In the third and the final chapter of our Brands and the City overview, we focused on brands’ projects which helped enrich city canvas and add more elements to the metropolitan life. Here we collected both projects with a social twist, revolving around the idea of making a city a better place to live, and works with a vivid advertising component, such as branded bus shelters, giant interactive billboards and shop windows, which broadened physical borders of the cities.

Rankings revolving around the health, environmental and social impact of products and companies are gaining their popularity among consumers who want to know if the goods they purchase are really healthy from different points of view. Recently, Popsop wrote about Nike’s ‘Environmental Apparel Design Tool,’ based on Nike’s Considered Design Index, as well as the Eco Index, and now the GoodGuide system, created back in 2007, gets into the spotlight. So far, over 95,000 food, toys, apparel, personal care & household products, babies & kids, electronics and appliances produced by both local and global companies (the list of those includes Starbucks, Levi’s, H&M, Nescafe, Nike, PepsiCo, Nestlé and Diesel to name a few) are thoroughly studied and ranked by experts of GoodGuide, with the results being available at the website and on the iPhone app.

The viral video dubbed ‘Rearview Girls‘ showcasing two sexy girls strolling around Los Angeles in extremely skinny jeans with ‘built-in’ video-camera and turning the heads of many men on the street has received 6 mln. views since it was uploaded on Youtube almost a week ago. The point was rather simple: a tiny cam was cleverly hidden in the skinny jeans worn by one of the girls. It captured the men and women staring at the girl’s ass as she was walking, which proves how a pair of skinny jeans may boost the visual effect and overall ‘first’ impression.

In course of its online contest ‘Share and Win’ launched in Europe on February 9, Levi’s introduced a unique prize—a one-of-a-kind fixed-gear  bicycle decorated with denim and painted in a color that resembles jeans. This model was created by Levi’s in cooperation with Unik bike, Belgium’s pro in re-inventing vintage bikes, Fixerati, a shop specializing in supplying rare bike parts, and London-based Brother Cycles, which is considered N1 bike  frame manufacturer.

Where do the modern-day guys determined to make a statement go? Interestingly, some of them may seek new ideas in their girlfriend’s wardrobe or in a women’s section of the shop just to pick a pair of ultra-tight jeans that will make them look like a rock-n-roll star.

Seems like Levi’s has spotted this trend and rolled out a new model ironically called Ex-Girlfriend Jeans referring to very tight jeans that girls wear to outline their curves  (as well as the ‘tight’ character of the ex-girlfriend—since the tag reads «THESE JEANS ARE TIGHT»). The model is available at the price of $69.50.

A city as a source of the ‘creative spark’. Urban streets as basis for bold and massive campaigns. For many decades, smaller towns and megalopolises have been inspiring advertising agencies behind multiple marketing projects, which on the one hand are targeted at promoting brands and, on the other hand, encourage consumers to compare different cities, unveil creativity and strong dedication to sport, cinema and quests, or even bring rural accents to urban settings. We at Popsop have reviewed global brands’ ad activity during 2010 and first two months of 2011 to see how they’ve been embedding city into their promotions. Now, we are presenting our 3-part study dedicated to the subject. The first section of this review will highlight competitions, cross-city studies, urban sport-related promotions, which have been taking place within big cities around the globe and in a way were dedicated to them.

Levi’s has launched a new digital campaign specifically targeting Chinese market and dedicated to its ‘After Dark’ collection well-suited for night out/party occasions. ‘We Rule the Night‘ is the title of the campaign developed by Hong Kong-based TBWA and its Tequila division, which is Levi’s agency-of-record in Hong Kong for the Chinese and Hong Kong markets. By launching it, the jeans retailer targets youth aged 18-24.