Now the concept is evolving, and brands are catching on. The same grocery shopping wall is currently being tested on a smaller scale in several bus stops throughout Seoul, and household needs giant Procter & Gamble executed a wall in four major subway stations in Prague featuring razors, laundry detergent and the like at the end of 2011. Just weeks ago, consumers in New York were treated to a shoppable apothecary wall by Conde Nast’s Glamour magazine, and Chicago’s own O’Hare airport is currently sporting a wall by Sears with popular toys for boys and girls (seen in the photo above). Business traveling parents take note—if you forgot to grab little Susie or Bobby a souvenir from your trip, this wall could be your saving grace on the way to baggage claim. Just a few clicks and the latest Elmo-doll sensation could be yours!

While many of the executions noted are using the more widely recognized QR codes for scanning purposes, SpyderLink’s Snap Tags are also starting to make appearances in the world of (literal) window shopping.

With brands on the lookout for new ways to target consumers, technology takes center stage with virtual walls providing a seamless, simplified shopping experience.

1. Temporary urbanism. It’s the new term for pop-up retail. We love pop-up retail. And we love its new moniker as well.

2. The new Crate & Barrel catalog. Just hit mailboxes this week, complete with a redesign. It’s visually and graphically appealing and has loads of editorial content.

3. 3D. I’ve avoided the reincarnation of 3D for awhile, thinking it would be seizure-inducing. But I have to admit, on games and movies it’s made for (versus added in post-effects), it’s pretty awesome.

4. Print’s finest hour. Brands are showcasing their finest print in all the huge fall magazine issues on stands now.

5. Jay-Z and Kayne West’s much anticipated collaboration album “Watch the Throne” was released on Monday. It launched on iTunes first (at-retail follows next week), a great example of how musicians are leading with embracing digital first and thinking brick-and-mortar second.

6. Target’s back-to-school ads. In a sea of back-to-school promotions, Target is running one of the few (if not the only) television spots that is not price-driven. Has a great emotional hook about school and teachers.

7. Craftsman Public Parks Rehab Project. It’s exciting to see one of our programs do so well and to see consumers truly engage with it. Self-servingly, it’s also nice to see someone else give it a shout-out, JeffBullas.com.

8. Paging System. Why is it making us happy? Because that’s how marketing runs at Upshot.

What’s making you happy this week?

Now since you’ve deduced my sensitivity to sharing my space with others, I want to point out that there are some great ways that surfaces and spaces can be affected to effect people in a positive way!

If you’ve ever been to Upshot, it won’t surprise you that we love a collaborative space. Lounge seating areas and walls that you can write, pin, magnet and project on fill our office. To my delight, it seemed like companies are really embracing this idea with new products which will undoubtedly improve your space and your mood.

If the Walls Could Talk

In Chalk.
People really like to see their name and/or leave an impression. A full wall of chalkboard paint is a great way to do it (and this was covered after day 1 of the event).
www.magnamagic.com

In Marker.
This is for the chalk-averse in the group. Who wants to lean against this wall in their black tee?

It’s the first I’ve seen of custom colored magnet glass surface. Scaled to just about any size (within their 72” x 144” panel max) with varied ways of installation. Writeable, magnetic and tempered—it’s basically unbreakable. Pretty much any color that suits your fancy. Imagine full walls of this in your office, retail or pop-up space. www.skydesign.com/glass/collection/vitracolor

In A Different Kind of Marker.
This one’s been out there winning awards since its debut in 2009 and is one of my favorites. Dry erase paint is so simple and such a great way to interact work in a space. www.mdcwall.com/tabrasa

Check out the bottom right picture. It’s an example of how dry erase paint came to life in one of our projects (Disney Vacation Club’s Doorway to Dream store) as a life-sized coloring book wall for kids.

More NeoCon insights to come—stay tuned for SPACE INVASION: Share Your Seat.

You can’t go wrong with helping people get around at these events, and we spotted complimentary private limos (from a social network called Tagged) grabbing people at the airport and getting them downtown. But, this was a tech fest after all, so the most appropriate mode of transportation were the pedicabs from Uber (pictured above). The clever Uber system cut out the dispatcher, and let attendees hail a cab by simply sharing their current location via the Uber smartphone app. That sure comes in handy after those free parties with the free beer, don’t they?

You also can’t go wrong by feeding these poor, starving conference attendees (who coughed up hundreds of dollars to attend). Many, many companies were offering much-appreciated free food throughout the event, ranging from street teams with breakfast tacos to food trucks with more breakfast tacos. (People like their breakfast tacos in Austin, alright?) But the brand that had attendees lined up around the block for the entire conference (literally – see the image at right) was a stationary food truck from the publishing platform Squarespace, who smartly submitted to the experts when it came to cooking. Each day, Squarespace brought in a new local food vendor to take over their site, delivering unexpected and unbelievably tasty treats each day (see the menu here). By offering both a rotating menu and tapping favorites from the local community, Squarespace managed to generate tons of word-of-mouth recommendation and capture the conference’s attention among countless of other free food offerings.

Considering that conferences are inherently temporary, it wasn’t surprising to see brands investing in pop-up retail experiences at SXSWi. While the most buzzed-about store was definitely Apple’s pop-up dedicated to selling the iPad 2 (it sure helps to be selling the most desired device at a conference full of tech geeks), the most unexpected pop-up came from CNN, as they completely took over an existing bar (even installing their own sign, as seen in the image to the right) where they held events and parties all week. Again, the ever-changing content, as well as the all-out commitment to the takeover of the building, got a lot of heads turning and stimulated a lot of conversations on behalf of CNN.

It also helps to think about the most pressing needs of conference attendees. At a place like SXSWi, everyone is essentially attached to a cyborg’s-worth of devices that each have a limited battery life. Fortunately, the automakers in attendance thought this through, with Chevy offering branded power strips at almost every outlet around the conference center, and Lincoln offering free access to every imaginable phone charger at a nearby restaurant . Sure, a nerdfest like SXSWi is the ideal place for these solutions, but as smartphones, tablets, and other devices become increasingly ubiquitous, offering (branded) power options at any conference will always be a much appreciated gesture.

But, of all the things brands can give away at these conferences, perhaps the most valuable takeaways aren’t schwag or tacos or even beer. They might just be your smarts. To steal a point from this great article by Scott Belsky, some of the brands that made the biggest impacts at SXSWi did so by simply getting themselves involved in a number of innovative panels and presentations. To paraphrase Belsky, brands have to work very hard (and spend a lot of money) to get people’s attention through traditional advertising, but attendees will gladly come running to them when they share their peek-behind-the-curtain insights and unique experiences. In particular, PepsiCo did an excellent job of contributing to a number of panels we’ve referenced in our earlier SXSWrapups, which did as much to activate their sponsorship of the festival as some of their other initiatives, such as their live stream of keynotes and panels at pepsico.com/sxsw.

This might seem like a lot to take in. Well, it is, especially when you’re there amidst the chaos. But if there’s one thing we’ve harped on since introducing our Driven by Data trend, it’s the benefit of being a good curator. And curation becomes especially useful at a place like SXSW, where data overload is a given. The Appstores site delivered a brilliantly simple service before anyone even arrived, offering attendees a series of recommended smartphone apps that would enhance and improve their experience. (Low hanging fruit alert! Brands should definitely offer a similar suite of recommended apps for attendees at other giant conferences or tradeshows.) During the conference itself, AOL offered a booth with a streaming screen of the top news from the conference, sortable by viewers interests. Interestingly, at a conference where every attendee had their own way of monitoring tweet streams and foursquare check-ins and the like, AOL still drew a crowd simply because they did an effective job of paring down the clutter to the real meat of the conference. And, of course, we did a pretty good job of that ourselves.

Speaking of getting to the meat of things, we’ll finally be wrapping up our SXSWrapup with our next post. Be sure to check back to see how the story ends!

• Our #1 hit of 2010 was our celebration of the innovative marketing efforts of… a car company? An American car company?? Yep, Ford has Facebook all figured out, especially with their live launch of their 2011 Explorer. No other marketer demonstrated such a nuanced approach to engaging with consumers via Facebook. It’s the perfect case study for seamlessly applying all the features that Facebook has to offer, and giving consumers what they actually want from a brand on social media. (It’s also one of the reasons we wholeheartedly agree with Ad Age naming Ford marketer of the year for 2010.)
• Part of the impetus for naming Cause with Effect as a 2011 trend came from watching the shifts in cause marketing over the course of 2010. Pepsi Refresh was clearly the game changer in this category, but we put Levi’s “Ready to Work” campaign under the microscope because it really drove home the depth-over-breadth approach that we expect to become a bigger focus in 2011. Likewise, one of the few bright spots that came out of the Haitian disaster was discovering that enormous sums of charitable money could be generated by aggregating millions of small (mobile) donations. If only this breast cancer awareness gag could have tapped that tactic!
• Anyone could’ve told you that food trucks are poised to upend the restaurant world in 2011, but readers were enthusiastic about our coverage of non-food applications for the food truck fad.
• It’s not everyday that our readers get jazzed about billboards, but these outdoor spectacles changed that perception pretty quickly. Likewise, we think this might be the only time a conversation about sustainable packaging has ever been so damn sexy.

Head this way for Part 2!

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.

Just in time for the holiday season, Gap tapped the folks at Cool Hunting to create an undeniably cool pop-up shop in New York City. Better yet, the shop took our Hometown’s Hero trend literally. New York City’s  innovators are most certainly the heroes of this particular pop-up, as the shop features NYC-produced artisan goods ranging from hats to gourmet pickles (featured to the right).

Clearly, Gap’s got the cool kid in them somewhere. Or at least, they’ve figured out where to turn to get some help. And while NYC is perhaps an easy spot to draw together artisanal products, what’s keeping Gap from pulling off this same concept in smaller, emerging hipster havens across the country? If Gap is trying to build a new relationship with today’s younger shoppers, these acts of Hometown Heroism are bound to send a much more inspiring message than, say, a logo redesign. We hope this is just the 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.

Above, you’ll find the boldly titled webinar, “Holy S#!t, Your Sample Rocked My World!” In less than 15 minutes, we tackle the following topics with reckless abandon:

• Why sampling (still) matters
• 5 benchmarks for best-in-class sampling
• Examples of great samples

It’s the latest installment of the Upshot Smartshot webinar series, bringing you better marketing in 15 minutes.

Be sure to follow us on Twitter (@upshotblog) for information on subsequent Smartshots. And, if you have marketing topics that you’d like to see us tackle (in 15 minutes!), just let us know!

It certainly doesn’t hurt that Verizon is now calling attention to the ScanBuy barcode reader in their TV, print, and in-store ads (thanks to Kyle Bruner for the tip). As more consumers are exposed to these codes (and, more importantly, how to use them), we can expect QR codes to become more ubiquitous in marketing applications. Of course, this means that if you’re going to wait around and see what happens, your competitors are bound to beat you to the punch.

Case in point: Heineken has started rolling out their “Plug Into Summer” campaign, and QR codes are playing a prominent role on the packaging. By no means are we touting our rival’s work, but we think you should know that consumers who scan the code have the opportunity to download three Heineken smartphone apps: a music trivia game, a sobriety test, and an app for finding a cab. Taken as a whole, if you’re having trouble remembering who’s the lead singer of the Rolling Stones, you can test your (non-) sobriety and realize that, yes, you need cab. Or at least I think that’s the gist of the campaign.

But while brands are slowly coming around to the QRevolution, retailers (and retail-relevant services like Cellfire) have been dabbling in this technology for much longer. Now, the Norma Kamali boutique in NYC is taking this technology a step further. In addition to tagging her clothes with videos that provide more information about each product, Kamali’s QR codes also enable nighttime shoppers to purchase the items even when the store is closed, just by snapping the QR code through the window. For those who are wondering how brick-and-mortar will compete with online shopping in the future, this appeal to the digitally-enabled shopper is one big weapon in retailers’ arsenals.