Now we aren’t talking the SoBe Super Bowl ad here, but rather getting the product up front and personal with a captive audience that is looking for the 3-D experience. The possibilities are endless, but here are two ways I can see brands entering our minds through some special glasses in the near future – on TV and the big screen.

The silver screen has been home to great product placements. From Pepsi and Coke to McDonalds and White Castle, brands are everywhere and their marketing teams know the benefit of the recognition when captive moviegoers are exposed to their brand for two-plus hours at a clip. Think about the potential placement for candy and soda companies when it comes to a 3-D show. You have the audience in a place where your products are sold and what better way to showcase and sell them. The customer can almost reach out and grab them.

Much like movies, the small screen has a lot of potential for 3-D ads. Instead of looking at the easy impulse buys, 3-D can be a huge win for automobile brands. Instead of traditional commercials that show the car driving, 3-D allows you to see from the driver’s view. So drivers can see what the view from a pricey sedan is or even how safe a Volvo is on impact. These views can also be powerful for the Ad Council showing the dangers of drinking and driving.

What do you think of 3-D is it another fad that won’t hit the mainstream or will it be another game changer?

On Time’s website today, Richard Corliss suggests that Twitter may have tanked the results of Bruno with a slew of negative reviews:

In the old days — like, until yesterday — movie studios judged the success of their big pictures by how much they grossed on the opening weekend. But in the age of Twitter, electronic word-of-mouth is immediate, as early moviegoers tweet their opinions on a film to millions of “followers.” Instant-messaging can make or break a film within 24 hours. Friday is the new weekend.

That appears to be the lesson from the studio estimates issued on July 13 for the weekend box office. Brüno, the Sacha Baron Cohen docu-comedy in which an Austrian fashion journalist shoves his flamboyant gayness in the faces and other body parts of unsuspecting Americans, won the weekend with $30.4 million, a bit above most industry expectations for an R-rated provocation whose star was unknown to the mass audience until his Borat became a surprise hit in 2006, earning more than $260 million at theaters worldwide on an $18 million budget. Yet Brüno‘s box-office decline from Friday to Saturday indicates that the film’s brand of outrage was not the sort to please most moviegoers — and that their tut-tutting got around fast. Brüno could be the first movie defeated by the Twitter effect.

This brings into question whether film critics will be the next form of traditional media to fall victim to the Internet age. It also brings up the question of if the influx of Twitter-SPAM and paid Tweets can pub up a movie and make it a success. Imagine if Paris Hilton wanted to pay folks to tweet that her 2-hour conversation with Brittany Spears is worth seeing.

So while the studio is still a ways away, I can look back on some of the better movies that have been filmed in the Bay State recently and find it odd that two of the more recent movies starred a native of Long Island, New York. I am not talking about Scorsese or DeNiro, but rather the tons of fun star of King of Queens – Kevin James.

Earlier this year, James’ flick Paul Blart Mall Cop was actually filmed in the Burlington Mall during the late summer. It was kind of weird seeing the Santa setup during the middle of the summer. Earlier today, I saw this article on the Globe’s Web site noting that James is taking over a zoo not too far from here:

Making the trek from Birds’ World to Serengeti Crossing recently became a little more arduous at the Franklin Park Zoo.

Instead of a direct path, visitors must now make their way around a massive movie set — a fake zoo within a real zoo — in one of the main walkways through the exhibits.

There, on a portion of the unused outdoor gorilla exhibit near the zoo’s rear entrance, crews have been laying the groundwork to begin filming the MGM comedy “The Zookeeper,” starring Kevin James.

The set is forcing patrons in the back of the zoo to make their way to the other exhibits by walking through the tropical forest, which features Little Joe and the other gorillas, or on another side trail.

I wonder if the animals are allergic to Twinkies…Nothing funnier than a fat man chasing wild animals.

Image: 3dnews.ru

Well way back in September, a copy of the Harvard Business Review crossed my desk and had an intriguing cover that caught my eye. On the left were Pixar’s light icon and the phrase: Creativity at PIXAR. This company has fascinated me for years and I was determined to check out the article and see what kind of creativity – aside from the movies smartass – was lurking behind their animated gates.

Well as you can see by the date, days turned into months and the magazine was lost in a scrap/trash pile never to be heard from again, until at the end of January, my team had to move our location. Thus forcing the cleaning process, it was here that the magazine popped back up. While a month may have passed before I got the chance to give it a read, the wait was well worth it.

The article is penned by Ed Catmull a cofounder of Pixar and current president of Pixar and Disney Animation Studios. The first person narrative goes on to show what makes Pixar so special as a company. Again, more than the movies, the company relies on innovation and creative thinking to stay one step ahead of the competition.

Teamwork and a nurturing & creative environment allows for the company to have everyone make a difference in a movie. Pixar’s goal to always one-up themselves is only matched by their ability to grow/learn from a failure while not settling for anything less.

We all know that their movies have been box office successes, however the one thing that the movie-going public will never see is the behind the scenes postmortems where the crew lays out what went wrong and what they can do better rather than being content to have a product out the door. This kind of thinking has not only elevated them to a top-tier theatrical company, but also may have saved Disney’s movies from the straight-to-DVD imposed hell.

The key takeaway from the article is not only the nurturing of talent and cultivating a goal orientated team, but also the three core principles of the company.

Pixar’s Operating Principles

1. Everyone must have the freedom to communicate with anyone
2. It must be safe for everyone to offer ideas
3. We must stay close to innovations happening in the academic community

I would suggest checking out the article, found in its entirety here, for anyone looking for ways to motivate their direct reports or team, HR reps or anyone like me who is a five-year old caught in a adult’s body who loves movies.

Random Tangent

My only wonder is why we never saw this Pixar commercial during the World Series?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_7_xz2OtoI]