Real-Time interactive wall

The Canadian Tourism Commission and DDB Vancouver have developed a great interactive campaign to drive awareness of Canada as a tourist destination to a number of Cities in the US. The campaign integrates interactive digital screes installed in ‘screen-scapes’ with supporting print media. The screens display real time feeds from social media such as Twitter, Youtube and Facebook, providing live feeds of people’s experiences as they travel around Canada. Passers by can choose to glance at the feeds or interact with them and ‘dive’ deeper into the feeds.

This is a great demonstration of integrating social media and digital signage to drive advertising campaigns outside of the traditional channels.

Mind the Gap

Gap has dropped plans to change its logo after being ridiculed by bloggers and tweeters for a new design unveiled last week.

The new look (pictured, above) was meant to give Gap a more contemporary look but was criticised for its uninspiring design. Gap consumers also objected to the change being introduced without any warning. Gap North America president Marka Hansen admitted that the US casualwear giant had not approached the launch of the new logo in the right way, adding:

“We’ve learned a lot in this process. And we are clear that we did not go about this in the right way. We recognize that we missed the opportunity to engage with the online community. This wasn’t the right project at the right time for crowd sourcing.”

She added that the logo may be changed in the future but that “when that time comes, we’ll handle it in a different way“.

The retailer said that it would revert to its traditional logo on www.gap.com and would turn it red for the US holiday season.

Exerts from Retail Week

3 to use Augmented Reality instore

Store staff for mobile phone retailer Three are to use an augmented reality app in stores to improve customers’ perception of its network coverage.

Smartphones using the app will allow store staff to point the phone camera in any direction and show the masts that 3 own to potential customers. Augmented reality involves superimposing images onto live pictures captured using the phone’s camera.

One or two handsets with the app installed will start to go into Three’s 307 stores in the coming months.

A spokesman for Three said that it is in the pipeline expand the app’s capabilities to display where stores are located.

The current app allows selection of a mast to show where it is exactly and how far away it is from where the user are standing. The app will not be available directly to consumers.

The masts will be categorized by different colours to show which ones have been added since Three’s has completed its three-year long network upgrade yesterday through sharing mast sites with T-mobile.

Post: retailweek