Bare Nutrition Promo from MDfilms.net on Vimeo.
Find out more about Bare nutrition’s products at: barenutrtion.com

With all of the down and out stories we hear about on a regular basis, it is great to hear a story such as Hubway being brought to Boston by New Balance. On the surface Hubway has a similar business model to Zipcar and the Velib, a Biking system in Paris France. Basically as a customer you pay a small annual rent cost and you can use their bike between any of the biking terminals throughout the city. Why not ride instead of sitting down for your daily commute? And it is being run by the private sector. Sounds good to you? Sounds good to me.

Taking a look at their newly created site, I dig the simplicity of their new brand identity. And I enjoy the name itself, the word Hub can be defined as many things: the central part of a wheel, a connection point for things or locations around it, and also as a description of Boston. Combining ‘Hub’ with ‘Way’ obviously challenges the notion of riding passively on the subway or highway.  And the brand color is also interestingly similar to Zipcar, done on purpose maybe? It does seem like a cost effective pricing model as well. Currently they have advertised on their site a price that seems even cheaper then the cost of owning and maintaining a bike.  For $60 a year you can pick up a bike at any time and travel throughout Boston year round. Not a bad price for students. But good luck to bikers trying to commute in our less than predictable winters, 8 months out of the year are decent biking months, albeit hardcore enthusiasts I have seen commuting by bike even in January. There are a ton of benefits for Hubway one obvious one that comes to mind is the lack of needing space to store your bike, especially for students who have limited space to place a bike.

I guess the big question is if it works in Paris and we have a similar climate, how it will fair year round in Boston? And how many bikers would be willing to give up owning their bike to be a member, or are they solely trying to attract new cycling enthusiasts?  All good things to wonder but I am happy that New Balance, a local shoe company, is starting this project in Boston!

To find out more Visit TheHubway.comFull Credits:

Something is just very enjoyable about this packaging campaign.

While watching the news this week with all the nonsense going on in Washington via CNN,  I enjoyed this advert.  And I have to say the whole campaign reminded me about a childhood favorite film. Attack of the 50 FT. Woman Enjoy. By the way, how many of you enjoy these 50s posters? If so you should definitely check out some of Saul Bass’s poster work and Reynold Brown who was the creator of this poster below.

Another great one from Reynolds…

http://pixify.com/blog/use-os-x-lion-to-improve-your-ui/

Check it out and enjoy.

This campaign came to us from a submission for Fotolia, and we’re very thankful for this submission. It gained silver at the One Show Awards for typography. I dig the brand identity usage and the typography but the message for me is a little long. But it is clearly intentional by taking a risk at attacking your senses with the type bunched up vertically making it difficult to read, and the copy supports this elitist wit. But to be fair even though this is daring I question one thing: If their targeting just copy writers and creative directors than this ad is a success. But if their also trying to target art directors and designers at least for me the visual joke of it got lost because I just didn’t want to read it.

Than I did read it, because I am reviewing this campaign  and I have to say my opinion of the copy writing is that it is witty and fun, and daring. But I’d like your opinion do you enjoy the concept, layout and the copy writing execution?

From the submitter:

What separates an excellent ad from an average one?

It could be the use of clever humor to catch us off-guard with a surprised snort that brands product recognition into our skulls. Or maybe it plays to our senses and places us directly in the moment with that product, leaving us feeling as though we’ve missed out on something when the screen flicks to back to our guilty-pleasure, trashy reality show. What makes an excellent ad? You could ask the Old Spice hunk.

Or you could ask MacLaren McCann, the ad agency that came up with the award-winning campaign for Fotolia entitled, #1 in Europe.

MacLaren McCann pushed the boundaries of advertising. They took a risk, creating an unconventional campaign that included no talk of price, quality, or product. They broke the rules, unleashing some controversial creative writing and a block of tight-set typography that made it almost hard to read.

But what came out of it was an ad so cheeky, that it would take some effort to peel your eyes off of it once you?ve started to read. From only a single run-on sentence, a couple fragments, and a dash of tastefully arrogant sarcasm, we learn that Fotolia is Europeâ•?s number one stock photography company, and proud of it. MacLaren McCann played to both American and European stereotypes — and challenged them — to create eight short narratives that encourage people to take the trendy route and join Fotolia\’s Europeanized, uber-cool list of users.

The risk was taken, and the payoff was huge. MacLaren and McCann had their exceptional work recognized by an audience of advertisers when they won the Silver Pencil award from One Show Design. Alongside them were companies with other fantastic ad campaigns such as Ikea, Nike and BMW.

Perhaps the Old Spice hunk and MacLaren McCann have both uncovered the recipe to a successful ad campaign: one cup of innovation and two cups of risk.

Art Director: Mike Meadus
Creative Director: Mike Meadus
Copywriter: Nicolle Pittman
Typographer: Mike Meadus

Travelers just launched another TV spot in their dog focused campaign, and it made me smile. I guess I am a sucker for cute dog commercials, did you like the latest one too?

And the older spot!

Part Austin Powers, part orange juice, part bits . This submitted TV spot came from our friends over at Blinder in Ireland. This ad was just released, and they shared it with us which we very much appreciate. This ad has a great sense of humor and artistically well done although some scenes could be trimmed or edited I think. But I love the set design and the models were tasteful. The voice acting took a second to listen to hear the word ‘bits’, I am sure that was done on purpose. Still the delivery and the content… might be a challenge for some.

Overall it was a great TV spot in my opinion, but for the sake of argument I asked my wife for some additional thoughts. There is a concern that the product is not actually being shown in the commercial. And the word bits has very little to do with oranges other than nothing.. nope I can’t stretch it. Overall their bits get your attention! But at the end of the commercial you would remember it but you wouldn’t have learned much about the product.  To go into detail you would not know much about the varietal or what kind of orange or anything about the differentiation of what makes their orange juice better. Other than they have great bits picking them out of the garden.

When asked ‘what was the product named?’ after the end of the commercial. Our Intern responded ” Bits?” lol….

And a special thanks goes out to our friends over at Binder.tv and you can follow them on facebook here as well! Thanks Binder you guys made our morning.

And you can find more about Club Orange over Here:

http://www.facebook.com/ClubOrange
http://www.youtube.com/cluborange

Thanks to a submission from Europe we have a new interactive campaign for HI-TEC to look at.

Last year, the independent Amsterdam ad agency CCCP, launched one of the most successful viral videos of 2010: ‘Liquid Mountaineering’. Produced for Hi-Tec Sports, the film introduces a new extreme sport called  ‘Liquid Mountaineering’ and features three guys doing what man has attempted for centuries: walking on water.

Now the Liquid Mountaineers are back. And like every proper extreme sport they now have their own video game. However, there’s a bit more to it.  Whereas regular games are only about having fun, Hi-Tec takes it a step further. “The Infinity Run”, as the game is called, is actually is a unique and fun way to sell shoes.  As far as we know, it is the world’s first “Game Webshop”.

CCCP founder Eelco Keune said ‘The game is part of a carefully planned campaign that was kicked off by the viral. Now that we have established a firm base, we want to focus on the ‘magic behind the sport’, the ultra water repellent Hi-Tec V-Lite Infinity model.’

Players can choose from the three Liquid Mountaineers who starred in the original video and try their luck at running on three lakes ranging from Alaska to Brazil. Not only must they have the speed and skill to run on water, but players must also avoid the dangers lurking in the depths, which can pop up at any moment. After playing you can buy the Hi-Tec V-Lite Infinities you just ran on. The lucky player who obtains the highest score each week will receive a free pair of trainers.

Simon Bonham, Global Marketing Director for Hi-Tec, added, “We are very excited to launch this unique ‘Game Web Shop” as phase 2 of our Liquid Mountaineering project. The original viral has, for the past 12 months, engaged with consumers the world over and we are delighted to be able build on this phenomenal success with The Infinity Run on-line game.”

Give it a go at: http://www.hi-tec.com/infinity-run/

Bout damn time this actually looks clean, intuitive and sharp. Anyone else checked it out yet? I am a fan of the new layout. But not everyone is, in fact many users are claiming that Netflix removed too many features. Do you like or dislike the new layout?

The review of the new site:

Cons: The the scrolling action doesn’t feel comfortable at all. And they could have refined the top navigation to a more attractive UI design. The ability to click on a film title from the old site and go directly to the film’s detailed page was placed in the mouse-over pop up which delays the time it takes to get to the reviews page for each movie. And due to insight gained from the message board: The sort and search feature was removed altogether. That last part is upsetting many customers because it does not allow users to search for films the way they used to. This is a bit of an easy fix for Netflix they should just bring this feature back to accommodate the larger Netflix user base.

Pros: I love the size of the film covers now, they really add to the experience for me. And the layout seems simple and intuitive.

To everyone in the community that assisted in reviewing the Netflix site update I appreciate your input. I hope you continue to give input and feedback in the future and as a Netflix account user as well, I hope Netflix listens to your critiques too!

Why I liked the overall layout:

I enjoyed the new Netflix layout because I am a sucker for bigger covers of movies, I used to work in movie theaters and I love movie posters more than most. And it is more similar now to iTunes and I like iTunes for its movie section better than Netflix hands-down. That is a personal taste so albeit it may not be for everyone that is my rationale. That said I do not like everything about the user experience, I especially dislike the auto scrolling feature because it does not feel natural at all.

When comparing this layout to Blockbuster.com too in my opinion their is no comparison. Blockbuster.com’s layout is lousy because:  it is so busy and filled with calls to action left and right, it is not following the rules of “KISS” ( Keep It Simple Stupid ), and less about the movies and more about the branding for blockbuster.  And on their selections page their is not enough horizontal separation between the movie covers themselves. But if your looking for an argument about why you would switch media providers it has to do more about the sites selection of films than just about UI/UX.

iTunes still wins in my opinion as far as layouts go for the movies section. It has a clear focus and an easy on the eye approach in my opinion.  But Netflix is a good runner up layout wise, just because they got rid of the redundant Calls to action for “Play” and the stars ratings feature which was dominating the visual presence on the page in the prior layout.

The review of the old site:

Pros: Star ratings were clear, I did like the left and right scrolling arrows it was more user friendly than their newer sites mouse hover auto scroll. I wish they would bring back this scrolling feature to the new site.

Cons: The star ratings plus the call to action for Play were taking up a lot of real estate. In comparison to the newer site the images of the films covers are very very small, and in my opinion hurt independent films and foreign films because they have to rely more on the name of the film then the cover of the film to get a click. The UI became quite dated.