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1. 5 New Toronto Venues for Holiday Parties

2. OCAD Gala Kicks Off Mystery Art Sale

3. Developer Hosts Green Cocktail Party, Mini Trade Show to Unveil Eco-Friendly Homes

4. New Moon Premiere Beckons 10,000 People and 2 Live Wolves

5. Masked Raconteurs Tell Tales at Moth Ball, and I Have a Blast

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7. MoMA Gets Suitably Whimsical and Macabre for Tim Burton Tribute

8. Art Basel Preview: New Convention Center Layout, Giant Beach Structure for Audi

9. Obama's First State Dinner Calls on Marcus Samuelsson, Jennifer Hudson

10. Clinique and Teen Vogue Bring Young Women to Beauty Tour, Send Them Online

FROM NEW YORK

Morgan Loft Penthouse: Temporary Venue for Holiday Season

Sustainable Label Opens SoHo Pop-Up With Community Center Sensibility

Clinique and Teen Vogue Bring Young Women to Beauty Tour, Send Them Online

Masked Raconteurs Tell Tales at Moth Ball, and I Have a Blast

Gap, Banana Republic, American Eagle Open Stores With Musical Performances

MoMA Gets Suitably Whimsical and Macabre for Tim Burton Tribute

3 New Hotel Restaurants for Business Entertaining, Private Groups

Nintendo Launches New Mario Game With Look Back at Franchise History

Scripted Models Play Up Key Notes at Victoria's Secret Fragrance Preview

Ad Age Looks to Boost Conference Interaction With Beer Tasting, Lounge Seating

FROM LOS ANGELES

American Music Awards Begin With Redesigned Arrivals, End With Downsized After-Party

Bouchon: Thomas Keller in Beverly Hills, With Indoor/Outdoor Dining, Private Room

Us Weekly Takes to Voyeur With Scantily Clad Models, Burlesque Feel

6 New Venues for Los Angeles Holiday Parties

New Moon Premiere Beckons 10,000 People and 2 Live Wolves

$4 Million MOCA Gala Breaks Fund-Raising Records

Chrysalis Benefit Cuts Ticket Prices in Half, Draws Same Crowd

MOCA Gala Spawning Arty Online Auction—Including Gehry's Hat for Gaga—Through November 30

Wende Museum Closes Wilshire for Cold War Anniversary Celebration

3 Ideas for Stylish, Eco-Friendly Events

News Archive for Ray-Ban

EVENT REPORT 04.20.09 3:33 PM

Marketers Consider Coachella Too Important to Skip in Lean Times

T-Mobile's late-night hangar party
Photo: Polk Imaging/FilmMagic

FROM LOS ANGELES Ask any marketer with a presence at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival and he’ll tell you that the opportunity to promote in the desert during the festival weekend is unmissable and nonnegotiable—even in a downturn. Chalk it up to the sheer concentration of well-connected and enthusiastic music industry folks, fans, and friends captive in the middle of the desert, or to the extreme temperatures and terrain, or to the totally immersive quality of the whole thing—but the attendant brands felt they couldn't afford to be left out, even if this year's economic climate made sponsorship participation and overall budget dollars tougher to wrangle. The festival kicked off on Friday and wrapped Sunday night in Indio.

“This year was really difficult. Sponsors are putting each event under a microscope, and they want to make sure it’s the right type of event for the right R.O.I.,” said Andreas Herr, publisher of Anthem magazine, whose desert party has developed a reputation as the most authentically hedonistic and bacchanalian of the weekend. “But the reason it’s so important for us is that it’s all about contributing to the lifestyle that we cover inside of the magazine. So many people look forward to this event throughout the year. At a time like this, it’s really important to give our fans and our readers something to really look forward to. That one weekend when you can really escape reality and go out there and have fun. It’s our biggest event that we do throughout the year, and we have a lot of fun doing it.”

This year, Anthem’s signature event included a Saturday pool party at a sprawling five-acre ranch property with a three-acre lake. (Herr characterized it this way: “The rough theme is '70s porno ranch meets disco. Does that even make sense? It makes sense to me.”) MORE >>

Coachella, T-Mobile, Anthem Magazine, Levi's, Ray-Ban, Urb Magazine, Filter, Vitaminwater, Goodlife.com, Going Green

EVENT REPORT 03.23.09 3:46 PM

Levi's and The Fader Team Up for Massive South by Southwest Performance Series

Inside the Levi's/Fader Fort
Photo: Benjamin Sklar for BizBash

FROM AUSTIN, TEXAS There was no finer example of South by Southwest’s knack for remaining seemingly recession-proof this year than the Levi’s/Fader Fort. A cross between a heavily sponsored Woodstock and a post-apocalyptic hipster commune, the joint venture between the denim maker and the magazine earned some of the festival’s biggest buzz, due to its elaborate setup and poorly guarded secret cameo by Kanye West.

Organized by The Fader marketing division Cornerstone Promotion—and produced by Lacy Maxwell Productions—the fort took over an entire field, sandwiched between a warehouse and defunct railroad tracks. Sheets of old metal and plywood haphazardly erected around the perimeter kept details of the playground secret from the long lines waiting for free admission, letting only the sound of artists like Little Boots, Peter Bjorn & John, and Jadakiss slip through the cracks. MORE >>

Levi's, The Fader, Ray-Ban, South by Southwest

INFLUENCES 10.27.08 9:00 AM

How Improv Stunts Are Inspiring Guerrilla Marketing Efforts

Improv Everywhere's Charlie Todd
Photo: Chad Nicholson

After successfully posing as musician Ben Folds while his friend pretended to be a fawning admirer in a bar one night, Charlie Todd decided to stage stunts on a larger scale. He started Improv Everywhere in New York in 2001 with the goal of making people notice the world around them (or just smile). Todd and his team of “undercover agents” have since organized more than 70 public missions involving thousands of volunteers, which are filmed and shown on the Web. This past January, they captured worldwide attention with a spectacle that involved 200 people simultaneously frozen in their movements for five minutes in Grand Central Terminal. What’s more, the group’s efforts are influencing corporate events and marketing stunts: Todd, who has been consulting with corporate marketers for three years, advised Marie Claire for a recent Ray-Ban project. We spoke to Todd in between his teaching duties at the Upright Citizens Brigade improv comedy theater and planning his next public coup.

How do you feel about people who copy your work?
It depends on who copies our work. One thing that has been amazing to watch is what has happened with our “Frozen Grand Central” video. It got about 13 million views on YouTube. I get email from all over the world with links to videos of people freezing in place in China or South Africa or small towns in the United States. We’ve always been democratic about our ideas, but we appreciate it if there’s a mention that what they’re doing is inspired by us with a link to our Web site. MORE >>

Marie Claire, Ray-Ban

NEWS 08.01.08 3:27 PM

Stunt Marketing Grows Increasingly Divisive (and Unavoidable)

A Ray-Ban stunt stopped New York City traffic for 20 minutes.
Photo: Jemal Countess

FROM NEW YORK Today’s New York Times reports on the growing budget for unconventional stunt advertising, citing some of the biggest hits and misses of the year. Summer brings prime weather for taking branded messages to the streets, and we’ve seen plenty of examples in our different markets. With so many drawing equal ammounts of critism and praise, some avant-garde efforts may do more harm than good.

Missteps, however, seem to remain in the eye of the beholder. A London prank by Right Guard had a street team infiltrate the Underground rush hour commute with small video screens embedded into their clothing. Each time a team member raised his or her arm to grab the rail, the armpit TV played a Right Guard commercial. Despite negative reactions from bloggers (and photo documentation of grimacing witnesses), Right Guard owner Dial was pleased with the effort. “We were obviously hopeful that the Right Guard brand would come out in a good light, which I believe that it did,” Dial marketing manager Nina Daily told Times reporter Stephanie Clifford. MORE >>

Ray-Ban, Right Gaurd, Stunt Marketing

FROM THE EDITORS 07.22.08 2:41 PM

Reader Feedback: Ray-Ban's Traffic-Stopping Stunt Annoys New Yorkers More Than Others

Ray-Ban's traffic-stopping promotion
Photo: Jemal Countess

Last week, a reader e-mailed us with feedback on a recent Ray-Ban marketing stunt. The July 1 promotion, which featured 100 sunglasses-clad actors standing and staring at a Ray-Ban billboard in a busy Manhattan intersection for 20 minutes, angered the reader because of the environmental impact of the traffic it caused. (The full letter is here.)

The letter sparked several readers around the world to send us their feedback as well, and their takes might be influenced by their locations—the two readers farther away from Manhattan (and New York traffic) found the stunt less offensive.

“Your reader clearly is upset, but their anger is misdirected. If they want to make an eco-case, yell at the drivers who, well aware of the perils of downtown Toronto summer traffic, choose a fossil fuel powered vehicle. We all hate traffic jams, and I suspect your reader was having a particularly bad day and needed to vent, but to suggest that a simple marketing stunt was a crime against the planet (my words, not theirs) is ridiculous.”
—Simon Jennings, Toronto MORE >>

Ray-Ban, Going Green

FROM THE EDITORS 07.16.08 1:58 PM

Reader Feedback: Ray-Ban's Traffic-Stopping Stunt Makes Me Mad

Actors stopping traffic near Herald Square
Photo: Jemal Countess

A recent Ray-Ban marketing stunt did more than get attention—it also riled a reader. Yesterday we got this response to our story about the July 1 promotion, which had 100 sunglasses-clad actors standing in the street just south of Herald Square for 20 minutes to draw attention to a Ray-Ban billboard:

Having read the article, it actually made me angry.

In a day when gas is a precious commodity, it seems like this promotion ignored this fact, forcing people to sit idol burning gas in a city where people already spend enough time sitting in traffic.

And in a time of people and companies trying to reduce their carbon footprints, it appears Ray-Ban didn't seem to care too much about the environment either. MORE >>

Ray-Ban, Going Green

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