Film: Ice Age: Continental Drift (20th Century Fox)
Total Products Spotted: 0
Standout Placement: N/A
Most Memorable Placement (positive): N/A
Most Memorable Placement (negative): N/A
Overall Product Placement Integration Grade (1-10): N/A
Comments: It's a real challenge to justify brand-based references and jokes in a film that's mean to take place tens of thousands of years ago. It's even harder to legitimately place a product on the screen. That's why product placement in animated features set in Ye Olde Pre-Marketing Times is scarce and left to contemporary kid pics like Madagascar 3 while, like ancient Scotland-set Brave, the Ice Age franchise — the new #1 movie at the box office following the weekend opening of Ice Age: Continental Drift — is left to drift product placement-less. Offscreen, however, the film put together a wooly mammoth's worth of tie-ins and marketing muscle, well beyond augmented reality and a Dark Knight Rises spoof. Continue reading...

In addition to the expected kids' marketing tie-ins such as a McDonald's Happy Meal promotion, Ice Age: Continental Drift  opens in movie theaters today with a mobile campaign it hopes moviegoers will find cool: GoldRun’s augmented reality mobile app.

Using the free photo app, available for iPhone and Android, fans can pose with more than a dozen characters, including Scrat, narrated by Chris Wedge, Manny (Ray Romano), Diego (Dennis Leary) and Sid (John Legquizamo), from the fourth film (expected to top the box office this weekend) in the wildly popular Ice Age series.Continue reading...

In a first for the NFL and Tiffany, and to celebrate the unveiling of their Super Bowl XLVI championship ring, the New York Giants are inviting fans to share in the moment.

Big Blue die-hards around the world will be able to virtually “try on” and take photos with the Tiffany & Co.-designed ring, as well as each of the team’s three previous Super Bowl rings, using a free augmented reality mobile app by GoldRun. Participants will also be able to pose with the coveted Lombardi Trophy.Continue reading...

Now out of Beta, GoldRun's smartphone platform uses objects as ‘virtual breadcrumbs’ for scavenger hunts and branded campaigns with pots of social commerce gold at the end of the digital rainbow. It engages users real-time with an interactive experience that yields real world rewards.

It strutted its stuff at the recent Fashion's Night Out event in New York, partnering with Bloomingdale’s and NBC on “Look the Part, Be the Part,” the first co-braned cross-industry promotion to use augmented reality.

Running through Sept. 26, shoppers at Bloomingdale’s 44 stores nationwide can participate in a photo opp with virtual characters from NBC’s fall lineup by downloading the free app, and are eligible to win a trip to Los Angeles for an on-set visit or a grand prize trip to Chicago for a walk-on role in NBC's new series, The Playboy Club.

In addition to posing with bunnies from The Playboy Club, Bloomie’s reps with GoldRun- loaded iPads are on hand to snap photos for customers with virtual cast members from four other new NBC shows: Whitney (starring Whitney Cummings), Free Agents, Prime Suspect with Maria Bello, and Up All Night, featuring Christina Applegate, Maya Rudolph and Will Arnett.Continue reading...

Last year we wrote about interactive billboards in Japan that recalled the interactive ads featured in the Tom Cruise thriller, Minority Report. Today we bring you Immersive Labs, a New York-based advertising technology startup that produces dynamically tailored ad messages to passerby.

The anonymous facial detection is nuanced enough to parse ads by gender, age, distance, attention time and gaze, weather, time of day, and day of week. The technology is invisible to the viewer and works one-on-one or with crowds.Continue reading...

Selling books got a whole lot sexier this week as Barnes & Noble hosts a virtual Brooklyn Decker. It's all an augmented reality stunt for Esquire magazine, whose readers voted her the sexiest woman alive, prompting a February cover that is now on newsstands.

The model/actress is virtually appearing in 700 Barnes & Noble stores via GPS-enabled technology that allows iPhone users to have their picture taken with her virtual image. It's also a clever digital marketing coup for all concerned.Continue reading...

Airwalk is making innovative use of Pop Ups to maximize bang for buck in the re-launch of the brand’s classic “Jim” shoe. Airwalk used an augmented reality app from startup GoldRun to launch pop-up stores in New York and LA on November 6. The twist: The stores were invisible.

In keeping with its “cool” approach to footwear, the promotion attracted cutting-edge shoe buyers to secret locales in New York City and LA.

So how did it work? Much like the brand promotion itself – as a fun, exclusive experience. To access the invisible store, customers downloaded the GoldRun’s app, available for iPhone 3G or higher, and went to Venice Beach in Los Angeles or Washington Square Park in New York. There, they were able to acquire the shoes that were GPS-linked to both locations. Continue reading...