at a time when its not always enough for brands to engage us with their ideas or imagery, it's no surprise we're seeing a host of alternatives to 'broadcast adverts' being explored.  everything from events and experiences to content and applications are being developed to communicate with us on our – rather than brands' – terms.

in this context, where it has become the convention to be unconventional, an arms race inevitably develops: no one does events as well as Nike, or experiences as well as O2 etc.  brands can be at best nervous and at worst avoid completely exploring such territory.

not Diesel.  the above video is of their Spring/Summer 08 catwalk show in June at the Pitti Immagine Uomo fair in Florence.  the brand brought brought together Barcelona animation studio Dvein (GGI visual effects and 3D animations) and Danish multi-media production agency Vizoo (technology) for the show, neither of whom had previously worked
on anything like this before.

the result is spectacular – a ground-breaking event, experience and subsequently content all rolled into one.  as the CR blog post puts it "a perfect blend of cutting edge digital art and performance."

many brands would have stopped there, but Diesel took the crucial next step of maximising their investment by telling people about it.  there's a marketing rule of thumb that for every pound you spend investing in an asset you should spent between one and three pounds telling people about it.  of course as user-distribution (YouTube etc) develops these economies change, but Diesel still found time to make and deploy the little effort below.

by encouraging people to visit diesel.com to experience the holograms as they happened, the brand blended old and new world media (almost) as seamlessly as they blended live models and holographic sea creatures.