What's Moving

The Detroit Auto Show just opened and the interaction and media certainly isn't as exuberant (and creative?) as what we were doing there before the depression. See samples of my automotive work as I flesh out my website - www.thornleaf.com.  But there is some brand new and very interesting automotive marketing happening over in Europe.
Ford has created a giant interactive plasma ball as the focus (get it?) of their microsite promoting the new Ford Focus.
The video and flash created by Lumiere Studios (www.lumierestudios.co.uk/) are stunning.

Interact with the site at www.discoverfordfocus.co.uk  Touch the words above the timeline.

MiniCooper had a great guerilla campaign on the day after Christmas.  They placed empty boxes at garbage collection points implying people had unwrapped a Mini Cooper.  The boxes also conveyed the monthly lease cost of 99 Euros.  It definitely got passersby's interest and attention.

UbachsWisbrun / JWT were the creative.

And Mercedes Benz successfully translated their print campaign to video.  They have been promoting Brake Assist Plus as the first technology that reads the road.  In the print campaign, they communicated this with a page of words that are blurred out, so that the reader sees what really matters: a child. a ball, or a dog:

And here's how the campaign carried over to video - a brilliant use of text:

Sehsucht literally brought the words to life: http://www.sehsucht.de/page/work/

Send me your interesting ideas as well.