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 been [...]

As we’ve mentioned in our discussions of Immersive Sensory Experiences, the increasing prevalence of engaging technologies has driven consumers’ expectations through the roof.  No longer confined to early adopters, it’s the everyday consumer who now expects evermore immersive experiences from all forms of media.
While Steve Jobs can’t take all the credit for this trend, we’d [...]

And we’re right. About trend #10 from our 10 Trends for 2010, that is.
It’s as if Coca-Cola read our trend deck, fell in love with the notion of Delighting Consumers with Hidden Surprises, and came up with a guerilla campaign that fits the notion to a T. That notion, of course, warns of a consumer [...]

So, you didn’t heed our warning about the rise of 3D, and now you’re scrambling after last week’s follow-up.
Let’s not make that mistake again.
In October, we mentioned that the size debate between smartphones and e-readers and netbooks and notebooks could be completely sidestepped by mini projection technologies. With the announcement of the Light Touch Interactive [...]

Admittedly, there hasn’t been a whole lot of good press for Yahoo! of late. Even the normally even-tempered coverage on Ad Age sounds more like something from Adrants when dissing Yahoo’s new Y!ou campaign and homepage design.
Yet, Ad Age’s recent coverage of Yahoo!’s holiday marketing stunt is appropriately balanced, and calls out a number of [...]

What’s a retailer to do when, as an act of political resistance, a bunch of pesky artists start squatting in one of their stores?
Embrace it, of course.
At least, that’s the approach taken by an Ikea store in Hamburg. Gentrification of the area has eliminated many of the homes and workplaces for artists and designers in the region, [...]

Regular readers know we’ve done a lot of talking about delighting consumers with “hidden surprises” (non regular readers can catch up here).
We humbly suggest that the concept of an origami tea bag is just about the best (and most friggin’ adorable) illustration of this idea that we’ve ever seen.
Talk about delivering happiness in tiny little [...]

Earlier this year, I sat in on a panel of smart folks who were discussing the benefits of integrating “games” into everyday life. The benefits, they argued, went far beyond making mundane tasks more enjoyable. The panel dove into a number of ideas, discussing how gaming can make learning more interactive,  add emotional components to [...]

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 [...]

This is guaranteed to bring a smile to your face.
To celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Candyland board game, Hasbro brought the game to life on San Francisco’s Lombard Street, a.k.a. the car bumper’s mortal enemy.
In a nice gesture, the game was played by teams of kids from the UCSF Children’s Hospital, with desserts awaiting [...]