Can these work on planes?

Let’s see the Shamwow guy sell this

Interesting article in Fast Company

Check out this one from Pedigree

Try this and if you land the deal give me 10%

This guy makes trash bags look cool

This month, Taco Bell made noise at the Winter X Games by showcasing the talents of some of its most loyal late-night diners: musicians.

The activation is part of the food chain’s effort to tap into the independent music community to create brand affinity among groups that typically stop in for an after-hours bite—or the fourthmeal, as Taco Bell calls it.

The fourthmeal concept came out of Taco Bell’s program that lightens the financial burden of up-and-coming bands as they tour from town to town on skyrocketing gas prices. For a month, Taco Bell picked up select bands’ fourthmeals. That program evolved into Feed The Beat, a grassroots word-of-mouth program that extended the fourthmeal to additional bands. More than 100 bands now participate and provide content for feedthebeat.com.

“The objective is brand affinity,” Will Bortz, manager p.r. and sponsorships at Taco Bell told Buzz. “We’re not asking the bands to be overt; it’s more of a relationship basis. It’s a back and forth, we’re-in-this-together approach.”

At the Winter X Games, held Jan. 22 to 25 in Aspen, CO, Taco Bell’s footprint featured live Feed The Beat band performances as well as a chance for consumers to ride its mechanical hot sauce packet (it’s like riding a mechanical bull, but hotter). Branded premiums included cowbells and foam taco hats. The bands got additional exposure by having their tunes featured in highlight reels aired from the X Games on ESPN’s SportsCenter. The reels included a plug for feedthebeat.com. On the website, viewers can learn Feed The Beat program history and buy songs via iTunes. Profits go directly to each respective band. Agency: Intersport, Chicago.

Source: Event Marketer

Champion is giving people a chance to design their own hooded sweatshirts as part of an online contest that celebrates the iconic apparel.

Visitors can customize their own hoodie using an online template that lets users mix color and patterns to form their own work of art. Submissions will be accepted through March 31. People can vote on their favorite design, and will ultimately choose the winner.

The top vote-getter will win a chance to have his or her creation sold as a limited edition hoodie and receive a $500 gift certificate. Champion will also award 12 semi-finalists with $100 gift certificates.

“The Hoodie Remix campaign is one of Champion’s innovative media initiatives in 2009,” Claire Edgar, Champion brand marketing director, said in a statement. “It fits perfectly with our ‘How You Play’ advertising campaign as the contest will challenge the creativity of our consumer, while engaging them and strengthening their connection with the Champion brand.”

More than 11,000 hoodies have been created since the contest began last week, Darren Paul, managing partner and co-founder of Night Agency, the firm handling the contest, said.

“We want to allow people to interact with the brand in a way they haven’t before and remind people how innovative Champion is,” Paul said.

Visitors can check out the latest designs on the site, as well as the 50 most liked. And if they like one submission best of all, they can download it as wallpaper onto their computers.

Champion, a Hanesbrands, Inc. brand, will name the contest winner on May 29.

Banner ads on sites include ESPN.com, MTV.com, People.com and MensHealth.com support the promotion. Night Agency is also passing out cards via street teams in New York City to help spread the word, Paul said. Social networks and blogs are other sources to help promote the contest. Users can add a widget on their sites to share information about it, he added.

“There’s a large amount of traffic coming through word-of-mouth,” Paul said. “People can spread the word. [Entries] are pouring in.”

Source: Promo Mag

It was, perhaps, only a matter of time before Black Lips got mental in India. The US punk rockers played the Sir Mutha Venkata Subbarao Concert Hall in Chennai last night as headliners of the Campus Rock Idols event in the city. In the middle of the band’s set, one that reportedly saw much appreciation from the packed Chennai audience, guitarist Cole Alexander took off his clothes and jumped into the crowd. The crowd was stunned. Alexander then proceeded to get back on stage and make out with the other band members.

The gig was stopped, though there was no crowd disturbance reported. The remainder of their Indian tour has been cancelled – two dates in Kolkata (Jan 24, 25) and one in Bangalore (Jan 29). More details as we get them.

The band’s India tour got off to a slow start in Pune, though they seemed to pick up enthusiasm at their next outing in Mumbai. They had said in interviews prior to the start of the tour that they would tone down their act for India.

Delhi band Indigo Children will take Black Lips’ place in Kolkata.

Check out a more detailed account here

Source: Indiecision

When the nine remixes that make up this CD officially hit the web in December 2007, surprisingly few paid them much attention. It wasn’t a quality issue as much as timing– an incredible marketing plan/album called In Rainbows had been set upon starving web consumers just two months before, and Radiohead fans were still in the glassy-eyed-wonder stage. At that point, Thom Yorke’s The Eraser seemed like a harmless but necessary detour. While only a few would name The Eraser as their favorite Radiohead-related LP, the 2006 record gave Yorke the chance to air out his electrohead side before heading back to the band for In Rainbows– the most naturalistic Radiohead album since OK Computer. The assumed logic seems sound: no Eraser, no In Rainbows. A little over a year ago, The Eraser was a tiny lily pad, so why fret about these redos courtesy of dudes from Yorkie’s dubstep-heavy iPod?

Though there’s no discernible reason for The Eraser Rmxs finally getting a U.S. release right now (the songs were originally sold as MP3s, then a collection of three-song EPs, then as a CD in Japan last year), it sort of makes sense. Though the original album may have caused Radiohead to not make a record that sounds like it, the LP has caused some guy named Kanye West to do his best impression of it. Of the influences West cites in his recent Grammy ad, The Eraser lies directly in his head space. And there’s no denying the spare sonic similarities between the record and West’s current 808s and Heartbreak, which currently sits at No. 5 on the Billboard charts. Its current single, “Heartless”, is No. 3. So it turns out The Eraser played a large part in both Radiohead’s consensus return-to-form LP as well as one of the most galvanizing pop albums in recent memory. Maybe this record’s more important that we originally thought.

And so: The Rmxs. Always looking out for the next weird, bassy, scatterbrained electronic thing, Yorke collects a coterie of producers that would make Aphex Twin-philes split their pants. (Alas, Afx himself could not be reached for comment.) Three of dubsteb’s most notable names– Burial, the Bug, and Various– chip in, along with laptop gurus Four Tet, the Field, and Modeselektor. Considering the amounts of hands turning knobs both tangible and virtual, there’s an impressive consistency about The Rmxs. While The Eraser saw Yorke sulking about end-times and hopeless love against a pristine backdrop of ambient loops and tiny, click-clack percussion, The Rmxs dirties things up considerably. This is rebel music. No longer is Yorke wailing in his bedroom; he’s whispering in a basement, plotting an overthrow.

Burial starts it off and, in essence, ends it with the disc’s best track. All the standard tics from dubstep’s most enigmatic figure are apparent on his “And It Rained All Night” redo: sub-bass adorned with nothing but atmosphere– Zippos flicker out and the clink of bullet shells hit the floor. Who’s been shot? Nobody’s saying. If this song soundtracked that awful Bacchanalia scene in The Matrix Reloaded, that movie would automatically be 10% more enjoyable. Unsurprisingly, Yorke’s voice suits Burial’s soupy concoctions just as nicely as those mysterious R&B divas he’s usually fond of– if this team ever decided to meet on an LP level, few would oppose. Cristian Vogel contributes two remixes, one of them the token overlong vamp that largely deletes Yorke’s voice entirely, which is just silly. The Bug’s “Harrowdown Hill” takes the singer’s seething political indictment and turns it downright deranged– it’s almost Tricky-esque. The Field and Four Tet offer the only moments of relative hope with tracks that lift more than pummel. Four Tet even makes that “artichoke heart” line go down easy, with xylophones and pillowed drums sliding into a future with fewer head-scratching surprises, fewer reasons to throw things at the television.

And, of course, In Rainbows’ secret weapon was the H word our current president is so fond of. The Eraser is relevant now, but– specifically at this moment, days away from that crowded Mall– it also sounds like a relic. Even Kanye made sure to graft the record’s sonics onto something– searing, thoughtless emotion– more evergreen than dystopian riddles. Economic crash withstanding, Radiohead turned out to be quite prescient, coupling their most openhearted LP with a new era of genuine compassion (maybe?). The Eraser Rmxs is an insulated, paranoid, technically proficient reminder of a time when it seemed like there was no way out. “This is fucked up,” repeats a pitch-shifted Yorke on Vogel’s Bonus Beat “Black Swan” mix. And it is. But not as much as before.

Source: Ryan Dombal, Pitchfork