Focus: Latest

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Coca-Cola says 'Hug Me': gestural marketing gets personal

Companies are beginning to look at ways of encouraging consumers to respond with gestures as well as words, as the rise of gestural marketing sees brands seeking new ways of showing that they understand the needs of their audience.

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48: conquering the youth mobile market

How do you attract a notoriously fickle youth demographic to a new mobile phone network in an already saturated marketplace? Easy: you give them an exclusive, members-only deal which makes all other networks appear, well, a little bit lame.

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Japan's virtual kiss-o-grams

Scientists at Keio University in Japan are developing digital advertising posters in the form of interactive kiss-o-grams which allow users to get up close and personal with their favourite pop idols.

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Du darfst: Fuck the Diet!

Low-calorie food manufacturer Du darfst has outraged German audiences with a bold new campaign. In response to widespread frustration with dieting, and using shock tactics, it targets a newly emerging female consumer.

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Kony 2012: Hollywood charity

Kony 2012 achieved 100 million views in under one week, becoming the first viral video in history to do so. Like it or not, the campaign has resonated with millions of teenagers worldwide. How?

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Old Spice: too powerful for its own commercials

In a pair of new adverts, Old Spice invades the advertising territory of its sibling brands. Is this an ingenious play in an oversaturated mediascape, or is it a sign of advertisers becoming just a little too postmodern for their own good?

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Honest by: transparent fashion retail

Honest by is a fashion brand which offers designer products and is completely open about the raw materials and manufacturing processes it uses. It is also honest about its pricing structures, offering a full cost breakdown of each garment.

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Nescafé in China

To make a splash in China's fast-growing coffee market, Nescafé is turning to the politically engaged heartthrob Han Han for help. In this most repressive of societies, is it best for brands to side with the establishment, or rock the boat?

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Help Remedies and the rise of minimalist medicine

Pharmaceutical companies are constantly reinventing familiar health products. By challenging this with a ‘less is more’ philosophy, Help Remedies is heralding the rise of ‘minimalist medicine' aimed at informed healthcare consumers.

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Transform Your Patch: Britvic vs. broken Britain

‘Transform Your Patch’ is a new civic initiative from PepsiCo and Britvic that aims to regenerate 165 unkempt wastelands across Britain into football pitches, parks, playgrounds and other community spaces.

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AXE unleashes gender Anarchy

US deodorant brand AXE is releasing a new body spray with versions for both men and women. To promote the 'Anarchy' range, the brand has created a graphic novel on YouTube in partnership with the publisher Aspen Comics.

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Carling Black Label: Be the Coach

On 24 May 2011, the South African football fraternity celebrated the launch of the Carling Black Label Cup. In this one-off battle, fans were allowed to pick their teams and strategies for the match using their mobile phones.

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Duolingo

The new Duolingo project aims to teach people a new language while they simultaneously translate the internet. The project’s ultimate aim is to get 100 million people to translate the web into every major language... for free.

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Mini Getaway: Tokyo

After an immensely successful trial run in Stockholm, Mini has demonstrated that its simple location-based mobile game Getaway is a truly global idea by taking it to a playing field 32 times larger: Tokyo.

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Heineken's #mysunrise

Heineken has launched a new campaign that adopts the unlikely strategy of telling people to drink less. In the UK, a country that doesn’t often go in for half measures when it comes to booze, how will the message go down?

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Western Union singing telegrams

Western Union has given its iconic greeting service a twenty-first century makeover. It won’t please the traditionalists, but amateur communications have never looked so smooth… yes, the singing telegram is back.

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Curbside Haiku

Curbside Haiku is blurring the boundary between public art installation and road safety awareness campaign. But how does it separate its messaging from the visual pollution of the streets? And what really matters to busy commuters right now?

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Hermès saris

As emerging markets such as India and China rise to greater prominence, several luxury brands are tailoring their offerings to the tastes and sensibilities of a newly affluent demographic of middle-class consumers.

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Points-based wellbeing

Quantified self meets gamification: Sandra Mardin evaluates Vitality, a wellness rewards programme which has pushed insurer Discovery group to the top of the industry.

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Intuition

By interacting through a smartphone, laptop or tablet, viewers of Holland's latest television game show, Intuïtie (Intuition), can become active, co-operative contestants with the opportunity to win prizes from the comfort of their own homes.