants.com

Designed to reflect the ‘heart-stopping’ content in James Patterson’s new series of novels, “Maximum Ride,” strategically placed floor stickers make up an installation launched to promote the recently released works…

The floor graphics are placed at the bottom of steps to give people the actual sensation that they are about to step off the edge of a skyscraper.

This is cool and interactive campaign for a novel series and should definitely get more people picking up the books.

Check out more on this here.

This is one of an amazing collection of wall scratches by Alexandre Farto, found in Moscow.

Alexandre Farto, aka Vhils, makes use of the layering of textures and colours in existing walls and surfaces to create these stunning etchings. Check out even more on his site here.

Known by locals as the Buchstaben Museum, the Museum of Letters in Berlin is a must see for type lovers…“The Museum of Letters is devoted to preserving and documenting letterforms.”

smart car. Really smart idea.

BBDO Toronto came up with this truly awesome bit of ambient advertising to promote the smart car’s ability to park anywhere in a busy city environment. Click the photo to see the poster used to promote the ambient installation.

This is a little bit of genius mixing social networking with a bloody great outdoor bit of advertising.

Quite literally, bloody great…

From May 20th to the 22nd, the world’s biggest BlackBerry® smartphone (two stories high) will be on display on the Beaubourg Esplanade in the heart of Paris, France. It will broadcast messages and photos received via the message creator app on the Facebook fan page for BlackBerry France.

To broadcast your message, follow these simple steps:

• Visit www.facebook.com/BLACKBERRYFR and select the “Love concours” tab to load the message creator application.
• Select a wallpaper, and use the text tool to craft a message that tells everyone what you love to do. You can also select an image from your Facebook albums to accompany your message.
• Select the time and date you want your message to be broadcast, so you can tell your friends to watch for it!
• After your message has been created it will be broadcast during the 20th-22nd of May on the world’s biggest BlackBerry smartphone in Paris, France.

In addition, representatives onsite at the Beaubourg Esplanade will be able to help you voice your passions to the crowd. If you can’t make it, don’t panic! You will be able to watch the event via Live Stream on the Facebook fan page for BlackBerry France.

Source: BlackBerry Blog.

Okay…so this is pretty super-cool.

IBM are going all Sci-Fi with their new interactive billboard which they’re trialing as part of their Smarter Planet initiative (designed to make more efficient systems using the latest technology). The billboard changes its appearance based on what the person standing in front of it is wearing. It uses sensors and LEDs to dynamically update its color, urging the viewer to consider how technology could improve supply chain systems and retail experiences today.

So is this all just a great big multi-coloured nonsense or is there real merit in it?…

Well, as it stands now the messages you could use it for are obviously limited to the fact that it only recognises colour (even though that is still pretty awesome), but seeing as it’s all driven by software, the possibilities are endless. Imagine using facial recognition software to decide whether the ad is being viewed by a male or a female and then displaying a different, gender-specific message? Or utilising speech recognition to ask you a question, process what you say and then answer you with a targeted message?

Ok..so that’s all a bit Minority Report – as much PKD as it is WKD – and the thought of hundreds of people having conversations with shopping centre advert displays would have given Freud an erection…”Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar sir…Tobacconists are on the 3rd floor, have a nice day”. But the fact is, if you’d been told a few years ago that the aforementioned Interactive Sensitive Colour Billboard was to be the next ‘big thing’, you’d have found it laughable. And yet, here it is.

Well, almost.

Watch a video demo of it here.

Courtesy of Fubiz.