ASICS Gel-NEO33 is the lightest shoe we’ve ever seen, so telling its story required some special visuals. Previously we demonstrated the ‘light’ effect by going all scientific with a bunch of ping pong balls and a huge fan. This time we turned to helium, balloons and a gaggle of athletes.

Shot in Bulgaria with Texas Chainsaw Massacre/Conan the Barbarian director Marcus Nispel, this spot harnesses live action and special effects from UNION Editorial (the team behind VW’s Star Wars theme-song barking dogs. So yes, we cheated and used special effects, but c’mon, getting a giant shoe balloon to float straight up is no easy task.

That song, by the way, is “The Temporary Blues” by The Features and the spot was produced by our friends at MJZ.

Click here to see more of our work with ASICS.

We dare you to race this ad. Hint: you’ll lose. For the 2011 New York City Marathon, Vitro and ASICS asked a surprising question: are you faster than our advertising? The answer for everyone who took us up on the challenge was, No.

To demonstrate exactly how fast champion marathoners have to run in order to win the 26.2 mile race, Vitro and ASICS installed a 60 foot long video wall underground in the Columbus Circle Subway Station. Along the video wall, US Olympic marathoner, and ASICS athlete, Ryan Hall, demonstrated his marathon race pace, a 4:46 mile. A countdown on the video let bystanders get into position to race against Ryan for 60 feet. No one could beat him, including Ryan Hall himself who stopped by our installation to race against his virtual self.  After the race, fans were presented with a humbling fact: Ryan Hall runs this fast for 26.2 miles.

Run With Ryan was an instant hit with both race fans and news media, earning the editors Pick of the Day at Creativity. Run with Ryan was also featured in Fast Company Design, Ad Week and Japan’s Nikkei Marketing Journal.

SKINNY and VITRO are both on a tear. And in the midst of all the new work we’re joining forces to bring our offering and our craft to the next level.

Our offices are located in New York and San Diego, and we plan to expand even further. Together we are more than 100 creatives, strategists, designers, producers, developers, and business people. But moreover we are craftsmen. Our clients include Alaska Communications, ALDO, ASICS, Centerplate, Clarisonic, Diageo (Jose Cuervo Light Margarita, Zacapa, Freeze and Shake Cocktails (Smirnoff, Godiva, Myer’s), Ready to Serve Cocktails (Jose Cuervo, Smirnoff, Captain Morgan, Crown Royal, Cacique, Pampero), Kwikset, Lysol, Newcastle Brown Ale, No Longer Empty, Nokia, PF Chang’s, Ralph Lauren, Serengeti, Target, Wired.

John Vitro is Creative Chairman. Our CEO is Tom Sullivan. Jonas Hallberg and Liron Reznik are Chief Creative Officers. We’ll spare you the canned quotes, but rest assured they are all quite ecstatic about this new venture.

SKINNY and VITRO share a kindred spirit. We are ‘serial problem solvers’ i.e. thought leaders and chief creative architects whose role is to provide our clients with innovative business solutions. We help them dominate their industries and change the world in ways big and small.

We seek the new, unchartered, never been done before. We solve the toughest issues with new and forward thinking and craft. We are not defined by one mode of output, but are fluent in many. We believe that you should treat your product as your best marketing. Treat marketing as a product extension. Add value to your users, turning them into ‘brand volunteers’ that act as your best marketing channel.

We look forward to showing you the work. Stay tuned. Or see what the Times has to say.

SKINNY and VITRO merged, and if you’re here for that reason, you’re probably wondering what made us think this was a good idea. First and foremost, we’re kindred spirits, especially with our approach to work.

We’ll let it speak for itself. See more of it by clicking here.

Things aren’t always what they appear. This thought holds true for Newcastle Brown Ale: it’s a beer that’s dark in color, but surprisingly smooth to drink. “Taste the Lighter Side of Dark” was the theme of our advertising campaign for Newcastle Brown Ale in 2011, and our outdoor executions embodied the same sense of surprise, discovery and uniqueness.

For this “Shadow Art” billboard, Vitro and Newcastle Brown Ale started with 3,000 real Newcastle Brown Ale bottle caps and a 256 square foot outdoor board. Stacking, bending and gluing the bottle caps into precisely the right position, we created a billboard that looked like a random assortment of bottle caps by day. But at night, as the sun went down and the lights came on, everything changed. The billboard became a shadow sculpture: a human face, and shadow arm reaching for a pint of Newcastle. Like Newcastle Brown Ale, this installation wasn’t what it first appeared to be. And like the beer, it quickly became a hit, drawing night time crowds that stopped to appreciate the work and take pictures.

The billboard also became an international media sensation, appearing in a leading creative journals from the US to Japan to France. The Shadow Art billboard was featured in Forbes Magazine, Yahoo News, the Huffington Post, Beer Business Daily, and was named one of the 24 “Coolest Billboards We’ve Ever Seen” by Business Insider Magazine.

Propagation Planning isn’t a new technique for us. We first used it (umm, that doesn’t mean we were the first to use it) to launch Vodafone 360 in Europe, putting the service in the hands of folks like Lily Allen, who shared her life through it for a few months. We partnered with Lexus to modify the method for a campaign called Darkcasting, implementing propagaiton in a way that turned out to be completely different than VF360, except for the fact that influential people were still at the core. This video from Paul Rojanathara and Davis Johnson, does a pretty good job explaining the benefits of the Influencer model (aka Propagation Planning if you’re a strategist).

And there appears to be a trend happening right now in the automotive industry that the Wall Street Journal picked up on. Automakers, with Lexus at the forefront in this story, are harnessing the power influential people offer, to get their messages into the ether. You can see Lexus’ work right now, and according to the Journal, propagation campaigns will be launching from other automakers sometime in the future. In the meantime, here’s a bit of what WSJ had to say about what Lexus is doing:

Armed with images and video from their test drives, the stars of the Lexus campaign have been spreading the word by blogging, tweeting and posting images on Flickr. R&B singer Goapele tweeted: “I had a great time last night with @Djqbert @WhitneyCummings. Thanx to @keyinfluencer @VanHoven @lexus for a solid production. Go #Lexus1″

These social-media personalities will “propagate the message,” says Jonas Hallberg, co-founder of the New York ad firm that helped craft the Lexus push.

You can read the rest of the article here. But tell us what you think of it, and if you’ve been using this model, where can we see it and how is it going?

Adding to the fun is photography and video footage shot by world renowned photographer Terry Richardson, with actor Matthew Gray Gubler and model Lily Donaldson sporting these hot new shoes.

To complete this project we partnered with the development pioneers at B-Reel, whose dedication to rocking is known from east to west, north to south and possibly deep into space. Here’s our client, Douglas Bensadoun, commenting on the work we did together.

“Choosing SKINNY was part of a broader decision to delve into the interactive world,” said ALDO Creative Director & General Manager Douglas Bensadoun. “We sought a partner who could not only bring our campaign to life but also create an immersive experience that’s new and innovative, allowing our customers to participate in the campaign itself.”

That’s what we’re talking about.

Be sure to check out the experience for yourself at aldoshoesforlife.com.

This may be the only commercial ever filmed by VITRO that required a real-life rocket scientist. Then, again, it’s not every day that you build a giant floating shoe from scratch.

The 33byASICS collection was the largest product launch ever for ASICS America, and it came at a crucial time as the lightweight running shoe movement was gaining steam. For the ASICS GEL-Blur33, Vitro designed an integrated advertising campaign that leveraged the innovative lightweight technology behind the Blur33. To bring this innovation to life, Vitro conceived a television commercial in which a group of young technology enthusiasts set out to build a floating shoe, or “Gravity’s Archenemy.” Staying true to the spirit of invention, Vitro and ASICS decided to build a real floating shoe without the use of any special effects, or computer animation.

The final result was a 72 square foot replica of the Blur33 that hovered two feet off the ground. The creation required 3,000 ping pong balls, two industrial air compressors, 24 air valves, and nearly 800 separate guide lines and, yes, the services of a real life rocket scientist to make sure everything actually worked.

No frills, no bull, just the news you’ll need in order to stay ahead of everyone you work with. Sample below!

Click here to sign up.

NEWS: In LA, a police officer pointed his weapon (a shotgun) at a man, who recorded the incident.

SOCIAL: Your Facebook stutus updates can now be really, really long (From 500 to 5000 chars.).

SOCIAL: TechCrunch’s Josh Constine says Google+ status updates can hold 100k characters.

TECH: Path is a lifestreaming service that is like Facebook’s timeline, but ‘better’.

STUFF: The 5 best toys of ever.

WEB: Brightcove, the whitelabel video platform, launched APPCLOUD, which is “a way to simplify the creation and distribution of mobile web apps”.

PHOTO: Really beautiful shots of New York’s hidden places.

EVENT: Need something to do tonight? Check out Techdrinkup, a heated rooftop event for tech kin ($25 open bar).

APPS: YouTube’s video editor is getting some use.

GAMING: Angry Birds launches fully branded game. (NO WIDOWS!)

ART: Cookie Monster trash can (and other cartoon inspired street art, via allthatinspiresme).

GOOD: Warby Parker, which gives away a pair of glasses for every pair you buy while undercutting the cost of frames drastically, reached their first year sales targets within three weeks of business.

FWA has wrapped up its annual Site of the Year contests, and we have won the People’s Choice ‘Site of the Year’ award for our work on Lexus Dark Ride. The other winner was Arcade Fire for The Wilderness Downtown – which was easily one of our favorites as well.

If you’re not familiar, FWA (Favourite Website Awards) is the pre-eminent source for learning about the world’s best websites. They award daily, monthly and annual winners. There are two annual winners, one of which is voted on by the people (People’s Choice) and the other which is judged by a panel of industry experts.

“This year was the first year Twitter really started to push FWA’s People’s Choice Award,” said FWA’s Rob Ford. “It was great fun and impressive at times, to see the power of social media reaching fans of many of the sites. I was delighted to see Lexus – Dark Ride win the PCA as it was one of my favourite sites of the year. When I first experienced this site I was blown away by the production quality and the levels of interaction for a film. The Facebook and webcam integration really took this to a whole new level. I was totally engrossed until the very end and immediately shared the link with my close associates, which I something I rarely do these days. This project truly shows the power of the web and how, using the latest technologies, a huge idea can become a seamless reality experience. Hats off to the entire team on this one, the public voted in their thousands and I fully agree with them.”

Without the progressive minds at Lexus, this project would never have gotten off the ground. We are immensely grateful for the support Lexus gave us, and continues to give us as we work toward the launch of the CT 200h – the compact hybrid at the center of all this work.

We were privileged to work with some of the world’s best talent on Dark Ride, from the star Norman Reedus to DP Claudio Miranda to director James Brown – and of course everyone at LIME PR and Promotions, Stink Digital, Speedshape and Dinahmoe.

Here’s some quick facts about the competition:

1 Year Long Global Competition

44+ million site visits

365 Site Of The Day Winners

12 Site Of The Month Finalists

1 International Public Vote

1 People’s Choice Award Winner

For more from FWA, click here – and don’t forget to ROCK YOURSELF UP!

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