By David Ponce

Argentinian ad agency Del Campo/Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi is on a roll. First we heard about their work with the BGH Quick Chef, a microwave oven that signals readiness with customizable music instead of a beep. But their latest campaign with Norte Beer, a South American brewer, is pure genius. They’ve created the Norte Photoblocker, a beer cooler that makes it impossible to take a good picture of you within its effective radius. It does this by detecting a flash and immediately flashing one of its own, ruining the pic. Why would this be good? Ok, picture this. You’re out at the club getting into all kinds of trouble. Great times… until pictures are taken and you’re inevitably tagged. By the time you get around to doing some damage control, well, by then it’s too late. Better to have the photoblocker around.

The device actually exists and works. It’s been planted in a few regional bars and photoblocked pictures were still uploaded with the subjects well protected. Savvy club owners would do well to look into ways of acquiring more like these. As the ads say, “What happens at the club, stays at the club…” However, there doesn’t appear to be concrete plans to bring the device to North America.

Incidentally, do yourself a favor and hit the jump to watch the two commercials in question. They’re really, really good.

VIA [ Fast Company ]

It’s hard to imagine that the changes Lucas keeps making to the Star Wars saga will be looked back on with fondness in the future. Even Spielberg regrets the changes he made to E.T. when it was released on DVD. But I can’t argue that Lucasarts is doing a bang up job when it comes to promoting and advertising the films being released on Blu-ray. First they turned the BT Tower in London into the world’s largest lightsaber, and now they’ve given the same treatment to the hand rails in Tokyo commuter trains. Obviously on a much smaller scale. The conversion was done with simple wraparound decals, but the effect is very convincing. And I’d love if they ran the same promotion here, so for at least a little while I wouldn’t be so disgusted with the thought of holding onto anything while riding the subway.

[ Japan Trends - Train Ad Campaign Turns Railings into Star Wars Lightsabers ] VIA [ Newlaunches ]

I’m sure 15 years from now we’ll be looking back at Best Buy flyers from 2011 and snickering at how crappy the electronics of today are. But that doesn’t make it any less enjoyable to do the same with this flyer from September, 1996.

As a young’n I’m sure I stared at the cutting edge desktop computers with my jaw on the floor. Barely even able to comprehend what I could do with 16MB of RAM! Or left scratching my head as I perused the CDs and wondered what exactly a Butthole Surfer was…

[ Best Buy Flyer - September 1996 ] VIA [ Coudal ]

Last night the good people of London, England were privy to one of the coolest marketing stunts I’ve seen in a while. Worried that there still might be in excess of 10 people on this planet who weren’t already aware that Star Wars was being released on Blu-ray, Lucasfilm turned the 581 ft tall BT Tower into what is probably the largest lightsaber in our galaxy. The folks over at Pocket-lint managed to snap a few decent photos of it lit up, and I particularly like that someone dressed as Darth Vader probably had to spend the entire night posing for awkward forced perspective shots. (He’s still called Darth Vader in the latest version of these films right?)

[ Pocket-lint - BT Tower becomes Star Wars lightsaber ]

I’m hesitant to say anything about this commercial lest I spoil the ending. But it’s definitely worth your time. It’s beautifully shot, does a great job at what it’s intended to do (ie sell a product and playing up its brand) and it’s certainly memorable. It even won a well-deserved Red Dot Design Award.

VIA [ Fazed ]

Well, I’ve found the source of my nightmares for the next 3 weeks, and it comes in the form of Jell-O’s latest advertising campaign. It started out with a website featuring a giant face that frowns or smiles based on the general mood on Twitter; a larger percentage of smiley faces being tweeted results in a smile, while a larger percentage of frowns results in – you guessed it – a frown!

But the campaign is being taken to a whole new level with the recent installation of a billboard in Manhattan that features an even larger, mechanical 3D version of the face that physically smiles or frowns based on Twitter’s mood. I’m happy I don’t work in an office overlooking the ad, because even when smiling it sends shivers down my spine. So thank you Crispin Porter + Bogusky, I’ll never eat pudding the same way again!

[ Jell-O Pudding Face ] VIA [ PSFK ]

While they’re more commonly used as a way for prepubescent boys to leave an imprint of their middle finger behind in novelty stores, those pin art desk toys are occasionally an amusing way to kill a few minutes at work. And when blown up to full-scale, a clever way to advertise your fashion brand.

That’s what Lulu Guinness did with this giant pin art display which encouraged people to ‘Be a Pin Up!’ themselves. If you had a real-life wayback machine you could travel back to last month and experience it for yourself under the St. John’s Gate in Central London, where it was on display as part of Clerkenwell’s Design Week. But now we’re going to assume it’s sitting on top of Lulu Guinness’ equally gigantic desk, next to a monstrous version of Newton’s Cradle which could demolish a building.

[ Fashionista Barbie - Clerkenwell Design Week: Lulu Guinness - Be a Pin Up! ] VIA [ TDW Geeks & Illuminations and Other Stuff ]

Having taken ‘Fahrvergnügen’ farther than it really needed to go, Volkswagen has apparently been on the hunt for more unorthodox forms of advertising, and it seems like they’ve hit the nail on the head again. In order to literally demonstrate the “awesome road-eating power and acceleration” of their new VW Golf R they created the print ad pictured above featuring the tag line “Eat the road.” And it turns out the ad, which was placed in South African copies of the Auto Trader, was actually printed on paper made of glutinous rice, flour, water, salt, propylene glycol, FD&C color and glycerine. Meaning it was completely edible. Now I’ve no idea how it tasted, but I’m hoping the trend is carried on at upcoming auto shows since Doritos flavored brochures and press releases sound like the perfect snack.

[ Ads of the World - Volkswagen: Eat the Road ] VIA [ Adweek ]

Coca-Cola took a page from the ‘Go Big Or Go Home’ book to celebrate their 125th anniversary. They hired a company called Obscura Digital to turn all 4 sides of their Atlanta HQ building into a giant 26 story tall projection screen. All in all that amounts to over 200,000 square feet of projection surface. The setup also appears to use multiple projectors on the ground for each side, seamlessly lined up to create one giant animation.

The 2 hour show, which incorporates “transitioning narrative and cinematic pieces” as well as social media elements like photos uploaded to Coca-Cola’s Facebook page, runs every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night in May from 9 to 11pm. And according to the project’s page on the Obscura Digital website, the CO2 footprint of the event “is offset through Georgia’s Valley Wood Carbon Sequestration Project.”

[ Obscura Digital - Coca-Cola 125th Anniversary Large Scale Projection Display ] VIA [ PSFK ]

In an effort to promote Vantage, a stain remover that competes with the top brand in Brazil, the company hired São Paulo-based ad agency DPZ Propaganda to create this clever campaign. Apparently Ketchup is the leading source of stains in Brazil, so they created Ketchup packets shaped like stains with an ad for Vantage on the back with the tagline: “Stains. Hard to avoid, easy to remove.”

Was it effective? Well 100,000 of the custom-shaped packets were distributed in snack bars and restaurants in and around São Paulo, and in just three days they had all disappeared. Either that city consumes a lot of condiments, or the citizens saw the opportunity for a cheap keepsake. Either way, I think they got their message across.

[ Ads Of The World - Vantage: Ketchup Stain Packet ] VIA [ PSFK ]