Here’s a look back on the week’s highlights in online and social creative.

Creative Inspiration:

Fans of Disney’s Cars franchise have a new reason to play with their iPads: AppMATes. AppMATes are a unique iPad peripheral that feature characters from the recent Cars 2 film. By dragging the toys across the screen of an iPad, users who have downloaded the free app can interact with a digital version of Radiator Springs.

To build out the immersive experience, Disney mounted special sensors on the bottom of each toy so the app can distinguish between individual cars. This allows the app to generate a different experience depending on which character is being driven around the town. Each car also unlocks different features in the app so there is added incentive to purchase them all.

Sphero is a robotic, remote controlled toy ball that can be maneuvered with either an iOS device or Android smartphone. It is expected to be introduced in the US later this year, along with several games and apps (some of which will allow users to test their golf skills and entertain their pets. Similar to Friskies’ popular iPad-based Games for Cats, Sphero’s KittyCam is catered to cat lovers; it will enable users to weave the ball around for their feline friends to play with — and in turn, film their pets should they wish). The Sphero ball will be embedded with LEDs, allowing users to change its color.

Perhaps most interesting, is Sphero’s developer program. Sphero is expected to serve as both an entertainment and gaming device — and the company behind this product (Orbotix) has opened the API so that developers are able to build apps and create new tools using its technology.

Gamification has been one of the biggest buzzwords of 2011. Most implementations to date belong to a few narrow categories: those that give silly badges for performing menial tasks, or that unlock new rewards in a loyalty program. But how many compelling examples of gamification can you reference?

Here’s one: I (Heart) Jellyfish, an iPhone game that teaches players to regulate their heartbeats. A patch monitors the frequency of the player’s heartbeat and communicates with the iPhone. The game itself is simple: the glow of the jellyfish is more intense when the player’s heart is beating quickly, and dims as it slows. A bright light makes the smaller creatures the jellyfish eats more visible, but also makes the jellyfish more conspicuous to predators. Physicians and parents can tune the objectives of the game to the patient’s needs, whether it’s an increase or a decrease in heart rate. Kids can also connect online to compete with their friends.

Our Friday 10am post will now serve as a wrap-up entry, looking back on the week’s highlights in the online and social realm from a creative standpoint.

Creative Inspiration:
Election poster ‘skate attack’ in Denmark
Bacteria billboard for Contagion promotion
Powerade creates live infographic-based second screen during Copa Am_rica Argentina
Author scents a hit with scratch-n-sniff guide to New York
UNIQLO Innovation Project – an interactive new online catalogue

Tell a room full of marketers that “We are in the midst of a Digital Revolution,” and you’d expect to see some eyes roll. But not at IAB Canada’s MIXX conference, which I attended today on behalf of Tribal DDB Canada. Attendees here were looking for proven ways to harness the digital advertising space to stay ahead of the curve as the space continues to grow so quickly. And, as I sift through the influx of #mixxcanada tweets, today’s conference accomplished exactly that. Below are my key takeaways from this year’s MIXX.

The Power of Social Data

The Prostate Czech is a fictional Eastern European thug, whose goal is to convince men to get their prostate checked, one way or another. Getting men to talk to their doctors about their prostate is often difficult, so the Prostate Czech aims to cut through these taboos with brute force and humour.

The website is visually driven, with Branko, our Prostate Czech, threatening spot checks at every turn. While videos make up the bulk of content, it is the straightforward facts about prostate cancer accessed by “Go[ing] Deeper” that drives the message home; beautifully walking the line between rational and emotional decisions.

Video gamers who are tired of being nagged about their habit have a new excuseƒ it’s science!

Researchers at the University of Washington studying how proteins are constructed recognized that these complex problems aren’t well-suited to the way computers make calculations. Human insights and intuition, however, have proven to be particularly effective, so they devised a mathematical puzzle game that lets players compete to design the best new proteins. Knowing how proteins are structured is essential in finding out how they work and designing drugs to combat illness.

For Burberry’s show at London Fashion Week yesterday, the Prorsum Womenswear Spring/Summer 2012 collection was introduced to online fans first — even before the media and buyers in the crowd. Filmed at Hyde Park, fans were given access to a behind-the-scenes Tweetwalk. Before the models hit the catwalk, each of them posed for backstage Twitpics, which in turn were shared online to Burberry’s Twitter followers and fans following the #LFW hashtag on Twitter. The show began at 11am EST yesterday; it also included livestreaming footage through the Burberry website and Facebook page, and an Instagram account take-over by popular photographer Mike Kus (who is currently the most followed Instagram user in the United Kingdom).

This is certainly not Burberry’s first attempt to incorporate social elements into its marketing efforts. In 2009, its collaborative community site Art of the Trench launched to tremendous fanfare. The site is still very much active and has seen several updates and reincarnations since.