HEAT

Heat is a creative agency that believes in the power of surprise to solve problems, build brands, and turn ordinary customers into raving fans. www.sfheat.com

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Honda Presents: The Other Side

A double-sided film featuring the Honda Civic and Type R concept. There's more to it than meets the eye. What will you discover?

 Last week, Honda released an interactive short film titled “The Other Side “ for their Honda Civic Type R. Viewers can partake by switching between two completely different narratives in real-time, just by pressing and holding down the “R" key.

  One side of the story (probably the more relatable of the two) shows a father picking up his children from school, while the other side shows him as a getaway driver in a museum robbery – allowing viewers to live a double life during this video.

This is an awesome way to showcase how simple something like pressing a key can full transform a viewer's experience. It isn't often that we see interactive features like this one on YouTube, but we're sensing a new trend.

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You know that “Skip Ad” button you click on YouTube to skip over the 30 second ad before a video? Well, one agency is determined to prevent you from doing so- by creating an “unskippable” pre-roll ad. Nail created an ad for the ASPCA that threatened to electrocute a puppy if you clicked the skip button.

Although this may sound like a strange tactic, the strategy here involves grabbing the viewers attention for the first 5 seconds before the button pops up. This type of thinking suggests taking the time to consider all aspects of an ad platform before creating an ad, and, as a Nail creative said himself: “YouTube ads should be designed for YouTube.”

- Spotted by Aicha Traore, Social Media Intern

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7 Days of Garbage

Sure, many of us make an effort to separate our trash these days, but do we ever really consider the amount of waste we create in the first place? Photographer Gregg Segal came up with a clever way to bring attention to this issue by creating a series of photographs showing people surrounded by seven days worth of their own trash. 

"I think consumption is one of the biggest problems we face, and one of the things we do the least about because we feel overwhelmed by it," Segal says.

- Spotted by Aicha Traore, Social Media Intern

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The Gregory Project

An architectural design firm in Slovakia called Design Develop has dreamt up The Gregory Project – a way to turn billboard space into housing for the homeless. The small, two-room apartments include an entrance hall, a kitchen, a desk, a raised bed, storage space, and a bathroom. Also, due to the existing electricity used to light these billboards at night, the houses would already be wired. What’s so great about an idea like this is how it utilizes an already existing structure and transforms it into something so useful to our society.

- Spotted by Aicha Traore, Social Media Intern

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Entrepreneur Barbie Joins LinkedIn and is #Unapologetic

Barbie on LinkedIn? Fully equipped with a briefcase, smartphone, and tablet – Entrepreneur Barbie seeks to inspire women all over the world to dream big with her new LinkedIn Profile page.

55 years and 150 careers later, Barbie’s new company, “Dream Incubator,” includes the tagline “If You Can Dream It, You Can Be it!” (she even has her very own hashtag, #unapologetic). Hopefully Barbie’s new career will continue to motivate girls to dream big.

- Spotted by Lindsay Arakawa, Social Media Content Creator

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Introducing “Loop Count” on Vine

Vine users can now see how many times their six second clip has been watched with “Loop Count”. Similar to the view count on YouTube, users will get a better idea of how popular their videos are, and with updates in real-time, they’ll know if others are watching along with them.

As we all know, not all updates are perfect and because Vines replay automatically there is no way of knowing whether someone was actually watching it or not. But with a few tweaks this could be a major step forward for Vine and its users.

- Spotted by Lindsay Arakawa, Social Media Content Creator

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IKEA + CB2 Get Creative On Social

People love watching their ideas come to life and furniture stores like CB2 and IKEA are helping to do just that. With the help of Pinterest users, CB2 hired designers to furnish and decorate rooms while keeping them updated online in real-time, and IKEA created the world’s first website within Instagram, promoting their featured collection including product information and video clips of each item being used. 

Retail companies are finding newer ways to advertise on social media and changing the way we get to interact with and view their products and we’re very excited to see what others will do next.

- Spotted by Anderson Oliveira, Creative Technologist & Meredith Obendorfer, Director of Communications

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Any girl could probably tell you that she’s been teased for running or fighting “like a girl” at some point in her life and Always wants to change that. Their new campaign, #LikeAGirl, is empowering young women in hopes of recreating the term and we’re definitely on board.

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40 Thought-Provoking Social Issue Ads

When you think about advertisements, you likely think about that 15-second clip that pops up right before your favorite cat YouTube video. However, ads can also be powerful and thought-provoking messages about pressing social issues. To quote Howard Luck Gossage – as referenced by Bored Panda – "advertising justifies its existence when used in the public interest – it is much too powerful to use solely for commercial purposes." We can't agree more.

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Cities like Edinburgh, Brighton, Manchester, and Oxford just got a city street art makeover. 40 street artists and the crew over at Brandalism went out and replaced "obnoxious and sexist ads" with hand printed works of art.

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With 2.7 billion internet users worldwide, the internet is every social media marketer's dream. 24motiongraphic have compiled the numbers and put together this very informative 2D-movie, grabbing stats from Facebook, Instagram and other social networks to tell the story of just how big the internet is now.

You'll even find out which YouTube video currently holds the crown for the most views (1.9 BILLION views). Op, op, op, op.

– Spotted by Kevin John, Assistant Account Manager

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It's Okay To Play With Your Food (Peeps)

When we think Easter, we think Peeps – those marshmallows made of pure love and sugar. Every spring, the Washington Post seeks out marshmallow artists' best interpretation of the "Year in Review" through the art of Peeps. Top submissions in 2014 included recreations of Ellen DeGeneres' the Oscars selfie, the polar vortex, and (of course) "Wrecking Ball."

Now gather all your leftover Peeps from yesterday's festivities and check out each "masterpeeps" in the Peep Show 2014 gallery for some insPeepration.

– Spotted by Lauren Kosta, Production Coordinator

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You use them and maybe sometimes abuse them, but wouldn’t you like to know where your favorite meme originally came from? If you don't know, now you know – thanks to Top10Memes.

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In response to the negative comments they received via social media regarding their 'Wholesome Love' commercial, Honey Maid took the time and effort to craft a heartwarming response.

– Spotted by Megan Robershotte, Account Manager

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Dove has successfully brought tears to our eyes…(again).

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An Awesome Book of Love – a passion project (and interpretation of Dallas Clayton's kids book) by Yael Staav & Furlined with music by Elias Arts.

Grab the tissue, folks - this one's a tearjerker. Thank you to our friends over at Elias Arts for sharing their heartwarming and amazing work with us today.

Check out more or Dallas Clayton's inspiring work here.

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Heat Sessions — live music in the lobby of our offices — started 2014 off with the alternative Americana band, We Became Owls. Originally from Oakland, CA, they crossed the Bay Bridge to perform a live rendition of "Lovely and Lonesome." 'Like' them on Facebook for news and updates on where they'll be performing next!