Oh, believe me, we’ll get to location. But, like yesterday’s post on touch and touchless, we’ve got some smaller fish to fry first.
In the meantime, let’s check in on our Hometown’s Hero trend (and regional marketing in general). We’ve spoken at length about the opportunity for brands to help consumers learn more about their communities, [...]

A quick programming note: We will be covering the upcoming SXSW Interactive Festival via Upshot’s Twitter profile. Please follow @upshot_agency to get up-to-the-minute updates from Austin!
A couple lingering points from our Here and Now (with Foursquare) Potty Posting, before we get back to your regularly scheduled awesomeness.
One caveat that we didn’t get to in the [...]

After our “Cause Marketing Gets Bigger. And Smaller.” post from last week, a couple of subsequent examples popped that were worth passing along.
For starters, we mentioned that a number of cause marketing efforts were tapping the wisdom of crowds to generate unorthodox solutions to daunting social problems. PechaKucha, who we’ve profiled before, recently brought together [...]

Last week, Ad Age ran a brief article titled, “The Most Influential Cause Marketing Campaigns.” Much of the list is familiar; we’re all aware of the massive efforts like the Livestrong bracelets and Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty. However, some of the campaigns on the list took on a decidedly narrow mission, such as AmEx’s [...]

In last week’s post about Copenhagen’s cycling railings, we casually mentioned Apple’s renovation of a Chicago subway station and KFC’s offer to repair potholes. As local governments continue to struggle (no really, Chicago, it’s not like any of us take the bus or train to work – keep slashing those routes!), brands have a rare [...]

Ok people. We know January’s habitually a month of soon-to-be-abandoned hopes for shedding the extra baggage you brought home over the holidays.
But, did we miss the memo on the public workout fad?
First, Gap announces that they’re temporarily dedicating their NYC concept store to workout attire, and partnered with Crunch gym to bring in trainers for [...]

In our 10 Trends for 2010 analysis, our fourth trend (Niche Networks and Micro Communities) claims that we should expect an explosion of smaller communities built around shared passion points in the next 12 months. From a marketing standpoint, this trend provides brands with ample opportunities to build exceptional relationships with smaller consumer groups through [...]

If you’re interested in contributing to the Haitian earthquake relief efforts, one of the easiest ways to donate is to text “haiti” to 90999. Doing so will contribute $10 to the American Red Cross, and the $10 will be added to your next phone bill. (The Red Cross emphasizes that 100% of your $10 donation [...]

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 [...]

… is a broken meter that tackles homelessness.
Back in 2007, the Denver Road Home program thought of a quirky way to raise awareness (and a handful of spare change) for their 10 year plan to end homelessness in the city.  The program converted a malfunctioning parking meter into a piggy bank for the program, encouraging [...]