Advertising Age - March 5, 2012

THE WORK

Edited by Ann-Christine Diaz, adiaz@creativity-online.com

Creativity-Online.com has all the features of AdCritic.com, plus creative profiles, videos that go behind the work and regularly updated news. Submit your choices for best ads to Ann-Christine Diaz, Editor, Creativity, 711 Third Ave., New York, NY10017 or email adiaz@creativity-online.com.

CREATIVITY’S TOP FIVE OF THE WEEK

Areasontobegratefulforcheesegraters

Microsoftmakesremoteinteraction withobjects areality;the Guardianreimaginesthe Three Little Pigs; nail art getsa gallery; minor cuts become a lifesaver; and why getting an international pen-pal just became a whole lot sweeter.

Help Remedies, the pharmaceutical company known for its beautifully pared down, design-minded OTC medical products, recently introduced an item that may very well change the world. Help I Want to Save a Life is a box of bandages that comes packaged with, of all things, a bone-marrow-donor kit. The point being—you’re already bleeding, so why not take advantage of it to help save someone?

The concept came from Droga5 copywriter Graham Douglas, who was inspired by his twin brother’s struggle to find a bone-marrow donor. Douglas approached Help Remedies, which, after a few logistical hurdles, was able to put the idea into production in partnership with DKMS, the world’s largest bone-marrow-donor organization. The kit is on sale at Fab.com and at Help Remedies’ website, helpineedhelp.com/marrow. To help promote the kit, Help created a charming yet totally absurd video starring Douglas himself as a bloody knife.

Onestep beyondvirtual As part of Microsoft’s TechForum, the marketer unveiled IllumiShare, a jaw-dropping technology that allows people to interact with physical objects remotely. IllumiShare features a lamplike peripheral device that projects light onto your desktop. Anything that appears within the lit space is then projected onto the analogous pace of a fellow IllumiShare user, who could be 3,000 miles away. That setup allows the users to interact with any object within the spaces—allowing for some amazing physical-meets-digital chess or card games, playdates or tutoring sessions.

Nail art gets
its own exhibition

Korean nail-varnish brand IceGel commissioned an artist to create a range of modern art on crystal nails and displayed them in tiny frames in a minigallery near nail salons, in a campaign created by Grey Hong Kong. Visitors could scan a QR code at the gallery to go to IceGel’s website ( icegel.com.sg/index.php/art-gallery). The site had 24,000 visitors as a result.

Notthe
ThreePigs you
remember
Candylovers,unite

Students in a startup class at Boulder Digital Works have conceived a cute, social way to get you your international candy fix. The website, intlcandy.co, currently in beta, asks users to sign up and complete a survey, indicating which candy from around the world they’d like to sample. When the project launches at the end of April, the goal is to create a matchmaking and pen-pal-like platform that will connect those who want to get a certain brand of sweet with people who live in the country where it‘s available.

The BDW students will facilitate the exchange, including handling payment and privacy details. The prelaunch site has almost 200 registrants.

One of the students involved in the project, Jurg Schaeppi, got the idea when he moved to the U.S. from his native Switzerland and started sending American candy back to his friends and family. There has to be a simpler way to do this, he thought, and International Candy was born. Schaeppi also runs a blog about his adventures in American candy at SwissKidinaCandyStore.com.

The Guardian teamed with BBH London on its first major brand-positioning spot in 25 years, illustrating the news organization’s Open Journalism philosophy via a very familiar story, the Three Little Pigs. Perhaps you could recite the classic tale in your sleep, but it becomes something totally different when you factor in all the opinions and angles from digital and social media.

Here, the pigs are frauds and the wolf an asthmatic victim— depending on who’s interpreting the story. The ad puts a contemporary twist on an idea that drove the Guardian’s last brand-positioning spot, Points of View, in 1986.