Today at Renegade, we could not get off the subject of reproductive, rather anti-reproductive devices.

First, I brought in the limited edition Palin Condom I got at the 140 Characters Conference in March.  You may have seen the Obama “Use with Good Judgement” and McCain “Old But Not Expired” condoms on CNN or being sold in Times Square by the fine fellows at Practice Safe Policy. Mine is better, tho.

See? You can get it here.

Then, another Renegade tweeted out a link to a case study for a fictional iPhone app submitted to the Cannes Future Lions 2010 Competition. Using this app, one can knock up their iPhone by mating it with another.  Then a simulated baby is created that needs to be coddled, fed, you know – everything a baby needs.  To be saved from the embarrassment of a screaming phone baby in public, the young target must purchase a pack of Durex condoms and scan a QR code to get the Anti-Knockup Application that keeps the womb in their phone barren.  We all think it’s brilliant. I hope you do, too.

Durex Baby from Peter Ammentorp on Vimeo.

All that blathered, with this post I am inaugerating a new category for the Saw a Good Idea blog: condom promos.  Once we started talking about their use in advertising (even Renegade has put ads on condoms!), we realized this may be a fun category to acknowledge. I hope you love it.  On Monday, I may have second thoughts about the new category and just make this series of posts. We’ll see…

Next up? The Flojuggler.

The World’s First Condom Specialty Shop, Condomerie, has a fantastic video up on YouTube of an HIV Awareness PSA they executed on Chatroulette back in April. In the video, an almost nude woman sits back holding a sign that says BINGO in front of her chest.  As though she’s about to give a peep show to her audience, she moves closer to the camera until the smaller message on her sign is legible, “You’re now in touch with an HIV infected person. Don’t play Russian roulette in real life.”

While the message and execution of this guerrilla effort are definitely smart and powerful, please be forwarned that this video contains risqué, albeit censored, imagery.

Can’t help but love this one. These kids are dancing like crazy for H&M.

Testing the expedition marketing waters for itself, Tropicana set its sights on the arctic circle, where people live for WEEKS without sunlight. To make a “Brighter Morning for a Brighter Day” in the small town of Inuvik, Canada, Tropicana erected for them a replacement sun on their 31st day of darkness.  The result is a beautiful commercial (airing March 1st) showing the town’s surprised and delighted reaction to this gift on a “day” they probably hadn’t expected to remember.

Check it out:

Thanks to Agency Spy for tweeting the link!

Volkswagen is, as usual, doing things differently and getting some some positive attention for it. 

This morning a composer friend of mine posted a video on Facebook of "piano key" stairs.  His post had nothing to do with VW advertising and less to do with marketing in general.  He just found the video interesting because of his relationship with music (I'm sure of this because he posted the Swedish version of the video and he definitely doens't speak their language).  After finishing watching the video, I clicked on the link, expecting to be directed to some sort of music school related experiment site, and was (momentarily) suprised to be directed to a lightly branded VW website proclaiming (once I ticked the UK flag for English):

"This site is dedicated to the thought that something as simple as fun
is the easiest way to change people’s behaviour for the better. Be it
for yourself, for the environment, or something entirely different, the
only thing that matters is that it’s change for the better."

This mini guerrilla campaign/behavioral experiment is doing exactly that:

The piano installation was created to encourage people to make the healthier choice to take the stairs instead of using an escalator.  The before and after shots of the staircase vs. the escalator prove the trick works.

The next video depicting "The World's Deepest [Trash] Bin," an outdoor public garbage can that makes a cartoonish sound of something falling very very far, had the effect of getting park-goers to not only throw away their own trash, but also to clean up the rest of the park just to hear the falling sound again. 

Next, they promise to come up with a fun way to recycle. 

I say, GO TEAM VOLKSWAGEN (BDB Stockholm)!  This bare bones project of theirs sure is a great example of a lot of good things advertising: marketing as service, combining online and offline, and making a good idea viral by keeping it open-ended and by not shoving a ton of branding down the throats of those who couldn't care less about cars (i.e. my buddy the composer).