But the four-wheeled madness doesn’t stop there. Check out the above race from Hot Wheels, featuring a three-dimensional obstacle course projection-mapped on a building in Sydney. (Thanks to Karlin from MUSE for the tip.)

Speaking of races, check out the above clip from a Cornetto projection in Istanbul. In the midst of a big ol’ street party, the brand projected an interactive casual game where onlookers could compete against each other using their phones. As if an interactive projection didn’t have enough stopping power! It’s great to see that, no matter how many projection examples we share, someone always seems to be raising the bar on what’s possible with this medium.

Now there’s a headline that’ll get your attention! But, take it easy – the only naughtiness happening here is allowing so much time to elapse since our last augmented reality roundup! In the meantime, we’ve seen a ton of fantastic marketing examples worth passing along.

As we’ve long asserted, if augmented reality applications are really going to take off for marketers, AR producers will need to increasingly steer clear of the gimmicks and focus on more practical applications. (We’ll make an exception for apps like this Star Wars Falcon Gunner game, since it looks especially fun and it’s such a fantastic example of Life in the OOC.) And when it comes to practicality, we think we’ve found the most useful execution yet in the Word Lens iPhone app. As demonstrated in the video above, the app is remarkably simple to use: point your phone at a sentence and the app will instantly overlay the translated text. Must we point out how useful this app is for our clients in the international travel category? Yo no lo creo. (The fact that it’s currently limited to Spanish-English translation takes nothing away from the fact that this. Is. Friggin’. Amazing.)

Since we’re not going to find a better example of the practical side of AR, let’s at least consider how the more entertaining implementations can be used in clever ways; for instance, shocking people into paying attention to a social cause. The Russian wing of WWF (the one that saves animals, not the one that features grappling beasts in speedos) wanted to raise awareness about the poaching of Siberian Tigers, and felt the most effective approach was to get everyday Russians to experience the sensation of being hunted. Thankfully, no one took this creative brief literally, and instead settled on a widely dispersed tiger t-shirt that featured an augmented reality marker. When unsuspecting shoppers tried on the t-shirts in front of AR-equipped dressing room mirrors, the tag would trigger the sound of gunshots and the appearance of bloody bullet holes on the victim. See the video above for how it – hey, wait a minute… did I catch the Bulls’ starting lineup music in that campaign video??? Unfortunately, I didn’t see any Derrick Rose cameos in there.

Now, we’re not trying to be cranks who decree that all AR efforts have to be hugely helpful or socially responsible. We’re saying that if you do go down the purely-entertaining AR route, just be cognizant about the high level of clutter in this space. You’re going to need a pretty compelling campaign in order to stick out… and being hilarious is one way to do it. Cue the “In Bed” Tagger from Sealy Mattresses, shown in the video above. The app takes the old fortune cookie joke and lets you append the phrase “in bed” to any phrase you can capture in your viewfinder (ok, how did no other mattress maker jump on that joke before?). Of course, users can instantly upload their clever compositions to Facebook, where their friends can marvel at their brilliant achievements… in bed.

Thanks to Celeste Payne for tips on the WWF and Sealy campaigns!

Ever since Sao Paulo decided to ban billboards, ad folks in the US (and around the world) have nervously wondered, “Could it happen here?” While it’s hard to say, we’ll soon know what that scenario would look like, thanks to the latest project from Morgan Spurlock (of Super Size Me fame). He’s developed a platform called No Ad that taps the power of crowdsourcing to virtually erase billboards and outdoor ads in US cities. (Thanks to Jaclyn Gordyan for the tip!) He starts by filming a panoramic view of the area in question, and then asks fans to use the site (essentially an online, stripped-down version of Photoshop) to replace the ads in each frame of the clip. And Spurlock’s aiming high to kick things off: he’s taking on Times Square. While it’s unclear whether this campaign is reflective of a larger sentiment among Americans (one could certainly make the argument that the advertising clutter in Times Square is precisely the draw of the place), it’s certainly a reasonable discussion to have about the future of advertising. After all, knowing that consumers are seeking Primitive Simplicity in their personal lives, is it just a matter of time before this preference gets applied to experiences outside of their homes? It’s certainly a possibility.

But, as we’ve regularly restated, don’t mistake this desire for simplicity as an anti-technology stance. In fact, certain technological advancements are considered to be the solutions to these dilemmas, rather than the problems. For instance, let’s consider one of our favorite things in the world: interactive projections! (We’ll take any excuse to mention them, won’t we?) In this case, it’s MINI Cooper projecting virtual vending machines in a handful of Canadian cities, as seen in the video above. Passersby choose from nine different MINI paint jobs and text their selection to the projection, at which point the selected car is discharged in a very MINI-esque manner. But, in the context of our discussion above, does this kind of OOH experience qualify as clutter or enhancement? One could argue that it’s a shiny, distracting intrusion each city’s nightlife, while others could make the case that turning a boring ol’ building side into an interactive, engaging source of entertainment that enriches the participants’ evenings. Moreover, projection as a medium is inherently temporary, requires relatively little power, and leaves no lingering impact on the environment. If we can check those boxes off, does Spurlock’s complaint become spurious?

(Aside from the clutter discussion, we do want to note one other spot where the campaign falls short. After choosing their car, the recipient receives a text message inviting them to Like MINI on Facebook. Certainly, some follow-up is better than none, but considering the projection’s level of engagement, shouldn’t the SMS deliverable be equally engaging? Why not ask the participant for their zip code and provide them with the nearest dealer, or offer them a chance to schedule for a test-drive, or offer some promotional incentive to walk into the dealership? Seems like a missed opportunity.)

These kind of projections are only the beginning, especially considering what hack-happy designers are doing with the Microsoft Kinect system. The gesture-based interface is proving to be enormously versatile, delivering jaw-dropping interactive experiences without the need for wires, controllers, or other electronic clutter. One example that we especially enjoyed is the music video below, in which the German group Moullinex uses 3D motion-capture to show renderings of the musicians in action. Better yet, the group was kind enough to share the secrets behind their process, just in case anyone else has a hankerin’ to be Driven by Data. Knowing that these low-impact, high-engagement options are becoming more readily available, are critics of consumerist clutter going to view these solutions as resolving the problem or making it worse? If you’ve got an opinion on the matter, let us know in the comments below.

Well, this kind of blows my old Super Nintendo soccer game out of the water.

Check out the trailer above for I AM PLAYR, a game that’s currently in development, but slated for a beta release this year.

There’s a lot happening here, but we’ll try to give you the gist. The game is a first person narrative of a football player (the soccer kind) who’s just getting started, and has to face numerous challenges on and off the field. While you develop your skill set and compete in matches, you’re also tasked with managing your teammates, your social life, and… well… your more “intimate” fans.

While that’s certainly an interesting storyline, it’s also only the first chapter. As players navigate their character through the game, they compete against a global audience of other players to see who can develop the top-ranked star. Moreover, the game takes a page from alternate-reality gaming (you remember our coverage of ARGs, right?) and lets the elements of the game seep into the player’s everyday lives. Characters from the game communicate with the player by text and video, radio broadcasts cover the happenings from around the league, and even the tabloids are (reportedly) willing to dedicate headlines to the events that transpire within the game.

Admit it. You’re impressed.

While we could keep raving about how cool this will be, we do need to bring this back to marketing, right? Easy enough. It’s not especially surprising to see Nike jump all over this opportunity, snagging a principal sponsorship that will see them integrated into the storyline and game experience. And, while the game itself is free to play, players will have numerous opportunities to purchase (branded) virtual products that will improve their performance. (Considering the nightlife angle, it will be interesting to see just how risque those partnerships get.)

But, even if this particular game isn’t an appropriate fit for your brand, there are many lessons to be learned from this ambitious project. While there’s a literal connection to our Game On! trend, the more compelling angle is seeing how the creators have brought Life in the OOC to life. Thanks to the game’s multi-platform media integration, and the fact that competitions on the virtual field feed into the leaderboard against other human competitors, there is no clear line where the game ends and the player’s “real life” begins. Even though your average marketing campaign isn’t quite this fun (okay, it’s a LOT less fun), it should still be this seamlessly integrated across a variety of touchpoints. Notice that the creators aren’t hand-wringing over whether they need a mobile strategy or an above-the-line component or an online element. Instead, they’re pulling together an arsenal (yeah, pun intended) of high-tech and low-tech touchpoints to communicate a common story, and letting the players (i.e. the consumers) decide which formats work best for themselves.

I AM PLAYR, I am impressed. (For anyone who wants to read more, head this way.)

The process starts online, where visitors are given a choice of 68 WeActivists to manipulate. (Despite the insurgent tone of the company, WeActivists aren’t smashing Starbucks windows at G20 summits – they’re simply people who the company identifies as role models in creative fields. Heck, what revolution would make Jason Lee one of its martyrs?) A short clip of the WeActivist jumping, spinning, or displaying other forms of spunkiness can be tweaked in three dimensions, while the user also chooses a pattern (e.g. zooming in on the sleeve of the WeActivist) to be shown as a kaleidoscopic background.

One the user has generated his or her preferred content, the clip gets sent to the interactive store windows, where the clip will respond to the motions of passersby – the video below shows how it looks in action. The creator of each clip gets his or her name displayed in the window, which comes in handy thanks to a live web feed that shows the reactions of passing pedestrians.

While the window displays are pretty slick, our favorite part of this execution in the thoughtful integration between the online and offline experiences. Better yet, WeSC has managed to connect the two worlds in a seamless manner for the user (despite the high-tech heavy lifting on the back end). There are no hoops for the participants to jump through, and there are no concerns about device compatibility. It’s just a good time all around for everyone involved, whether they’re at the store or in their homes.

• The launch of our Upshot Smartshot series of 15 minute webinars has been a huge success so far. You can see the past webinars right here, or head right to the most popular Smartshot to date: our take on QR Codes.
• We had LOTS to say after attending the SXSW Interactive conference, and tried to roundup all the posts in a recap right here. Funny how many of those March predictions came true by December, ain’t it? Don’t worry, we’re heading back to Austin in 2011, and we’re planning on being just as detailed in our coverage. How we manage to do that while still partaking in the SXSW party scene is one of the world’s great mysteries.
• You love projection. We love projection. When we wrote about projection, you loved it. The best branded projection from 2010 had to be Samsung’s projection-meets-Youtube-takeover-meets-casual-game, but we also feel like Prague’s 600th anniversary projected masterpiece deserved one more plug.
• As we’ve said many, many times, ignore the gimmicky implementations of augmented reality and focus on the good stuff. You listened, and especially liked our post on invisible pop-ups and augmented reality windows.
• People just liked watching this video from Google’s Chrome browser. Can’t say we blame ‘em. And people just loved the idea behind Uniqlo’s tweet-dependent sale. Can’t find any faults there either.

Part 3 (the last part) is available here. Then we head out for the holidays. Hopefully you’re not far behind.

Apparently, the message is getting through, as we’re seeing a caravan’s-worth of mobile trucks hawking all sorts of products. Many are following Nike’s lead and using the mobile vehicles to sell clothing items, including designer Cynthia Rowley. Her “Shop on Wheels” has been touring the country for most of the year, showing off her collections and offering private fittings (for more info, courtesy of an incredibly vapid reporter, click here). Meanwhile, the Wanderlust trailer, pictured above, sells handmade goods in addition to vintage clothes. Since their chief consumers tend to be the frequently-mobile “urban pioneers” who move into pre-gentrified areas, Wanderlust’s strategy gives them the flexibility to be on-site right when under-the-radar neighborhoods start showing signs of life, without having to continuously uproot brick and mortar locations.

But this trend has gone way beyond threads and tchotchkes. A truck for the (appropriately-named) Heavenly resort in Lake Tahoe featured ski and snowboard films, sold season passes, and even gave out free snow cones (get it?  get it???) to folks in the San Francisco Bay Area. More information about that campaign is available in this New York Times article, which also calls out a number of other great examples. The author shares event marketing applications, such as HSBC’s activation of their sponsorship of the recent New Yorker festival. HSBC wrapped up six food trucks with ads, and used them to feature six different dishes (ranging from duck dumplings to pumpkin ice cream) created especially for the festival. Others have used the tactic for new product launches, such as Heinz’s Dip & Squeeze Ketchup. The brand sent a souped-up food truck on a “Heinz Ketchup Road Trip,” where they gave away free fries (with the new ketchup packages, of course) and t-shirts. They’ve got a few clips from the trip on their Youtube channel.

So, what have we learned? Just as restaurants are aware of the threat posed by food trucks, brick and mortar retailers are bound to notice once mobile shops park at their front door (and divert their customers). Likewise, these trucks allow cutting-edge brands to hit up neighborhoods years before traditional retailers can get a foothold (as well as move on before big boys can get out). These trucks even threaten the cottage industry that’s been built up around pop-up shops, as mobile trucks offer steeper discounts on overhead and real estate. The food truck fad may fade (or not?), but the mobile vendor invasion is only just beginning.

In the six months since we first covered Facebook’s social plugins and instant personalization features, over two million sites have implemented these services. It’s safe to say that Facebook’s little experiment is going well. But while the Like button has been a boon for marketers in the online world, there’s still some pervasive cynicism about what this technology means in the offline world.

Oh, wait, we see the problem: skeptics still think there’s a boundary between the online and offline worlds! Apparently someone needs to hop on the 405 and get themselves to The OOC, where Online-Offline Convergence is everywhere. (Y’know, this is the kind of thing that should really be a trend for 2011, dontcha think?) Generally, this trend has been driven by the explosive growth of smartphone ownership, since this is clearly the best tool for using online information to augment our offline lives. But we need not get so fancy.

Consider the Coca-Cola Village shown above. (Thanks to Adam Stipanuk for the tip!) The “village” is an annual 3-day pop-up amusement park in Israel, which provides teens with outdoor activities ranging from basketball courts to swimming pools. Those settings aren’t particularly conducive to lugging a phone around, so Coke provided the attendees with RFID-chipped wristbands that were linked to their individual Facebook accounts. If the kids wanted to let their friends know where they were headed, they simply touched their bracelet to the thumbs-up sign to “Like” that particular attraction, which would be automatically registered on Facebook (and viewable on kiosks around the Village). The same strategy allowed the teens to tag themselves in photos that were being taken by the park’s staff, so their memories would be preserved and shared after the event. The result: 35,000 (!) posts. You think Coke “liked” those results?

This brilliant execution seems almost borne out of necessity; i.e. how do you get teens to share their Village experience on Facebook if the environment is not conducive to smartphones? Their solution was to make the most important elements of the teens’ Facebook experience (namely, photo tagging and sharing what they’re doing) as seamless as possible via the RFID bracelet. Event marketers, take note!

Likewise, when a new IKEA opened in the Swedish town of Malmo, the retailer wanted to use social media to spread the word. But rather than using an intrusive means of interaction, the store tried to assimilate itself into the activities that Facebook users were already doing. So, the store manager uploaded a handful of photos featuring rooms filled with IKEA products, and made a simple offer: the first person to tag themselves as the featured items would win those items (see the video below). Predictably, it set off a social media frenzy, but also managed to spread these shots through the taggers’ own networks, ultimately spreading the word about the new store opening.

“Like” it or not, the Facebooks of the world are no longer confined solely to the online space, and brick-and-mortar retailers ignore them at their own peril. The next year (and beyond) will present significant challenges to retailers as they fend off an all-out assault from non-traditional competitors on the (mobile) web. Focusing on the smartphone is clearly an important part of this strategy, but these examples show that some of the most innovative responses circumvent the phone altogether.

Yes, yes, YES! After months (years?) of showing you amazing projection mapping projects from around the world, we’ve finally got a domestic example to share with you! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S… wait, what? This projection was shown in London, too? Ah well, we’ll take what we can get.

Actually, we’re not at all disappointed in Ralph Lauren’s display outside of their New York City flagship store. After hosting a swanky champagne reception on site, attendees stepped outside to check out the spectacle shown above. The presentation was part of the tenth anniversary of the brand’s innovation-focused website, but the content covered plenty of bases. There’s a bit of a virtual runway show, a handful of interesting product displays (including some clever uses of belts and ties – yes, it’s possible), and a featured spot for their Big Pony line of fragrances. The latter piece (starting at the 5:35 mark of the video) was accompanied by a whiff of the cologne for those in attendance, which RL touted as the fourth “D” in a 4D performance. (I guess if you smell that good, you’re allowed a little leeway in your physics classes.)

And while it wasn’t part of the projection performance, we should add that the Big Pony line is encouraging their Facebook fans to create their own commercial spots from their clips of well-dressed, well-chiseled, and well-groomed people having a well and good time on the polo field. As we called out during the Gap logo debacle, allowing your fans to get creative with your curated content gives them a chance to express themselves, while setting boundaries on what would otherwise be a Consumer Controlled Conversation.

Taken all together, these efforts demonstrate a digital savvy that’s leaps and bounds beyond the brand’s marketing peers. In fact, there’s probably a polo analogy that’d sum this up nicely… but I haven’t a clue what it would be.

(Say, that almost sounds like a trend worth bringing back for 2011. Hmm… stay tuned on Twitter for more developments on that.)

But back to present. H&M recently partnered with the GoldRun AR platform to spice up their store windows, which are currently displaying H&M’s fall and winter collections. When a shopper accesses the GPS-enabled iPhone app within the vicinity of the store windows, they’ll get access to a virtual fashion show featuring digital versions of those clothes and accessories. Through augmented reality, these items are overlaid on the real street scene depicted on the user’s phone, which can then be photographed and sent to Facebook (such as the floating bag photo above). This allows users to position the clothes on themselves and send to friends for feedback, too.

While this element captures the fun, shiny-object part of augmented reality, there’s a concrete benefit for the brick and mortar stores too (yeah, pun intended). Snapping pics of the items generates a 10% discount off of in-store purchases, and also enters users into a sweepstakes for gift certificates and a trip to Las Vegas. If getting shoppers to the store is half the battle, this sure seems like a compelling weapon for H&M to bring to the holiday wars.

But what if your brand doesn’t have a dedicated retail outlet? Certainly, pop-up stores are an attractive option, but that requires you to find an available retail space, come up with a design, build it out… gosh, that’s so much work. Wouldn’t it be easier if you just picked a pristine beachfront location and stuck a virtual store there? That’s so much easier – just ask Airwalk. They recently launched “invisible” pop-up stores at Venice Beach and NYC’s Washington Square Park, thanks to a clever use of augmented reality. In order to purchase the limited-edition reissue of the Airwalk Jim shoe, sneakerheads had to go to the designated location and use the smartphone app to snap a photo of the spot. A virtual pair of the shoes would be added via AR, which then became the user’s pass for ordering the kicks online. [Update: We've just learned that GoldRun is behind this campaign as well. We promise we didn't intend for this post to be an ad for them!]

So, what have we learned here? For starters, using augmented reality in practical applications shouldn’t forsake the fun parts of the technology. Plus, combining this feature with location data enables brands to add a hyperlocal element to their promotions. Finally, don’t be turned off by the fact that these campaigns aren’t likely to be adopted by the masses. Rather, look at the level of engagement these brands have inspired among micro communities in the real world, thanks to a couple of digital flourishes.