Cool Hunting
| 04 April 2005view entries from: this week | this month | view previous day | view next day |
Trendwatching.com: Tryvertising
by Josh Rubin
Think of TRYVERTISING as a new breed of product placement* in the real world, integrating your goods and services into daily life in a relevant way, so that consumers can make up their minds based on their experience, not your messages.
* Mind you, this is not about increasingly sophisticated product placement in movies, TV series or games; no doubt an improvement on intrusive commercials, but it's still based on advertising, not TRYVERTISING. Also, to prevent this newsletter becoming more voluminous than the old testament, we will primarily focus on direct TRYVERTISING, i.e. activities aimed directly at end users, as opposed to indirect, viral campaigns aimed at getting celebs or influencers to try out (and talk about) new products and brands: we'll save Star Jones, The Donald, Hillary Swank and Josh Rubin for the inevitable update ;-)
BI vs. CH Winners
by Josh Rubin
Thanks to each of you who filled out the Spring 2005 Reader Survey. From all the respondents we randomly selected 15 t-shirt winners and just sent them email notifications. So check your in-box (or junk mail folder) to see if you won. And stay tuned for pictures of the new t-shirt collaboration with Barking Irons.
Bowflex SelectTech Dumbells
by Josh Rubin
I usually Tivo past the Bowflex home training system commercials (most commercials, for that matter). But somehow I caught an ad for their SelectTech Dumbells and was pleasantly surprised. Offering the versatility of a full rack of free weights in the compact form of one heavy dumbell, these weights are perfect for home training in limited space. To use them you just dial the desired weight in to the handle and when you lift the handle the bar will pick up the necessary plates to create the weight you set.
iXi Bike
by Josh Spear
iXi Bike seems like the most convenient, and highly designed collapsible bike on the market. It collapses with a patented interlocking system that seems extremely simple to use. Starting at a little over a grand, it's a bit pricey-- but that's what quality craftsmanship costs these days. It boats an aluminum frame, foldable pedals, and a slew of other adjustable and interchangeable features.
Update: A Coolhunting reader tipped us off to the Giant Halfway, a less expensive alternative with a few perks. He rides his bike 30 miles home from work, and sneaks it on Chicago's light rail system without any trouble.
Vault49
by Josh Spear
Vault49 has some awesome work and a serious name dropping client list to go with it, including folks like MTV, Nike, Honda, and Levi's. Their clothing collaboration with Roule is everything you would expect from such a high quality company. This t-shirt was done exclusively for TODAY--a cancer research initiative in the UK. All the artwork was done by Vault49, proceeds go straight to research, the t-shirts are limited edition and there are womens editions available as well.
Something Glorious Is Happening
by Ari Bendersky
A band has to be hot to sell out a decent-sized venue – in advance – the same week its debut album drops, not to mention selling out in numerous cities. It doesn’t hurt that they played five packed shows at South By Southwest. Nor does being featured in a number of magazines and newspapers, including the New York Times, Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, the NME and URB, hurt your image. But what do you expect from a band that a little more than a year ago was without a recording contract?
The biggest buzz band of the year (they may even surpass Franz Ferdinand’s “It” factor of 2004), Bloc Party lives up to the hype their self-titled EP and full-length, Silent Alarm, have garnered. In fact, the claim that many critics are calling Bloc Party the “next” Franz Ferdinand or one of the bands trying to making it to Franz Land is ridiculous. Not only are they in the same peer group and have hit the scene within the same general era, Bloc Party leaps slightly above where Franz set the mark. The (r)evolution in rock is now.
