The online world continues to seep out of the confines of the screen and materialise as tangible objects in our real, actual lives. The Facebook book, executed by DDB Paris for French telecom company Bouygues Telecom, and the Tweet Towel – created by We Are What We Do and mashing up traditional craft with digital communication in the form of tweets – are both unusual and innovative, yet interesting and desirable recent ideas. They also offer a physical product for 2 mediums which play an increasingly central role in many people’s lives.
Perhaps the strangest example I’ve seen recently though is an Italian company/initiative called Le Verdure Del Mio Orto (translates as ‘The Vegetables from my Garden’). Imagine Farmville charged you a fee to create a virtual plot, but actually planted your organic produce on a farm in Northern Italy, sending you the vegetables that you reap within 24 hours of their being picked.
That is what Le Verdure Del Mio Orto is offering to Italians. You can also choose to receive photo-updates of your plot, as well as have the opportunity to create a scarecrow bearing your face. Ideal for those urban dwellers lacking the land to farm anything more than a basil plant on their windowsill, the offer of fresh, organic veg certainly beats the awarding of badges and points in a practical sense. But the lack of social interaction and/or competition with others may mean that the initiative will not permit the same level of buy-in from consumers.
In fairness though, this is not what it’s setting out to do. It’s offering city dwellers and those without the space an opportunity for ongoing involvement, albeit in a distanced sense, in the various stages of their foods production – I think it’s great.
No comments:
Post a Comment