I hope you’ve had an action-packed week, I certainly have: I ate a flying shark, slam-dunked the moon, blew up my own head and lived to tell the tale.
Impossiblestory.com is the funnest branding exercise I’ve come across. Animating Adidas’s ‘Impossible is nothing’ tagline, it invites you to upload your head (or an image thereof), stick it on a daredevil stick figure, then create a story incorporating impossible feats of your own choosing. Bring on the Impossible Olympics I say, I’m a sitter for Kangaroo-boxing gold.
Tarantino may have had Uma in his Kill Bill, but we have two Bills in ours. That may not sound as exciting as a ten-foot-blonde killing machine—until you learn Bill Wilson and Bill Denny have discovered a way to hunt out cancerous cells and murder them in their beds, all without disturbing their innocent cellular neighbours. Read all about it on our website.
That’s a flash (Pro C23) coffee table
When is a coffee table not a coffee table? When it’s a ‘put your mug there and die’ flatscreen computer coffee table. Hailed as a new paradigm in computing, the surface computer utilises multi-touch technology in ways that are flatly flabbergasting. Set your camera down on the table and the photos stored on it appear. Set your mobile down and you can drag those photos onto it with your USBfinger. You can’t touch the surface computer yet—patience geekhoppers—but you can watch this nice demo.
Nice iTunes. Plus
The world’s favourite music shop has just put another offer in the cyber window. iTunes Plus is a new high-quality form of music that gives off more layers of sound than a kindergarten. There’s none of that annoying copy protection—the perfect opportunity to prove we’re not all thieving bastards.
Auckland City gets real pretty
Move over Wellington, Auckland City is about to join you in the creative sandpit. Auckland City Council has released an action plan for boosting creative enterprise, including investing in more high-profile events, strengthening international links and creating physical spaces suited to creative entrepreneurs. We’ll all be wearing head-to-toe black and protesting on street corners before we know it.
Stein-larger
Steinlager is back. We outlined the brand’s problems—decreased brand loyalty, changing drinker tastes and persistent urban myths about chemical content—in our July 2006 story, ‘Whatever happened to Steinlager?’, and Wednesday night’s Steinlager Pure launch addressed them all. Steinie’s new campaign highlights the Kiwi angle: the new Steinlager Pure leverages heavily off our sense of national pride and clean image with its ‘Keep it pure’ strapline. It also tastes quite different to Steinlager original—it’s much smoother without the strong hoppy taste. It also has a striking new bottle. Never fear, though, the classic Steinlager isn’t going anywhere—both brews will be sold alongside each other.
Following the first of the AUT-Idealog Innovation Series events we’ve knocked together a five-minute summary of Josef Roberts’ speech. Watch the Red Bull guy speak at a pleasantly uncaffeinated speed and don’t forget to catch Rod Drury at the next event on July 17.
And while you’ve got the diary out, why don’t you pen this in too: Auckland Festival of Photography 2007. Come and look through the lens of the region’s best snappers. Entry is free—can’t knock that off its tripod.
Quote of the week
“Think of it like a smart bomb, wiping out an Al-Qaeda hideout and yet leaving the rest of Kabul intact.”
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