To win consumer appreciation and promote new products, brands are ready to embark on the most dangerous and extravagant trips—Red Bull Stratos is just one of them. In line with other brands, which kick off astonishing projects featuring people who push the envelope of human possibilities, Sony Australia teamed up with Naked Communications Sydney to launch a new campaign dubbed ‘Share Your Journey’ to promote the Sony’s Bloggie social network camera product range—as part of the initiative, two Aussie adventurers James Castrission, 29 (Cas) and Justin Jones, 28 (Jonesy) will head to Antarctic, quite in the Make Believe. style. This initiative also has a charitable touch since $5 from every Bloggie product purchased during the promotion will be donated to the Sony Foundation’s You Can programme, supporting young Australians with cancer.  

Benetton crosses a new digital creativity border and revolutionises its portal with an all-encompassing magazine; an atypical platform for live events and a number of new features to open future digital scenarios in which United Colors of Benetton will be an increasingly important presence. This is another step in the digital metamorphosis of Group communication; by engaging with the new Web 2.0 and social network languages, it has rapidly achieved great results in terms of visibility, appreciation, traffic and participation by a worldwide audience.

The Timberland Company has announced the company’s CSR goals and forward-looking targets, which are positioned to align more strategically with its overall brand values. The updated goals and targets have been published on Timberland’s newly-launched CSR communications portal, which provides a dynamic, integrated experience that informs, inspires and engages consumers around the brand’s CSR efforts.

Keeping up to current trends is essential for companies, which strive to be relevant to the fast-pace world and meet ever-changing consumer demands. In this piece, which is an abridged version of ANTHEM SIGHTINGS, Vol. 2, 2011,  the most notable trends of today are covered—some of them root in old approaches, and some seem to be completely new, but all of them are shaping modern marketing efforts and influencing our perception of brands. The author of the paper, Kathy Oneto, Vice President, Brand Strategy in the San Francisco office of Anthem Worldwide, made a list of ten current trends and their examples from all around the globe, demonstrating the processes redefining the marketing industry right at the moment.

Launching this month is the new bright and bold packaging for the Maynards sugar confectionery range designed by leading strategic brand design agency Bulletproof.
Following a 3-way strategic pitch, Bulletproof were chosen to evolve the Maynards design and improve differentiation vs the competition, whilst providing a clearer role for each of the variants which include Maynards Wine Gums, Maynards Wine Pastilles, Maynards Sours, Maynards Sports Mix and Maynards Midget Gems.

Heineken, which is well-known for its successful bottle design experiments and deep involvement with the music industry and youth culture, is stepping into the interior design zone and is encouraging emerging designers to take part in development of a pioneering nightclub. The project, which was announced back in April, has been launched last week and will be open until August 14 for young and aspiring designers from New York City, São Paulo, Tokyo and Milan. The ultimate goal is to develop a state-of-the-art live concept club space, which will be unveiled throughout the duration of Salone Internazionale del Mobile 2012 in April in Milan.