So little of advertising is still advertising. But fortunately ideas are still ideas. I’ve collected a few examples here that show off some creative ways that ambient and social media have been used. These are brands that have gone beyond the standard Facebook product page or the CEO Twitter account to bring some creativity back to marketing.

Coffee Company PowerPoint Slide

This coffee company in the Netherlands offered a free cup of coffee to students who slipped a Coffee Company slide into their PowerPoint presentations. Pretty cool to have a word from your sponsor in the middle of your slideshow.

Terminator Salvation Twitter game

This nicely executed movie promotion enticed Twitter users to watch for tweets from @resistance2018 which contained fill-in-the-blank puzzles, word jumbles, and trivia. Players could rack up points by “decoding these transmissions” in a reply tweet.

Papa John’s Augmented Reality

Augmented Reality is one of the most notable new media tricks around. It’s a way of getting a users webcam to trigger a 3-D animation on screen. It really gives you the illusion of a hologram. (Is that redundant?) Papa John’s, GE, and Mini are some of the brands who are already making use of it.

Green Works Reverse Graffiti

This eco-friendly mural was created for the launch of Green Works, a 99% plant-based cleaner. San Francisco’s Broadway Tunnel was the filthy backdrop for the artwork of indigenous plant life, which was cleaned with the product. Pretty amazing product demo.

Milky Way Movie Theater Line Barrier

Although it’s questionable whether or not this was produced, it’s still a really fun idea—a great example of why it pays to think about where your target spends time.

Flea Spray Mall Floor Graphic

This giant floor decal lets the foot traffic on the ground floor of an Indonesian mall become the fleas on the dog. I do wish they had rotated the dog image 180 degrees so he wouldn’t look like a pork chop. And the line could be better. But still-great idea.

Iams Frisbee

While we’re on the topic of dogs, take a look at this cool giveaway from Iams dog food. To promote the healthy and strong dogs message, they created these plastic frisbees to look like 10kg weights to be distributed at dog parks.

STA Travel Facebook Page

Few brands with Facebook pages support their fanbase the way this student-focused travel agency does. They give their page a human voice with lots of interaction, contests, giveaways, etc. Plus, they constantly create incentives for users to become fans, which, when they do, ripples through the networks of Facebook friends.

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There’s still so much discussion around marketing through social media and making the most of limited media budgets. We will have to not only master these media options, but continually find new touchpoints as well.

Let’s remember to send a postcard to our old friends Print and Television—let them know we’ll still visit from time to time.