Another Engaging Marketing Tactic For UNIQLO. A Pinterest Takeover For Their Dry Mesh Project.

More opportunities for branding continue to spring up on the web as popular user-generated and social network-related websites grow.



Pinterest, one of the fastest growing sites out there, with over a reported 13 million registered users, was recently hijacked by UNIQLO to increase awareness of their Dry Mesh Tshirts. Part of the new UNIQLO Innovation Project (UIP), the idea was conceived of and executed for the Japanese brand by New York digital agency Firstborn.



Firstborn had to do something big for the Japanese brand to stand out from the chaos of online fashion and social media. To promote "the ultimate functional wear" that keeps you cool and dry while exercising, Firstborn created the first-ever branded mosaics on Pinterest.





As users scrolled through Pinterest public feeds, giant blocks of images appeared. Together, the image blocks worked to create an impossible to miss, branded mosaic. As users continued to scroll down, the branded images seemingly animated.









How did they do it?
To reach active consumers, the guerilla campaign targeted five categories: Men's Apparel, Women's Apparel, Geek, Fitness and Sports. Extensive R&D ensured the images would appear in one group. To evade Pinterest's detection algorithms, Firstborn set up over 100 shell accounts ahead of the launch. A group of Firstborn employees simultaneously pinned pre-selected images to successfully free users from the monotony of Pinterest scrolling. With a strong team effort, the UNIQLO Dry Mesh Project on Pinterest brought attention to the new product with an experience as unique as the actual shirts.



UNIQLO has been one of the most innovative brands in terms of their marketing and advertising on the web. This is merely the latest in their engaging tactics.

Infographic: The Growth of Social media

Source: The Growth of Social Media: An Infographic

Lady Gaga, Justin Timberlake, Usher & More Sacrifice Their Digital Lives To Save Others.

above: Lady Gaga is Dead

A multitude of celebrities from superstar Lady Gaga to photographer David LaChapelle have sacrificed their digital lives to help save millions of real lives affected by HIV/AIDS in Africa and India in a new awareness campaign for Keep A Child Alive by TBWA/ Chiat /Day, New York.

Starting on December 1, which was World AIDS Day, the world's most followed celebrity Tweeters began sacrificing their digital lives to help save millions of real lives affected by HIV/AIDS in Africa and India.

That meant no more Twitter or Facebook updates from any of them. No more knowing where they are, what they had for dinner, or what interesting things are happening in their lives. From here on out, they're dead. Kaput. Finished.

Jennifer Hudson Is Dead:


But they don't have to die in vain. And they don't have to stay dead for long. Just watch their Last Tweet and Testaments, and buy their lives back.

Every single dollar helps Keep a Child Alive fight this terrible disease. And when $1,000,000 is reached, everyone will be back online and tweeting in no time.

You can even join the fight yourself by sacrificing your own digital life. If Khloe and Kim can live without Twitter for a few days, maybe you can too.

Kim and Khloe Kardashian Are Dead:


Together, with a little digital sacrifice on our parts, we can give millions of real people the care, love and hope they deserve. We can give them life - the one thing none of us can live without.

The following fabulous shots of the 'dead' celebs were taken by Markus Klinko and Indrani, with styling by GK Reid. The one exception is the Justin Timberlake shot which was taken by Peggy Sirota.

The other "Dead" Celebs:

Alicia Keyes:

Justin Timberlake:

Bronson Pelletier:

Daphne Guinness:

David LaChapelle:

Elijah Wood:

Janelle Monae:

Jay Sean:


Kimberly Cole:

Ryan Seacrest:

Serena Williams:

Swiss Beatz:

The Buried Life:

Usher:



©2010 Keep a Child Alive. Keep a Child Alive is a registered 501c3 charity. US Texting Disclaimer: $10 will be added to your mobile phone bill/deducted from your prepaid account. Message & data rates may apply. Reply STOP to 90999 to stop. Full Terms: mGive.org/T. In the UK, Text "BUYLIFE" to 70500 - SMS donations are charged at £5 to your phone bill. Always seek the permission of the bill payer. Keep a Child Alive will receive a minimum of 81% of this fee due to network charges and processing.

Like Your Facebook Friends Enough To Hang Them On Your Wall?

Like your FB friends enough to immortalize them on a large printed poster? That's the idea behind grad student Benjamin Lotan's 'Printing Facebook', a custom printed Friend Poster. For $20, you can choose from your own friends, your favorite groups or fan pages and have each of the profile pics ganged on one photographic print.





Paper stock: Benjamin uses Fuji Crystal Archive photo paper, a high-quality professional grade paper with real weight that will not rip or fold easily. Your poster is exposed onto this paper and developed with traditional photo chemicals so it will have a richer image quality than any ink-jet printer process.


above left: the 5,000 pic poster is the largest Benjamin has printed to date and just about reaches the limit.

How many friends? The size of your friends' photos are optimized to fill out the full space, so the dimensions will depend upoon the total number of friends. The code is optimized such that your poster will look fantastic whether you have 200 friends, or up to 2,200 friends.

Custom options: You can decide how much space you want between your friends' pictures. If you want to maximize on the size of your friends photos you can even decide to print a poster with no margins at all.

For the background color, there are 4 options: black, white, and two shades of facebook blue. You can preview each color as you go through the ordering process.
*please note that your poster may print a few inches shorter than 40"

• Large 20"x40" print
• Customizable Options
• High Resolution Print
• Quality Photo Paper
• Print Groups & Fan Pages
• $20
Order yours here.

Apple Lover Seeks Same At Cupidtino, An Online Dating Site For Mac Users.

The brain child of four geeks in San Francisco and Seattle with backgrounds at Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft, Cupidtino, is a new online dating site for Apple lovers and Mac users.



With around 30,000 registers users, the site has a look and feel of the Apple site, but no formal affiliation. The creators were inspired by the fact that Mac and Apple fans seem to share a similar aesthetic in terms of style, music, taste and tech... so why wouldn't they share romantic interests and attraction? At least that's the supposition.


above photo by Rome Wilkerson


A personal friend of mine and yes, a Mac user and Apple fan, actually met someone with whom he's fallen in mad mac love on this site, which prompted me to blog about it. Albeit, one positive case study does not a matchmaker make, but it was enough to get me to investigate a little further.



Since my stats show that my readers are predominantly (by a small margin) Mac users, I figured some of you might be interested in pursuing this as an option for finding your compatible mate - or as Cupidtino cutely calls them, Macheart.




above: screen grabs of the site show it's nice clean Apple-like interface and design.

So, what are the demographics on the site thus far and what do these folks have in common? I couldn't get a percentage breakdown of the age groups, but was told that users range from age 17 to 69 and that the site is GLBT friendly. But here's a breakdown of the member locations and some of their preferences from the very nice folks at Cupidtino as of September 8th:

Top Five Cities:
LA
NYC
SFO
London
Moscow

Top five states in the US and the percentage breakdown:
California (25%)
New York (10%)
Texas (6%)
Florida (5%)
Illinois (5%)

Top Five Countries:
USA
Germany
Canada
UK
Russia
USA: Rest of World split = 55:45

Members also share their favorite songs, movies and iPhone apps from iTunes. Here's the most popular songs, movies and apps the Cupidtino users are sharing now.

Top Five Songs:
Viva la Vida - Coldplay
Bad Romance - Lady GaGa
Uprising - Muse
Alejandro - Lady GaGa
Fireflies - Owl City

Top Five Movies
Avatar (2009) James Cameron
Star Trek J.J. Abrams
Fight Club David Fincher
The Matrix Larry Wachowski ; Andy Wachowski
Iron Man Jon Favreau

Top Five iPhone Apps
Facebook
Twitter
Shazam
Pandora Radio
Angry Birds



HOW:
You must be a registered Mac user and sign up using your Mac computer. And no, having just an iPhone or iPod touch doesn't work.

PRIVACY:
Your profile is public by default, which means anyone can see it - even if they're not Cupidtino members. They do give you an easy set of options to hide it from non-members, or hide it from everyone if you so desire.

PAYING:
The pricing structure is very different from other online dating sites. Sign up for free. Contact anyone for free. Pay only $4.79 a month to read messages you've received. In other words, sending messages is free. Reading them requires the paid monthly membership, but if someone replies to your message, you can then read or reply messages in that conversation even if you're not a paying member. (confused? it's outlined in their FAQ section).

Unlike most other online dating sites, membership is easy to cancel at anytime using your Paypal account.

BLOG:
Their accompanying blog features monthly members and has some fun stats and info as well as user generated content like consumer made videos.

GET SUPER SOCIAL AND YOU CAN HAVE 6 MONTHS FREE.
You can get a free 6 month membership if you succumb to all the social media. First, your profile has to be complete (a photo, basic info and selected favs), follow @cupidtino on Twitter, become a fan on Facebook, and they'll give you a complimentary membership for six months (you’ll be able to send and receive unlimited messages) + other member privileges.

•Sign up on Cupidtino
•Follow @cupidtino on Twitter
•The Cupidtino page on Facebook

And yes, they have just designed an iPhone app for Cupidtino, which will be available any day now.


all information courtesy of Cupidtino

Still single and surfing on a mac? What are you waiting for? Sign up now.
Cupidtino

New Social Site, Cougars & Co., Capitalizes On Growing Trend

Yes, it's for real.
My first reaction was "eeeeuuuuwww", then "hmmmmm", followed by "naaaah." But others may claw their way to this new social networking site that capitalizes on the growing trend of older women dating (seducing?) younger men.



The brains behind the concept, Shelli Netko, the founder and president of Cougars & Co. says:

"My main goal in starting Cougars & Co. was to create an environment where women could learn to love the life they live and live the life the love. After all, age is just a number. Recent surveys show 34% of women in their 40s date men who are younger and 17% of women in their 50s do the same. This isn't just a trend, it's a new social norm that both women and men are obviously embracing. Women are gravitating to younger men because they seem to have more of an energetic spirit that matches theirs. Women are taking better care of themselves, as a result, 40 is the new 30; 50 is the new 40. So the age difference becomes a non-issue. You don't have to be a Hollywood star to go out with someone 10 or 15 years your junior, but God Bless Demi Moore for bringing it into the spot light!"


above: the world's most well-known Cougar and Cub; stunning actress Demi Moore and her hottie husband, Ashton Kutcher.


The press release:
The dating jungle just became that much wilder with the recently launched social networking company Cougars & Co. The brainchild of Arizona entrepreneur Shelli Netko, Cougars & Co. is a members-only online community where older women and younger men have the opportunity to meet, mix and mingle, shop and travel all in the name of fun. Cougars & Co. getaways are for the cougar or cub in you who needs a little “me” time – think R&R with a little bit of “BAM!”



“The cougar and cub culture is a growing trend that is less concerned with age and focused on reinventing yourself at any age,” Netko said. “While we plan to go nationwide with our charity bachelor auctions, we thought Scottsdale was the perfect place to introduce the Cougars & Co. concept and begin our social network.”

The site, which is now live, is offering an introductory $1 membership to those that join during the first month. After April 30, the monthly membership fee is $9.95.

Members can join the hunt by creating a profile, joining groups, creating their own groups and initiating online connections. For members looking to get out, monthly happy hour events will be held and year-round getaway vacations for cougars and cubs will be organized.

The Charity Bachelor Auction


As part of the company kick-off, Cougars & Co. is holding a charity bachelor auction on Thursday, April 1st in Scottsdale, AZ. Valley cougars will be pleased to see there's much more on the men-u than chips and dip when as many as 10 cubs (including a past contender for The Bachelorette) strut their stuff all in the name of charity. Proceeds from the event will benefit the Women's Wellness Center at St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Care.


above: Greg Bilbro, (previously on "The Bachelorette") will be a bachelor in the Cougars & Co. charity auction in Scottsdale

Cougars & Co. also offers clothing you can purchase from their site, such as the two examples below. And they will be adding more merchandise soon!



Interested? Curious? Perversely Fascinated?

Buy some merchandise, learn more or Sign up here.

note: This is an updated version of the original post.
all images and information courtesy of Cougars & Co.