This season, the leaves are changing, the air is getting crisper, and the big brands are taking it outside… Outside of the home, that is.

When deciding how to build excitement and promote tune-in for the new fall schedule, Fox chose to move away from the TV commercials to focus on OOH, taking advantage of traditional formats along with digital billboards and networks. The driving factor behind the new move to digital? — the ability to show full-length pilots for some of this season’s lineup, such as “Raising Hope” and “Lone Star”. Full pilots ran on three major airlines, the Hotel Networks and Princess Cruises, and street-level video networks at subway stations.

Next up: Budweiser. The king of beers (whose recent sales would suggest he’s been overthrown) needed to find a way to cozy up to young under-30 beer drinkers. The solution? In-bar promotions. The bait? Free beer! The campaign started earlier this week, encouraging under-30′s to “Grab some Buds,” and reaches it’s high point tonight as the brand hosts the “Budweiser National Happy Hour.”

So what does a company do when they want to reach active 20 and 30-something’s who don’t spend their time watching TV and surfing the net? They go to them! Just ask Mitsubishi, who recently found a new way to reach the M-Generation, their target demographic whose lifestyles closely tie in with some of the vehicles’ “personalities”. The brand decided to take it on the road, showing up at races, trail heads for mountain biking, dog parks and more, asking people along the way–”What Are You Into?”

Who says the mundane tasks of our lives can’t be spiced up a little bit? The people at Volkswagen clearly have the creativity to do just that. After the wildly popular Fun Theory experiment, Volkswagen has now rolled out its sister campaign, the Fast Lane Theory. Life is always a little more fun in the fast lane, doesn’t it seem? Even better when you’re cruising in a Volkswagen on the Autobahn in Germany.

In the Alexanderplatz subway station in Berlin, Volkswagen constructed a slide to run the length of the stairway so that when walkers approached at the top of the stairs they had 2 options: a) take the stairs allll the way down or b) zip down the slide in 2 seconds. What would you pick? Check out the excitement that ensues.

In another unexpected place, the grocery store, the genius VW people assembled a grocery cart with a skateboard attached to the bottom, just under the handlebar. Think back to what you did as a kid (which most likely drove your mom crazy): run with the cart, jump on the bottom shelf and coast down the aisles, narrowly missing the four foot high display of paper towels at the end or the elderly lady reaching for the sugar on the top shelf. The reactions are the greatest part of the experiment, in my opinion. There were some people who were a tad confused by all the fun during such a boring chore as grocery shopping and others totally embraced the fast lane. Either way, we applaud Volkswagen for bringing out the kid in everyone again.

Across the pond, a VW competitor has also created a promotion gimmick this summer. Volvo is working to bring back the essence of movie drive-ins, only this time with all Volvo cars provided. You don’t even need a driver’s license! Dubbed the “Volvo Starlite Urban Drive-In”, Volvo has picked the cultural Truman Brewery in London to host the event. Once you’ve booked your tickets, pick out one of the 25 Volvos on location to pack in with a friend – 2 per car – and enjoy the movie on screen, whether it is Dirty Dancing or Grease. You can’t go wrong with Johnny Castle’s twisting hips or Danny Zuko’s retro leather jacket. Feeling hungry? Order some popcorn from one of the waitresses zipping through the lot on her roller skates. The Starlite’s success was so overwhelming (tickets sold out in less than a minute!) the creators are considering packing up and taking the event nationwide.

In fact, a Corona bottle was placed right in the middle of the party, towering at 30 feet tall! Too bad it is only an inflatable promo item… There were also Corona brand ambassadors – some even (semi) famous – including Real Housewife of New York City, Kelly Bensimon, mingling all over the scene. The Corona sponsored event lasts through July 31^st.  

The “pop-up beach” is the biggest summer launch for Corona Extra and Corona Light. Parent company, Crown Imports, reported that media coverage has been provided by ESPN2’s “SportsNation”, local news, and online outlets in the States, Mexico and Japan. Other promotional giveaways at the party include sunscreen, bead necklaces, and key chains. But to win one of the 100 trips to Cancun, you better start looking for one of the 2,000 Corona bottles donning a promotional wrap that includes an entry code for chances to win online. Looks like summer is here early, and what better way to celebrate than with a Corona and lime? Better start drinking!

Major American automaker, Ford, has developed its own personalized line of car wraps for small business owners. Last year, Ford created a website that enabled private drivers to design and create funky car wraps to decorate their Ford cars. Now, Ford has extended the offer to small businesses. Owners of Ford’s Transit Connect truck can create their own custom graphic wraps using various shapes, letters and colors that are available to them online. Or if you’re looking for an even more personalized wrap, upload your own graphics and images! The site offers extensive creative choices and is easy to navigate, even for the novice artist.

Graphics can be added to an entire truck, or just one specific side. The wraps are 3M vinyl and installed by a Ford dealer or a specialist. Costs range from about $100 for a small panel logo to $3,500 for a full vehicle wrap. That seems like a small price to pay to get your product on the road for everyone to see!

Photo Credit: (AP Photo/Hasbro Inc., Darryl Bush)

The lucky kids who got the chance to play life-size Candy Land and hang out with the likes of Mr. Mint and King Kandy were chosen from San Francisco nonprofit Friends of the Children and University of California’s San Francisco Children’s Hospital.

Photo Credit: (Ted Weinstein/SFist)

The stunt got tons of attention from San Francisco tourists and was covered by numerous radio, TV, and newspapers outlets. It’s safe to say that everyone had fun and Candy Land’s maker Hasbro deserves a big kudos for this – pardon the pun – sweet campaign.

This summer marks the beginning of an exciting & life-changing annual fundraiser here in Columbus, Ohio. Pelotonia, founded and funded by NetJets, is the grass roots bike tour raising money for cancer research at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute. In fact, 100% of funds raised go directly to cancer research at The James!

So what does this have to do with out-of-home advertising? In a (successful) attempt to get its message out to the community, Pelotonia literally dominated the out-of-home industry here in Columbus using media ranging from empty storefront ads and floor graphics to street furniture and digital signage. Ads were placed along busy highways, around the Ohio State University campus area (home to thousands of students & businesses), and the Arena District (home to many young — and young-at-heart — professionals and businesses, not to mention our Columbus Clippers baseball team & Columbus Blue Jackets hockey team).

The most impressive of all, perhaps, is the domination of the Columbus airport by Pelotonia & The James. The images below explain the campaign’s effectiveness better than words. Quality, quantity and, most of all, creativity made this effort impossible to miss.

The bike tour takes place this weekend, consisting of four routes spanning 25, 50, 100 and 180 miles. Over 2,100 people have committed to riding–including Lance Armstrong!

If you’re interested in contributing, please check out our DOmedia peloton where you can donate to our ride up until October 31st. Every donation helps!

Recently, Orange Barrel added another visually tantalizing advertisement to one of Easton Town Center’s exterior walls. The new wallscape features Ohio-based avitae energy water. And they actually mean energy water: purified water and natural caffeine. Period. And who better to go to when trying to promote a new product in a huge way? Orange Barrel, of course. The outcome: a gigantic, impossible to miss wallscape located in one of Ohio’s most visited tourist attractions (about 21 million people/year according to a recent press release). The ad shows a huge avitae bottle splashing pure, blue energy water down the wall and into a pipe. Just looking at it makes me thirsty.

After seeing everything they’ve done before, I can’t wait to see what Orange Barrel comes up with next. And I definitely can’t wait to try this water and finally ditch the daily coffee . . . and soda . . . and Red Bull.

As many already know, this week marks the 56th Annual Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, the largest competition for advertising creativity in the world. And new this year: judges are focusing more on actual business results of the entries instead of relying on creativity alone.

This week, a trend revealed itself among the Outdoor Lions winners, a trend that appears to represent the out-of-home industry as a whole. In past years, traditional out-of-home–such as billboards and street furniture–has dominated the winner’s pedestal. But the times are changing.

Out-of-home advertising used to refer mainly to one type: traditional forms. But that’s before the introduction of digital screens and internet access for the masses. If this year’s Outdoor Lions revealed anything, it’s that out-of-home isn’t what it used to be. What was once limited to a static, one-way message is continuously evolving into an interactive experience that not only targets an audience, but involves them as well.

The Outdoor Grand Prix runner-up (that only lost by 1 vote), the “Dig Out Your Soul” campaign promoting Oasis’ new CD, included street musicians performing some of the album’s unreleased tracks in the subway stations of NYC. It was creative, innovative, and got people’s attention. By utilizing the outdoor space like they did, the campaign grew exponentially when passersby began taking pictures and videos, later posting them on the internet and sharing them with friends and family.

Another interesting entry was HBO’s Big Love interactive billboard which won a Gold Lion. According to the entry’s presentation board,

“Everyone has something to hide. HBO’s show Big Love is about a large polygamous family leading complex lives full of deception and lies. To promote it, we developed interactive audio billboards featuring everyday people (not characters from the show) with jacks built into their heads. You could use your headphones (or ones handed out by our street teams) to plug in and hear their secret thoughts. These ranged from alcoholism to gambling addiction to an overweight man who wears a slimming girdle to a woman who secretly hates her baby and what it’s done to her life. The boards also featured a jack by the logo with a promo of the clips from the new season.”

What used to be an industry centered around billboards with one-way messaging has now become one in which limitations have all but dissolved. This year’s Cannes Lions winners & runners-up redefine out-of-home as we know it by developing innovative campaigns capable of interacting with consumers.

New York has often been called an urban jungle, but the History Channel and out-of-home media company Pearl Media have given that phrase a whole new meaning. In an effort to promote the May 31 debut of EXPEDITION: AFRICA, Pearl Media worked with the A&E owned network to bring the show to life for New Yorkers using selected storefronts they converted into little slices of the dark continent. In addition to 8 foot tall high-definition, large-format lenticular prints, the campaign also features four of the world’s largest 3D video screens (57″)! These drool-worthy technological wonders allow for 3D content to be shown in full HD without having to wear those ridiculous glasses the movies hand out (I guess that makes these screens jumbo-sized 3D HD LCDs…). But wait, there’s more! External speakers also draw pedestrians, playing audio from the 3D video as well as indigenous, ambient African sounds.

According to Pearl Media President, Joshua Cohen,

PEARL MEDIA prides itself on creating unique, jaw-dropping experiences for its clients and their consumers. The use of 3D technology provides the History Channel with a one-of-a-kind opportunity to have their brand leap out into the face of pedestrians in a way that has never before been seen on the street.

Horizon Media teamed up with History and Pearl Media to bring this 3D vision to 3D reality. Jason Smith, Horizon Group Out-of-Home Media Director, had this to say,

History’s exciting programming lineup, creative thinking, and visionary commitment to innovative marketing allows our agency, and in this case, our OOH group to collaborate with Pearl Media to bring to market a very synergistic, street level marketing element that not only tells people where and when to experience History’s programming, but also provides the consumer with a one of a kind encounter that is rewarding and memorable.

If you’re in NYC anytime through the end of June, check it out for yourself. Storefronts are located at 521 5th Avenue and in SOHO at 382 West Broadway.