be the joystick

Video: First time for live inter-cinema gaming in the UK

Not sure how I managed to miss this when it happened back in November? October?

Carlton Screen Advertising sourced and developed motion-sensor technology that tracks an audience's combined movements via a wireless video camera set up at the front of the theatre.

(...)

Each audience acted as "human joysticks", their hand motions controlling a virtual Volvo projected onto the screen. The game was played simultaneously in 12 UK cinemas, each aiming to collect the most points and win the game.

The folks behind the game, Brand Experience Lab, have announced "an exclusive partnership with National CineMedia and once we complete our initial test installation, we'll begin rolling AudienceGames out to the top 20 markets on about 750 screens."

Of course, they managed to make this announcement on a page with no date stamp, so I'm unable to give you a date. Let's assume all this goodness hasn't already come and gone and failed miserably in the marketplace.

creepy research re subliminal branding

A joint study from Duke University and the University of Waterloo suggests subliminal messages work for established brands like Apple and Disney.

One study gave 341 students a "visual acuity test," where they were asked to track a multicolored box on a screen while keeping a tally of numbers that appeared in the center, reports CNET.

Unbeknownst to them, the students were sometimes exposed to either an Apple logo or an IBM logo for 30 milliseconds before the box appeared.

After the test students were asked to list all the uses for a brick they could think of. Those who saw the Apple logo were more prone to give creative responses than those who saw the IBM logo.

Researchers also tried a test with logos from The Disney Channel and E!, a celebrity channel. Those that saw the Disney logo behaved more honestly than those who saw the E! Channel logos.

From Subliminal Branding Can Alter Behavior, Study Finds in MarketingVox