The Headless Horseman

To promote the latest Tim Burton Exhibition in Australia, agency DDB in Melbourne re-created one of Burton's famous characters- the headless horseman, who sat offering consumers free carriage rides to the exhibition from the centre of town. Freaky. But Fabulous.

RPM REPORTER: The Strongbow BowTime Bar

This year's V Festival wouldn't have been complete without Strongbow's Bowtime Bar, offering up the best raw talent in a uniqely built structure that houses four bars, including a Gallery Bar and Terrace Bar, VIP area and dance floor that was packed out right throughout the weekend. Queues formed outside for practically every act, and perfectly poured pints of Strongbow were served throughout.

Moschino's Hotel

Fashion giant Moschino have transformed a neoclassical railway station built in 1840 into a 65 room hotel. The hotel urges visitors to ‘expect the unexpected’ decking out their rooms with fairytale-inspired designs. Each space tells a different story, with Moschino adding their trademarked stylish-quirky touches with teacup tables, a forest bedpost, a rose petal-covered bedspread and even a wolf creeping out of the bedcovers.

FAT PANTS

The YMCA has promoted their fitness programs by organizing a ‘fatpants’ drive. YMCA lobbies are fitted with FatPants donation boxes in which slimmers donated their old trousers once they had lost weight.

As members shed the pounds the trousers were then added to outdoor billboards to demonstrate the success of the weight loss programs. In just a few months, thousands of trousers were collected and donated to the local Salvation Army.

The Perfect Pencil

Here at RPM, we're big on recycling, so were pretty elated to see these handy TreeSmart pencils made from 100% recycled newspaper. What a great thought that The Metro is being used for something more positive other than depressing us all on our commute to work every morning!

Olympic Stamps

In anticipation of the 2012 Olympics, Royal Mail is issuing 30 artist designed stamps each depicting an olympic or paralympic sport. the stamps will be released in sets of tens (2009, 2010, 2011) - one set each year leading up to the 30th olympiad. For a look at more designs, check out The DesignBoom website.

Artistic Group: EN MASSE

EN MASSE is a non-profit organisation that brings together emerging Montreal artists to participate in an ongoing series of artistic projects. The group focuses on the creation of large-scale, highly spontaneous, collaborative black and white murals and public installations.

The picture above documents their revamp of Le Petit Hotel in Old Montreal, where they adorned a small awkward space with their black and white murial, transforming the interior.

The EN MASSE Mandate is twofold; firstly to increase the visibility of new young artists, both collectively and as individuals, and secondly, to foster community-oriented art events and programming, built upon a specific form of collaborative interaction and immersion between the chosen artists.

RPM REPORTER: BRANDS GALORE AT VINTAGE, GOODWOOD

Vintage at Goodwood, a boutique festival in Chichester, flaunts all things Vintage to the coolest of cats, including classic cars, old-school clothes, antique jewellery and costumes. The festival is like no other, with a faux high-street constructed right in the centre equipped with cinema, catwalk (sponsored by Grazia), beauty parlour (in association with the Jemma Kidd Make-up School) and a host of chic bars and shops. Civilised is an understatement; with a host of polite information people, litter-pickers galore and even clean toilets!

Jumping on the ‘clean bandwagon’, were Dyson, who had a stand exhibiting their powerful hand dryers using the ‘The Damp Hands Challenge’. I think we can all agree that from first impression the Dyson brand isn’t exactly synonymous with fashion festival, but in-built into their structure were multiple hand basins and soap, offering people the chance to wash their hands using the Dyson hand dryers to dry them. This practical approach offered people a very useful service whilst educating them on the importance of hand hygiene and allowing them to try out their product.

Bedazzling viewers near the entrance was The Tanqueray Torch Club, a venue providing waitored table service, with a large dance floor and swing bands keeping revellers on their feet all day long. I felt like I’d stepped into the 1950’s, and the ambiance of the room really suited Tanqueray. I also spotted another Tanqueray bar on the main high street, decorated to look like a classy cocktail hang-out with mint wall-paper, white leather booths and an outdoor seating area. Inside, a large bar was the focal point decorated at one end with Tanqueray bottles displayed in the shape of a larger bottle and a great selection of classy cocktails.

Gola too had a small area. It was a vintage football set-up that invited festival-goers to ‘Beat The Keeper And Win £5’. This was a similar offering to our own Bop-it campaign we held last year, where we asked students to ‘Challenge The Champ for a Fiver’. Gola’s campaign seemed to be just as successful; there were queues of young kids, yet after noting the size of the miniscule goal, their attempts seemed even more futile after seeing the hench goal keeper, who blasted the balls away left right and centre! I’m pretty sure those five pound notes weren’t handed out very often.

Last but not least was the wrist band given in exchange for tickets on arrival. This was designed into the shape of a large IWC watch and really stood out as a great brand idea. Usually wrist bands at festivals make collectable items and it was interesting to have the brand displayed on your arm. For that particular weekend, everybody ‘owned’ an IWC watch, and it’s something I would definitely remember. The IWC watch also appeared on the website, showing the countdown until the festival began.

RPM REPORTER: PRE-MIX SAMPLING, VICTORIA STATION

Word on the experiential grape-vine had it that some Diageo Pre-mix sampling was taking place in the midst of Victoria Station, so I headed down to check it out. As I stroll towards the activity, I see a hub of people surrounding a small space dressed to look like a kitchen/living room with polished wooden floor and breakfast bar set-up. In one corner, sit two red chairs surrounding an edgily designed table made entirely of pre-mix cans, and in the other I see a faux fridge with magnets and kitchen cabinets providing a backdrop to the bustling sampling activity. The faux fridge connected to a real one at the back, and staff seemed to be taking samples to and fro from here. Nice touch.

As I approach, a man dressed in a smart uniform of white t-shirt emblazoned with a large pre-mix graphic and black trousers approaches. “Can I interest you in a sample of Pre-mix?” he says smiling. After challenging him to name all the flavours (he struggled a little) I’m given a stamp on the hand, a colourful leaflet offering 50p off my next purchase and a sample. The leaflet was particularly well designed; the type that any student would keep to stick on their wall with instructions on how best to serve. Made up of all the Pre-Mix flavours, it folded out like a finely crafted piece of origami.

The member of staff carried on to be extremely informative, telling me that I could buy the cans the cheapest from Asda and that the stand had been busy all day. In particular he told me he’d given samples out to more women than men, although I couldn’t help wondering that his gleaming smile had something to do with it.

Having done my research, I knew that there was a game to interact with and a goodie bag to be had. Unfortunately I did have to ask to play the game, but it’s likely that the stand was so busy it was difficult for staff to oversee it. I insisted though that I wanted to play, and a lovely member of staff sat me down on the comfortable sofa and explained how the rules went. Attached to the pre-mix table were the entire variety of pre-mix cans without their labels, and whoever placed the correct labels onto the right pre-mix cans the quickest won. Out came the stop-watch, and I manically began matching up the labels, challenging a fellow consumer. Low and behold I won- and came eighth on the winner’s board.

Despite only being 2 minutes long, I actually really enjoyed this clever brand interaction and turns out I wasn’t the only one. I noticed in amongst my shrieks of enjoyment that the game attracted quite a bit of attention, and was a great way to educate people about pre-mix. In fact I’m pretty sure as a result I could name every flavour. I was then asked to fill in a form in order to get my goody bag, which contained a can, branded ice-cube mould, another coupon and a branded drinks mat. I really thought this was a great selection of items to take home and enjoy, which was of course the whole idea behind the campaign; Diageo want consumers to drink pre-mix in the home very much like they would beer and wine.

I continued to have a few cheeky chats with the staff, who told me that the biggest attraction aside from the samples was the pre-mix designed table. “People love it- I’ve heard loads of passers-by saying they like it” and one even told me, “the sofas are a nice place for people to sit- there aren’t any places to sit in a station, so we have a lot of people chilling out on them”.

The interaction I had with Diageo Pre-mix must have been about 7 minutes in total, but it was enough to educate me on the flavours, have a taste, and get some great, useful branded produce to take home. A brilliant sampling campaign all round.

The Cineroleum

This summer a derelict petrol station on Clerkenwell Road will be transformed into a hand-built cinema celebrating the extravagance and ceremony of the picture palace.

Primarily constructed using donated and found materials; The Cineroleum will be an improvisation of the decadent interiors that greeted audiences during cinema's golden age. Popcorn, paper tickets, elaborate signage and flip-down seats will collectively recreate the familiar excitement of cinema-going.

Enclosed by an ornate curtain strung from the forecourt roof, The Cineroleum will host screenings from sundown four nights a week. With a programme of off-beat classics that celebrate the social experience of watching the big screen, stars from Buster Keaton to Barbarella will flicker, dance and shoot their way over The Cineroleum screen. Just as the drive-ins of 1950's America brought cinema out from its enclosures and into suburbia, The Cineroleum will be a street-side cinema that is truly exposed to the city.

The project has been conceived and built by a collective of young artists, designers and architects committed to the creative re-use of urban spaces. With 4,000 petrol stations currently lying derelict in the UK, this pilot project demonstrates the potential for their transformation as exciting and unusual spaces for public use.

http://www.cineroleum.co.uk/

Photo Shoot

Our photographic department like the style of this Jared Nickerson photo shoot done for Computer Arts Magazine.

EuroStar's Latest Ad

This latest advert for Eurostar makes exploring magical. In it we see a young girl who goes on the hunt for animals who will talk to her. It's ephemeral in quality, and cleverly uses nostalgia to draw us into the story; we all remember that determination to seek out strange lands and strange friends and thus we will all remember Eurostar. Brilliant.

Magic On The Conveyor Belt

To advertise his new show, magician Lance Burton placed a large branded trunk with a woman's feet sticking out from one end onto an airport conveyor belt; referring to the classic trick of 'chopping' an assistant in half. His show will take place in the Monte Carlo Resort and Casino in Las Vegas.

Dove = Genius

To ensure that Dove samples actually got sampled, Dove sent a handy little kit to select hotel managers encouraging them to leave notes on guests' mirrors with special de-misting markers. The marker uses a de-mister fluid that causes the writing to appear when the mirror steams up. A real moment of surprise and exactly the moment to give Dove Body Milk a try.

www.sosticky.com

McDonald's Crossing

During the biggest public festival in Switzerland, the Zurichfest, McDonald’s was confronted with heavy competition by independent food stalls. As a result, they needed something to catch the visitors’ attention, drawing them to their food offering.

During the festival all official street markings are taken out of function, which enabled McDonalds to reshape the pedestrian crossing in front of their restaurant into a portion of french fries.

http://www.blogger.com/www.creativecriminals.com

Paper Creations

Le Creative Sweatshop have developed a range of weird and wonderful designs made entirely of folded paper. Products include jewellery, window displays, handbags, shoes and installations for brands such as Nissan, Stella McCartney and high-class fashion magazines.

Le Creative Sweatshop is the result of the encounter between Ndeur and Make a Paper World in January 2009: a conceptual agency based of modern communication means and mediums, through the lens of the DIY culture, working on volume and space scenography.

Ways To Save Energy

As we've seen from the success of our recent Talking Energy Live Debates on behalf of E.ON, power brands are dedicated to saving energy. RWE, a German Energy Company, are also committed to energy efficiency but decided that this particular lifestyle has to start from their own employees. Staff were therefore encouraged to create art works about energy waste and here's what they came up with.