It's Not Just Me!

When reading up on the Cannes Cyber Grand Prix awards, I came across another way of putting how I've been talking about and evaluating the use of digital technology: whether it fits seamlessly into everyday life. Everything else being equal, if it does, that's really new media.

A recent Advertising Age story on Grand Prix award winners Wieden & Kennedy's "Chalkbot" and DDB Stockholm's "VW: Fun Theory" puts it in terms of technology that was "invisible" rather than call attention to itself as some kind of special thing, and that enabled "real-time interaction" to weld a tight connection between user (experiencer?) and experience.

"The greatest innovations supported 'this notion that technology will reach its peak when you don't even realize it's there,' said Mr. Benjamin, quoting one of the jury members. 'The stuff that was so innovative was the stuff that seemed magical. It had technology, but that's not what was showing.'"

Making (Virtual) Babies

How to tackle the perennial (and important) issue of condom use, for all the reasons we know?

Two Danish digitally inclined designers Peter Ammentorp and Nicolai Villads and interactive designer Raul Montenegro came up with an idea for an on-spec iPhone app to promote Durex condoms.

Rather than irritate its way into a user's consciousness through repetition, it mimics the daily routine of baby care--and the implications of unprotected relations--in a way no conventional ad can do. How do you get the app? Their idea is to gently rub "face to face" two iPhones, then let Bluetooth do the transfer.

Because of the way it brings to everyday life the realities of baby care (and in a fun, jokey way), it's a super example of innovative new media thinking.

Friends Online Are Not Friends Outside the Dressing Room

Just when I thought that any significant efforts at really new media went the way of 2009, along came this.

It only took this long for a company to try to integrate Facebook (and the activity of sharing) with retailing. Clothing maker Diesel gives it a go in this instance with its Diesel Cam.

Watch the video explanation, and you'll see what I mean about this being wholly UNintegrated with everyday life. Put on your garb, run out in your stocking feet, log in to your Facebook account in a dumpy looking kiosk (who's watching your purse/wallet still in the dressing room?) using an equally dumpy touch on-screen "keyboard," then pose. (And do you like that funky 1980s Euro-synth soundtrack? Shades of Abba!)

A fine example of asking much too much of people. Pitch this effort in the trash, and reset.