Advertising

A Camera Flash Reveals This Poster’s Secret LGBTQ Support Message

There are a million reasons—academic and social—why high school can be quite an ordeal for kids. So a Toronto LGBTQ advocacy group has created a unique poster, put up in schools across the city, that uses a camera phone’s flash to reveal a secret supportive message about gender identity and sexual orientation. The poster, created…

The Batman v Superman Marketing Needs to Stop Pretending Lex Luthor Is a Real Person

“Viral” marketing has always straddled the line between “it’s kind of cute that they made a website for The Daily Bugle” and “that seems kind of desperate.” But with Batman v Superman, “viral” marketing has reached its absolute nadir. I cannot emphasize the scare quotes around “viral” enough. Even when it actually is the case…

This New Deep Learning Tool Shows You the Most Memorable Parts of Your Photos

Bummed that your latest cat pic didn’t get more traction on Instagram? Wondering how to make people remember your company’s logo first and foremost? A clever algorithm developed by MIT computer scientists may be able to help with a new online tool. Meet MemNet, a new program that uses techniques from the deep learning field…

You Can Decide What Ads Facebook Shows You

Facebook uses a whole host of algorithms to work out which ads are most relevant to you, but you can take some control over the process by delving into your account settings and checking up on what the social network thinks it knows about you. It’s possible to add and remove topics to get at…

Get Ready for More Ads on Instagram

Facebook is looking down the barrel of a future advertising crisis, so it’s trying to think up new ways to put “buy now” links in front of your peepers. The company’s top brass believe the answers will come from Instagram, Whatsapp, and video. As ad blockers and sponsored content meltdowns rip first-generation web media companies…

Google’s Testing Web-Style Responsive Ads on Huge London Billboards

Google has long been using technology it calls DoubleClick to target ads on millions of websites. Now, it’s taking it to the city streets, installing a series of billboard in London that use real-time data to change what they display. Business Insider reportsthat the new billboards, which can be found in busy areas of the…

GoPro Awards Is Offering Up $5 Million a Year For Your Videos

Back in July GoPro announced a way for you to get paid for the videos you shoot via a licensing portal, but now it’s upping the ante. With GoPro Awards, an ongoing contest pays you for the photos and videos you shoot. $500 for a photo, $1,000 for a raw video clip, and $5,000 for…

Lego Luke Skywalker Is the Best L’Oréal Spokesperson

Proving you don’t need a supermodel to sell beauty products, Flickr’s Marc Mater has created this brilliant (but fake) L’Oréal ad showing how the company’s products can even tame hair ravaged by the dry deserts of Tatooine. If it can do this for Luke Skywalker, imagine what Chewbacca might look like after a long shower…

Twitter’s Hashflags Are an Abomination, and They Must Be Stopped

Did you tweet a photo of the supermoon? Perhaps you used the #supermoon hashtag, only to discover that a round red welt had affixed itself to your tweet, as ugly and unwanted as a social media zit. These are called hashflags. Hashflags are a newish phenomenon. Twitter simply tweaks their code to append a lil’…

Why Apple Decided to Block Ads on the Same Day It Started Pushing a News App

Well that’s quite a coincidence. The very same day Apple turned its News app into a mandatory blob on your home screen, it also rolled out ad blocking capabilities in iOS 9. The day after iOS 9’s release, over ten percent of iOS users have already downloaded iOS 9, according to Paddle Analytics. That means…

Most Holidays Are Fake, and Here’s Why

Do you celebrate National Onion Rings Day? What about Be Kind to Animals Week? Do you know what you’re buying your significant other for Talk Like a Pirate Day? Time is running out! ThARRRRs just 9 shopping days left! It’s not just your imagination — there really are more unofficial holidays than ever before. And…

Before we invented the tough, tearable plastic we use for condom wrappers, condoms came in tins of three. And as this 2006 post on Cardhouse shows, those tins were a canvas for some pretty amusing advertising. Like the Three Cadets “standing at attention”, or Dr. Robinson’s prescription pad (oh, these are just for my medical…

Ikea Is Stuffing New Cushions With Old Shredded Catalogs

Whether you embrace it with open arms or toss it in the trash as soon as it arrives, the Ikea catalog is one of the most widely distributed publications on earth. But to help reduce the environmental impact of all that paper, the company is now recycling old copies into cushion stuffing. If you happen…

Pepsi Made a Blimp That Helps Friends Find Each Other at a Music Festival

When you’re truly enjoying yourself at a music festival, it’s all but guaranteed that at some point you’ll get separated from your friends. So to make it easier to find them again, Pepsi made an app-connected blimp that helps guide lost and lonely revelers back to their pals. Created by UK ad agency AMV BBDO,…

An Amazing Ferrofluid Display Brings Nike’s New Sneakers To Life

So far, the most practical use man has found for ferrofluid—the mesmerizing black goo that reacts to magnets in cool ways—is as gorgeous eye candy. And that’s totally OK, because how else would have Nike realized this slick animated display for its new Kevin Durant sneakers? The in-store display was created by a design studio…

Facebook Ads Are About to Get Even More Annoying

It was sort of fun when Facebook started allowing users to upload animated gifs a few months ago, but now select advertisers get to experiment with the format. This could get ugly. TechCrunch reports that Facebook is testing animated GIF ads with a couple of brands. For now, it’s just Wendy’s and Kuat, a Coca…

Deadpool’s Latest Meta Joke Is A Playful Swipe At DC Comics

Deadpool’s relationship with the fourth wall is fast and loose—he’s been having a lot of fun in his current comic, Deadpool’s Secret Secret Wars, when it comes to having a jab at Marvel’s own history. But a variant cover for his upcoming new series shifts sights from Marvel for lampooning and instead towards DC Comics.…

This GPS Speaks In a Child’s Voice Near Schools To Make Drivers More Careful

Humans are hard-wired to respond to the voice of a child. So to make drivers more cautious and careful around children, an ad agency in Sweden created a GPS app that switches to the voice of a child whenever the car is near a school. In an ideal world drivers would be as attentive as…

The Only Thing I’ll Miss About Cable Is My DVR

As far as watching TV goes, the experience provided by a traditional cable provider is shit. Slow hardware, clunky interfaces, unwanted bundled channels. Streaming services are slowly replacing all of this and thanks goodness for them. But there’s an aspect of the old way that I will sorely miss—the DVR and its magical commercial skipping…

An Auto-Following Stroller Using VW’s Adaptive Cruise Control Is Genius

It might just be a one-off prototype, but new parents who can’t go anywhere without a toddler in tow will love the idea of a stroller with built-in sensors that allow it to autonomously follow someone, while intelligently avoiding collisions. Supposedly built by Volkswagen with the same adaptive cruise control and collision sensors used in…