Sephora Sensorium – Lucid Dreams from the Sensory World

Beauty retailer Sephora and fragrance manufacturer Firmenich have commissioned The Sensorium: Lucid Dreams from the Sensory World, an interactive, multimedia experience set in a pop-up museum, designed to explore the emotions and instincts behind scent. The Sensorium features interactive and immersive installations First Scent and Lucid Dreams, developed and produced by experience design and production company The Department of the 4th Dimension (The D4D) to transport visitors into the realm of the perfumer’s imagination. The Sensorium, located in a 3,700 warehouse in New York’s Meatpacking District, launched to the public on October 15 and runs through to November 27th, 2011. Tickets are available through the Sephora website.

Upon entering First Scent, visitors are surrounded by motion picture media inspired by custom fragrances emitted throughout the room that trigger collective emotion and connections. Dreamlike films of cutting grass, a morning breakfast and a visit to the beach correspond to fragrances Weekend Splendor, 6:01 am and Summer Vacation designed by such superstar perfume creators as Harry Fremont and Honorine Blanc. Here, elemental and unforgettable moments are manifested in an evocative cocktail of sight, smell and sound.

Next, in the museum’s marquee event Lucid Dreams, visitors can affect beautiful suspended images inspired by Firmenich’s master perfumers. Using a high tech flower sculpture, the images transform based on the power of the individual’s sniff – triggered by the unique sound transmitted by the physical act of smelling. The D4D created each room’s architecture, including the short films, beautiful floor-to-ceiling images, glowing sniff-registering flowers and the software that drove the entire soul-stirring experience.

Credits

The Sensorium project was developed at The D4D (The Department of the 4th Dimension) led by creative director Matt Checkowski and executive producer Ron Cicero, along with a team of architects, designers, technologists and writers.

During the production and design of First Scent and Lucid Dreams, The D4D team worked on the visual experience with the custom designed perfumes on hand, to ensure the visual and auditory elements were a perfect fit for each scent and would combine in a journey of heightened perception. The perfumers and The D4D creative team collaborated throughout, with imagery and scent choices and changes influenced by the other during the process. The technical production of the interactive elements involved significant research and development including an examination of wind velocity and other triggers before landing on the auditory solution.

Agent Provocateur| woman(s).. know the power of your Underwear

Levi’s Go Forth Campaign “Now is Our Time”

The Levi’s brand introduced the first global campaign in the brand’s 138 years of history, “Go Forth - Now is Our Time” is now launching in 24 countries around the world.



The campaign tag line is “NOW IS OUR TIME.” It presents a message that anything can happen in our life, but no matter what happens, we should accept our time and keep a positive attitude. It’s a phrase representing positive feelings of those who try to move forward in their jeans. “GO FORTH” is Levi’s brand message. Through the message, Levi’s is transmitting the spirit to survive the modern world while reminding us the pioneers who carved out the frontier (New World) in jeans during the period of development and settlement of the American West.



Levi Strauss is running “Now is Your Time”, the latest instalment in the Go Forth advertising series, featuring “The Laughing Heart”, a poem by Charles Bukowski. The commercial, print ads and the website, goforth.levi.com, bring together glimpses of hopeful Berlin youth in an effort to inspire positive engagement with the future. The campaign, launched globally, is not yet running in the UK, due to the resemblance of some images to the current wave of riots in British cities.

The Laughing Heart

Your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
Be on the watch.
There are ways out.
There is a light somewhere.
It may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
Be on the watch.
The gods will offer you chances.
Know them.
Take them.
You can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
And the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
Your life is your life.
Know it while you have it.
You are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.

Credits

The Go Forth campaign was developed at Wieden+Kennedy by executive creative directors Mark Fitzloff and Susan Hoffman, creative director Tyler Whisnand, creative director/art director Jeff Williams, creative director Eric Baldwin, copywriter Antony Goldstein, art director Julia Blackburn, producer Sarah Shapiro, agency executive producer Ben Grylewicz, with writer Charles Bukowski.
Filming was shot by director Ralf Schmerberg at Radical Media by executive producer Donna Portaro, director of photography Daniel Gottschalk and line producer Munir Abbar.
Editor was Tommy Harden at Joint Editorial, with post producer Ryan Shanholtzer, and post executive producer Patty Brebner. Visual effects were produced at Method Studios by VFX executive producer Robert Owens, Flame artist Claus Hansen, VFX producer Ananda Reavis. Titles and graphics were produced at W+K Studio.
Music, “Anjos”, was composed by Julianna Barwick. Sound and music were licensed and produced at Search Party. Sound was mixed by Jeff Payne at Eleven Sound.
Photography was by Jeff Luker and Randall Mesdon.

Gap| Behind the Scenes.

From looking at just the first few pieces they've produced, it seems like this is an attempt to distance themselves from the pop advertising of the past — and maybe distinguish themselves from corporate cousin Old Navy. The work will take the viewer behind the scenes of the company's various departments, highlighting the people behind the products. It's not exactly a new approach, but it might just be what the clothier needs to do to relaunch their brand, one that has been the target of so much negative press. (Or was all that negative press just on design blogs? I can't quite tell. Ha.)
The first spot weighs in at 1:30 and features GAP's 1969 denim studio in downtown LA, and all the eager faces behind the product - considered by most to be GAP's best. It's hard not to appreciate the effort and passion they seem to put into their work, and if it doesn't exactly change my perception of them as a corporation, it might just start that process.
Pico 1969 Denim Studio

Here's a nice quote from wwd.com, “It’s quite a shift,” from past campaigns, said Seth Farbman, Gap’s global chief marketing officer. “This is the beginning of a longer-term strategy” that continues for the holiday season and into next year at least, and also continues to feature different operations and people at Gap. Farbman, who is based at Gap’s Global Creative Center in New York, declined to disclose which Gap operation will be highlighted next."
1969 Denim Studio Profile: Rob Crews

1969 Denim Studio Profile: Masako

A product-specific ad/video/thing:









Gap is turning to storytelling in its new global campaign, promoting its 1969 denim collection with "real people" (to start with, the team behind the collection, at its Los Angeles denim studio) and some other local touches, including tapping into the mobile truck craze and even featuring the studio's resident dog.
The first major campaign by the brand's new CMO, former Ogilvy exec Seth Farbman, the "1969: L.A. and Beyond" campaign aims to tell "the story of its 1969 fall collection from the inside out. Starting with the personalities behind the denim, 1969: L.A. and Beyond gives a transparent look at the designers and how they come together each day to create the latest in denim fits, fabrics and washes. Taking it from the studio to the real world, the campaign also shows how the denim comes to life in various cities by the people who wear it."[more]

Gap, of course, isn't the first brand to feature "real people" including its own employees — J. Crew, Zappos andAmerican Apparel are a few brands just in the fashion/retail space who've been down that path, while Seattle's Best Coffee, Red Lobster, Domino's, Cathay Pacific, and Perdue Farms have . But Farbman, a former journalist, is eager to bring storytelling back to the brand in a Levi's-like move designed to give it more street cred and a variety of hooks to play up to its 1.6 million Facebook fans and also style bloggers, who've already started talking up the campaign.
“When I first joined Gap, I was surprised by the unexpected, untold stories across the brand—particularly about our people and the real-life experiences and situations they’re inspired by,” said Farbman in a statement. “Fall is our first step in sharing what’s different and inventive at Gap, and we’re starting with our 1969 studio. We want our customers to see who’s behind the product and how their individual personalities and lifestyles influence what we offer in our stores around the globe.”
While Levi's has been creating experiential brand stories with pop-up locations in San Francisco, London and now Berlin to play up its "we are all workers" theme, Gap is looking to tacos and celebrity chefs to bring the 1969 campaign to the streets.
According to Ad Age, there "will also be an experiential element, with a taco truck, inspired by the Los Angeles locale of the studio, set to make appearances in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Starting this week, the "Pico de Gap" food trucks will sell tacos for $1.69 (though if you show off Gap duds, they're free), as well as hand-out coupons." The trucks will feature celebrity chefs who will broadcast their location via Twitter.
More from Gap's press release on the campaign launch:
"Led by creative director Rosella Giuliani, the 1969 design team is a collective of artists, musicians, action sports junkies and trendsetters. Women’s design director, Nicole King-Burroughs, turns to art for style inspiration, while women’s merchant, Masako Konishi, views fashion as more instinct than intellect, applying emotion as opposed to regulated rules to make her fashion choices. Men’s design director, Jason Ferro, brings his background as a rebel skater, surfer and musician to the design table, while men’s merchant, Cale Margol, uses denim as a canvas to tell a modern and progressive story. Wash specialist, Rob Crews, started in the industry when he was just 16 years-old and fell in love with the creative process of taking raw denim into a washed state through different hand treatments.

Providing further inspiration to the design team, the 1969 studio feels like the personal atelier of a denim architect, not the headquarters of a global brand. Once a cigar factory, the vast and open loft studio is based in the heart of the garment district on West Pico Boulevard in downtown Los Angeles. This Gap denim epicenter is an ever-changing canvas for ideas, featuring art books, mood boards, vintage buttons, Japanese work wear catalogues and back issues of surfer magazines, set against a backdrop of sun-filled floor-to-ceiling bay windows.
Aligned with how people want to discover and share information, 1969: L.A. and Beyond will live primarily in the digital world via a series of video vignettes and sponsored editorial on Gap’s Facebook page and on outlets such as DailyCandy, FabSugar, Glam, Hulu, LookBook, Pandora, Refinery29, RollingStone and TrendCentral. The campaign will also run in the August issues of national magazines including Glamour, GQ, InStyle, People StyleWatch and Vogue. Customers will also see the campaign in Gap’s windows nationwide where each designer will be profiled with photos and quotes. 1969: L.A. and Beyond was developed in partnership with Ogilvy and Cool Hunting."
The campaign was developed in Gap’s Global Creative Center in New York, and is designed to be global with different parts of the campaign allowing international markets to balance according to their needs. According to Ad Age, "spending on the campaign will be flat compared with last year, though a greater percentage of the budget is going toward digital and social media, a spokeswoman said. In the third quarter of 2010, Gap spent about $30 million on measured media, according to Kantar Media."
Graphicology's take on the campaign (watch the initial L.A. spots below, with "beyond L.A." to follow): "On one level, this seems to be much ado about nothing, but it still works. A little transparency, even quite polished transparency, can be beneficial if your brand has a story to tell, and I think everyone can agree that GAP is one such brand. Even if these spots are not the most surprising pieces of communication - my hope for this campaign is that it is just a start of things to come. Hopefully, more heartfelt, intelligent and eager advertising from the company and agency Ogilvy."
Gap 1969 Denim Studio Los Angeles: Go inside the Pico creative loft in downtown Los Angeles, where Gap's 1969 denim design team works on fits, cuts, washes and other design elements to create a truly unique approach to affordable, cutting-edge jeans


Gehind the scenes at the 1969 Denim Headquarters in downtown Los Angeles:
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Gap 1969 Denim Profile: Rob Crews. "We take the raw denim and turn it into its washed and final state. We go into it wanting to make every garment the very best." 
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Gap 1969 Denim Profile: Masako Konishi. "What we challenge ourselves to do is to take the idea of denim as a staple and to move it forward; to keep it new and to keep it fresh," says Masako, Gap 1969 women's denim merchant. "Being inspired by truly creative people is what I love about my job." 


Gap 1969 Denim Profile: Cale Margol. "I wear jeans every day. I really don't wear anything else," says Cale Margol, men's denim merchant for Gap 1969 jeans. A background in surfer wear and architecture helps inspire his work on the 1969 denim men's line. "How do you do something that sets [you] apart from the next brand?"
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Gap 1969 Denim Profile: Jason Ferro. "I take a lot of inspiration from the street, from music, from the art world," says the head designer for Gap 1969 Men's Denim. "When you can capture your attitude and your self-expression through your clothing, that's what you want to do." Meet Jason, his band and his dog, Louie (also at top): 
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Gap 1969 Denim Profile: Nicole King-Burroughs. Nicole started her career as an intern at Gap. "I basically joke that I was born and raised at the Gap," she says. "Everyone here basically lives into the lifestyle as well. We're really designing for ourselves." 
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And there's a slew of Gap 1969 product videos, of course — a few:
Denim Skinny Boot Jean in Black: What's the newest denim cut? Masako, Gap 1969 Denim women's merchant, is betting on the skinny boot, a legging with a subtle bootcut flare at the heel:
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Gap 1969 Denim Men's Straight Fit Jean in Clean Gray. The Gap 1969 Men's team is thinking beyond blue: For fall, they've created a versatile dark gray color for their popular straight fit jean:
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Alternative Apparel| Rebranding

Problem: Alternative, Alternative Apparel, Alternative Earth. This brand has 5 different names and multiple websites. But when you say, Alternative Apparel, people wonder what kind of American Apparel product extension you’re talking about. That’s a problem for premium priced clothing company selling basics.

Insight: Inspiring creativity is the common thread through all of Alternative Apparel’s messaging. All creative people have to deal with the blank page and the first mark. The moment of creation.

Solution: Refocus the brand to their original mission–to create the world’s best T-Shirt. So we recommended that they drop the “Alternative” and just be “Apparel.”

We want to emphasize the brand’s muted soft cotton clothing. Letting their clothes become the blank slate of a wardrobe. So that creatives can dress quietly but create loudly.

Their messaging, clothing, website and in-store will all emphasize the infinite potential of a blankness.

New Proposed Branding:

Proposed Website

New Website Homepage

New Website Shopping Page

Flagship Store Design

New flagship store design

Catalogue

Redesigned Catalogue

Redesigned Catalogue

Old Branding:

Logo Evolution: Original Logo, Updated Logo, Our Proposed Logo

Old Website

AD: Sarah Kraus
CT: Josh Souter
CW: Adam Aceino (wrote, edited and co-shot video)
Brand Manager: Lisa Scotti
Planner: Jennifer Martin

CD: Kelly O’Keefe

Nike Argentina| Flying trainers at the Nike Air Show

Nike’s clever involvement of in-store and online players in the Air Show demonstrates perfectly the potential of customer facing brand activity.

If someone told you to blow into your computer’s microphone to make a shoe fly in Buenos Aires, you’d either think they’d been drinking heavily, or had fallen for some new internet hoax. However, Nike’s latest in-store promotion in Argentina requires visitors to do just that, and take part in the Nike Air Show. 

Without wanting to spoil the magic, Nike has used microphones, magnets and a little bit of internet magic to promote the Nike Air identity in a very literal sense. 

JDate Israel|Someone to zip you up

JDates's stroke of genius was to team up with a popular women's fashion chain, and promote their services in a fun, useful way that afforded customers a level of discretion in a potentially sensitive area.

Valentine's days are the perfect time of year for dating sites to advertise for subscribers to their services.  In Israel, the Jewish equivalent of Valentine's day (called "Tu B'av") occurs in July, which coincides with the end of season sales period for retailers.

JDate, a local dating agency decided to take advantage of the fact that the sales period means increased traffic in stores, and so teamed up with clothing chain Mango in an inventive in-store promotion partnership.
Like all the best ideas, JDate's idea was simple: To provide assistance in the one area that Israeli women still needed help - zipping up the backs of their dresses. JDate provided this assistance with the use of specially branded tags which acted as a coupon for a free one month subscription to the dating site. The tags helped single women zip up the clothes they tried on - meaning that JDate could help single women find a date, and an outfit. The tags were removable, in case customers decided they already had the perfect outfit.

The activity ran for the two weeks immediately prior to Tu B'av, and more than 300,000 Mango customers were exposed to the campaign nationally. 2,000 tags were taken by customers and JDate saw traffic for this period increase by 13%, with new subscriptions increasing by 15% - a new high for the summer period.

The activity was also covered heavily in fashion magazines, blogs and social media networks.

BRAND:JDate

CATEGORY:Internet

REGION:Israel

DATE:July - July 2010

AGENCY:McCann Erickson

MEDIA CHANNEL:Out-of-Home,PR,Retail/POS

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