It’s the end of the week, which I think calls for a cheer. Hooray for Friday! Hooray for weekends! Hooray for not being part of the PR team at Penn State! And hooray for our weekly list of five things you might have missed!
1.) Like Wal-Mart, but Smaller and Without All the Stuff: A tiny Wal-Mart? Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of being a Wal-Mart? Nevertheless, San Diego has a Wal-Mart Pop-up store where shoppers — get this — can’t actually purchase anything from the store. But they can order online from Walmart.com. This makes our list for being the first in-person online store we’ve ever heard of — and for being the branding WTF of the Week.
2.) My Latte’s Animated: Leave it to Starbucks to find a way to make your coffee cups even more interesting. The online marketing and mobile masters announced an Augmented Reality app that brings to life special holiday characters on the company’s signature red cups. Snowflakes and frolicking creatures appear on your smartphone when you aim it at your cup, and each Starbucks store has displays specifically set up for more real-life animated fun.
3.) Facebook Gift Giving Made Easy: Etsy may have changed the way we play the holiday game forever by introducing a gift recommendation guide through Facebook. Friends on Facebook who like items on Etsy create a list of must-haves for their followers to see. Meanwhile, Etsy strikes gold by bringing in new shoppers, too. Online shopping and marketing genius!
4.) Ordinary Days No More: The Amazing Everyday ad for Nokia Lumina may have been created for Euro audiences, but its clip on how folks make humdrum days more exciting is the kind of thing people everywhere can love. The clip is gobbling up some big hits on YouTube and is list worthy for its infectious music and lighthearted message.
5.) Ashton Stops Tweeting: Señor Kutcher, social media icon, actor and cougar lover, hopped off Twitter for a while after a mega-mistake. Kutcher tweeted dumbly about the firing of Joe Paterno without acknowledging the horrible sex abuse scandal behind the termination. As Rick Perry says, “Oops.” He was then digitally bitch slapped by tweeps with an ax to grind. He later apologized, deleted the tweet and hopped off the site for a few days. Thanks, Ashton, for providing us with another example of why we should think before we tweet.
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