Having caught you up on all things foursquare, you’ve now got a pretty good handle on how marketers are handling the rise of this location-based social network. Of course, foursquare’s not the only game in town. While the world figures out what to make of Facebook Places, Gowalla continues to be the best LBS alternative [...]

With Facebook recently unveiling their own location-based service, the press has itself in a tizzy trying to wrap its head around the impending arrival of the year of location. Y’know, the one we called out back in March. But no worries, we’re glad you’re all coming around. In fact, we’re going to spend the next [...]

Delighting consumers. Hidden surprises. We’ve mentioned them once or twenty times here on the Awesome Blog. But, underlying this trend was the idea that brands touting “big happiness” would struggle to deliver upon that promise in a period of great uncertainty and skepticism. When we introduced the trend, we felt that brands would best succeed [...]

We hate to say we told you so, but… wait a minute, we LOVE telling you we told you so! In our Smartshot webinar on Radical Demography, we told you about four dramatic demographic shifts that need to be in marketers’ peripheral vision, including “DINK” (dual income, no kids) households and multigenerational households. Well, guess [...]

We figured our creative folks would appreciate Flavorwire’s 10 favorite user-generated typography music videos, including the Daft Punk tribute shown above. Of course, Flavorwire’s responding to the meteoric rise of a typographic video for the catchiest string of f-bombs ever (and here’s the link in case you have no idea what we’re referencing). While these [...]

After all our talk of QR codes and Stickybits and barcode marketing, we’d be remiss if we didn’t take a second to pat ourselves on the back here at Upshot. As part of Pacifico’s sponsorship of the US Open of Surfing, we rolled out a program via QR code for the event’s attendees. Better yet, [...]

In our lengthy coverage of QR codes and barcode marketing in general, we’ve repeatedly referenced Stickybits without ever diving into how the platform actually works. There’s a reason for that – a couple, actually. But, with Doritos, Pepsi, Ben & Jerry’s, and other CPG giants flirting with the service, we certainly owe them a glance [...]

That’s right – it’s time for another Potty Posting! This time, we tackle barcode marketing, including our old friend the QR code. As always, a PDF version is available here, which we encourage you to share with clients and colleagues. But, if you’d prefer the straight text, continue reading below.

Who would’ve thought all this talk of buns and thighs would turn so ugly? Yes, there appears to be a bit of a battle going on about toning shoes, the sneakers that claim to – among other things – help you shape up your abs, thighs, and glutes just by altering the way you walk. [...]

Back when we introduced the idea of After the App, we suggested that with every brand under the sun jumping on the app bandwagon, smartphone owners were sure to start suffering from app overload. And, when these users eventually started pruning their app menus, only the most useful or most entertaining apps would survive the [...]