You know the drill: follow Upshot on Twitter to keep up on the latest SXSW Interactive news. It’s only three days away! We’ve already mentioned that location is the watchword at this year’s SXSWi, but we’d advise you to keep your eyes out for news on QR codes as well. Longtime readers know that we’ve [...]

It’s been a while since we’ve taken a gander at Alternate Reality Gaming (a.k.a. ARGs), but it looks like there’s a big one getting underway to promote the upcoming release of Iron Man 2. For those who don’t remember, alternate reality gaming (not to be confused with augmented reality) essentially overlays a (social) fantasy game [...]

We’re plenty familiar with Pop-Up Retail around these parts, having done a bit of it ourselves. From fashion houses to mass merchants, we’ve seen a wide range of marketers successfully implement this tactic to launch a new product, stir up some buzz, or just to create a venue for items that might not fit with [...]

Frequent readers know that we love to pass along Simple Ideas, Brilliantly Activated. (It’s kind of our thing here at Upshot.) Well, I think we may have found our simplest idea yet. To promote their airing of the latest Batman movie, a German TV station placed small stickers with the program details on bus windows. [...]

Considering that mobile phones are pretty explicitly “personal” devices, we tend to approach apps and mobile content from the perspective of an individual, solitary user (and rightfully so). Lucky for us, some intrepid marketers in Japan weren’t content with this isolated experience. In order to promote a musician’s new single, the agency created a “pair [...]