When an automaker decides to crowdsource ideas for its product line, it could do worse than canvassing the biggest crowd in the world. That is what Volkswagen did in the People’s Republic of China.

They created the Peoples Car Project – an ambitious and multi-dimensional program that harnesses the power and popularity of China’s digital channels and the fervent creativity of todays online Chinese. The Peoples Car Project was developed in partnership with Proximity Beijing.

The peoples car project began soliciting ideas about the future of the automobile on the Peoples Car Project Online Platform last year with hundereds of thousands of ideas submitted – and now several handpicked ideas have emerged – created by the people – and  been brought to life.  They were revealed to the World at last months Beijing Auto Show.

The ideas shown at the show were the Hover Car, the Music Car and the Smart Key.

The Hover car has garnered interest and excitement all over the world and is demonstrated here in this awesome video.

We eagerly await the next batch of winning ideas from the people of China.

Hot on the heels of  the release of Facebook Timeline for Brands, the recent emergence of Pinterest onto the online scene may profoundly change the way brands engage with consumers.

The website, which, according to Forbes, is now the third most popular social network behind Twitter, is a user-curated service that allows users to “pin” images they like to create their own boards. Easy-to-use and with a visually pleasing interface that features high-quality photos, Pinterest is becoming more popular each day.

Pinterest’s traffic rose by half just between this last January and February, the LATimes reports. And its users are predominantly women, and the site has been an especially big hit in the South and Midwest. As a result, Pinterest is proving to be a major driver of traffic to retail websites and online publications, referring sometimes more visitors than even Facebook, according to a study by RJMetrics. The study also found that Etsy.com, the online retailer of homemade goods, was the most popular host of Pinterest images.

Many brands have already caught on, creating their own Pinterest pages to engage users. While most are focused around apparel and food, such as highly-followed ModCloth and Whole Foods, more unexpected names such as General Electric have proved themselves to be compatible with the website’s design.

In turn, consumers are recognizing brands’ growing presence on the site. Mashable recently reported on a study by Pinreach that evaluated the effect of brands affixing price tags to their images. It found that products with their prices displayed were a great deal less likely to be “repinned” by users. However, the study did not find a major difference when users posted images with prices displayed. Users, then, are definitely conscious of brands’ presence on the site and know advertising when they see it, even though they are not averse to buying products they see on the aggregation tool.

With 104 million unique visits last month, according to Experian, and a design that heavily features products, Pinterest has created an exceptional mine of resources for marketers, allowing them an even closer look into what interests online consumers than information gleaned from search engines. Users create profiles tailored to their own interests, giving marketers a great deal of insight into what would catch their attention and perhaps opening the way for increasingly effective online advertising for more brands.

By Nina Lukina @thedigitallab

BBDO Proximity Digital Lab Thought Piece: Facebook’s Timeline Era

SXSWi is now done and dusted but the great content from our team in Austin keeps on coming.

Watch Troy Hitch, Executive Creative Director for Barefoot Proximity, share an exchange with Kelly Stocker, Austin Community Manager for local recommendation network Yelp and learn more about Yelp’s approach to meaningful events at SXSWi.

Catch Sanchita Saha, founder and CEO of new mobile social network Uberlife as she explains how Uberlife’s app helps users meet up and socialize in the real world and touches on how that dynamic may create value for brands in the future.

Nathan Guerra, Director of Innovation for AMV BBDO, interviews Brian Wong, 20-year-old founder and CEO of mobile rewards network Kiip at SXSWi. During the exchange, Brian shares the vision behind Kiip and hints that the future of the service may lie in empowering brands to directly reward users of all types of mobile apps, not just gaming-oriented ones.

Enjoy!

This week we are at the SXSW Interactive conference in Austin, Texas.  The content so far has been fantastic and the speakers inspiring.

And we have had our SouthXProxy team chasing down the very best to get added insights and perspective especially for you.

In our exclusive SouthXProxy video interviews Proximity North America CEO Andrew Bailey speaks with Greg Johnson, the Global Creative Director for HP.  During the interview, Mr. Johnson, who was a featured speaker at SXSWi, shared his insights on the need for branded expression to adapt to our multichannel digital landscape.

Andrew also chats with Phil Barrett, Senior Director of Digital Marketing for RIM who shares expert advice on how companies can become more innovative and explains how “maturation of social media” is a major theme at this year’s conference.

And Craig Heimbach, Senior Editor from Barefoot Proximity, talks to Dan Spinosa, co-founder and CEO of Shelby.TV, a startup focused on delivering a next generation, personalized TV experience. Mr Spinosa reveals the dynamics behind the new “me TV” movement and explains how Shelby.TV can help brands take advantage of this new trend.

Enjoy!

SXSWi 2012 starts in Austin, Texas this week – it’s the worlds most renowned interactive event – hosting the very best of digital marketing thought leadership and featuring a huge amount of compelling and relevant content in the digital space.

Since we can’t all go to SXSW, Proximity is bringing SXSW to you.

Introducing South by Proxy and the Proxybot.

We’re sending you and a proxy to SXSW. We will be streaming live video of the experience at SouthxProxy.com and serve as everyone’s eyes, ears and feet on the ground in Austin. A lucky few will control it for 4-hours at a time; they will dictate the Proxybot’s whereabouts and actions via Twitter.

Follow @Proxybot and #SxProxy.

In addition we will be uploading all the latest news and content from SXSW every day to our Facebook and Twitter pages.

Check us out at  https://www.facebook.com/ProximityWorldwide and https://twitter.com/TheDigitalLab

To get a real feel for what South by Proxy all about, watch Creative Guru (to the stars), Infomercial King, a viral celebrity – Troy Hitch – show just how the Proxybot can change your live forever.  Well not forever, but at least for 4 hours!.

Be sure to check it out at and PLEASE share, like and retweet our posts!!

Cheers,

Richard



Today Facebook announced to brand marketers the world over that, within the month, everything they knew about fan Pages on Facebook would be overturned.

Like Timeline for people, the new Timeline for Brands will offer a broader canvas for Brands to tell their stories and will present a more visually dynamic environment to host their Brand pages.

While you get your brand ready for the new Timeline format, Mashable have identified six important changes to keep top-of-mind:

1. Updated Look and Feel

The format of Timeline for brands is quite similar to Timeline for personal profiles. It employs a cover photo at the top of the Page, and the Page is separated into two main columns by a dividing line, which represents the passage of time. This format provides brands with new options for self-expression: They can outline their corporate history with milestones (such as product launches, store openings, etc.) to construct a narrative for their audience.

2. Reduced Tab Visibility

The new Timeline format does not have the left-side panel of links, which could include hundreds of different tabs. While applications still exist, they’ll display differently, in rectangular panels underneath the cover photo. The width of the Timeline and the space allocated for native apps like Photos means that only three tab panels are viewable at any given time. Read More

The great convergence of consumer technology – one which brings together world-class content, cutting edge devices and pervasive connectivity to the masses – is finally here.

This month’s issue of Digital Lab’s e-magazine Decoder (click here to access) is dedicated to exploring what this pivotal convergence of smart connected devices will mean for brands and consumers alike in the year ahead. It will uncover the best of CES 2012 – the world’s marquee event for all things related to convergence – while previewing the bleeding-edge devices, innovations and trends of this movement yet to come.

And, as always, Decoder will bring you news of the latest standout creative work and business wins from across the BBDO and Proximity global networks.

This new converged reality holds major ramifications for how advertisers will continue to engage with consumers in meaningful ways. Access this brand new issue of Decoder to begin your journey into this brave new world, and be sure to share it with your teams and partners along the way.

Download it here:  http://www.decodermagazine.com/issue05.html

Google is making a play in the Location Based Services (LBS) ecosystem with the launch of Google Latitude – forcing Foursquare, Gowalla and others in the space to look nervously over their shoulder…

Like Foursquare, you can use your GPS enabled mobile device to  “check-in” to places,  earn points and get ranked on a global leaderboard. It unifies Google Maps and Google+ which seems part of Google’s strategy to creating more social experiences online.  Google Latitude lets you see your friends on a map on Google Maps for mobile and iGoogle and you can use it to plan an impromptu meetup, see that a loved one got home safely, or just stay in touch with friends. Check out the intro video below.

Currently the Leaderboard is only available on Google’s Android operating system.

Its success will be largely related to the growth of Google+ so watch this space.

Pinterest is fast becoming the hottest thing in social content curation.  So what is it?

It’s a visual curation site where you can create virtual Bulletin boards for the things that interest you. And those boards, probably say more about what you’re really interested in than any other site.

In a recent blog post, The Wall Street Journal highlighted research that shows that Pinterest is driving more traffic than Google+, YouTube and LinkedIn combined!

GAP, Whole Foods, Threadless and  General Electric have all jumped on the Pinterest bandwagon. It’s the greatest indication yet that the social graph is morphing in to the interest graph. Check out the infographic below for more…

click here to view another interesting Pinterest Infographic

Read More