Just when we thought the content marketing machine Beyonce had set the creative output bar to a new level last week, here comes hubby Jay-Z, not to be outdone. His new fragrance for men, Gold, is being launched this Christmas with cool transmedia-like tactics, including this one-of-a-kind interactive installation in the windows of, where else? Macy's in Herald Square.

Century 21 has impressed me with a pair of recent real-time marketing campaigns that highlight the real estate brand as both pop culturally relevant and quick to spin someone else's news announcement into a marketing coup for itself.

Maintaining your brand's cultural relevance in the age of real-time marketing now means being prepared to use the context of current events whenever they happen. But there are some annual events that always make news, with universal truths that don't require digital newsrooms to put great creative in media context. Case in point, Thanksgiving travel. Nearly everyone travels somewhere Thanksgiving weekend, and whether you're coming or going, you're bound to be waiting somewhere -- especially if you're flying. Which is why ZAPPOS took to the baggage carousels of Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport to create a roulette-style game for passengers …

To launch the debut of Felix, a cat food brand, in Mexico City, Purina created life-sized cat's cradles in five bus shelters throughout the city. Would this much yarn put a smile on Grumpy Cat's face? Probably not, but it gave me one, as I fondly recalled playing Cat's Cradle as a kid. Big Bang Global, a Mexico City-based agency, came up with the creative concept, which took two weeks to conceptualize and create.

Sending a video greeting might not seem like anything new. After all, from SnapChat and Facetime to SKYPE -- and all points in between -- video posts have become the way of the world. But context is everything, especially when you care enough to send the very best: yourself. This Christmas, the Australian Postal Service won't just be send your gift -- they'll be sending your personal video greeting right along with it.

Among the many behaviors adopted by the masses from the democratization of technologies is sound and video remixing. Remixing of old school tracks by DJs, new artists and remixers has given new life to many of our most cherished songs.It was just a matter of time before brand marketers sat up and listened, such as Mercedes-Benz UK and its Sound With Power campaign, which demonstrates the power of the new E63 AMG engine by tapping into consumers' penchant for audio/video remixing.

When saving for one's retirement, every little bit helps. Sometimes retirement plan providers plant their fees inside the 401k plans they are creating, which can come as a costly surprise to consumers. Not to mention, it means consumers earns less on their investment than expected. West Coast-based First Western Trust decided to expose this hidden business with a direct-mail piece that uses a black light to unearth fees written in invisible ink.

It's great to discover more and more brand marketers beginning to leverage addressable or smart advertising: the ability to serve customized messages to different audiences at different times in different locations. It really isn't that hard, and it's actually something that's been around for quite a while. It's just that most upper-funnel marketers continue to prefer pushing their awareness message to as many eyeballs as possible while leaving the more challenging "activation" work to their lower-funnel digerati to wrestle with, in a world of dismal CTRs.

Back in the old days, before cell phones existed, it was a common event for someone to misplace his or her wallet. Nowadays, you're more likely to hear a story about a friend losing their cell phone than a wallet. So if you see a cell phone on the ground, are you more likely to ignore it and keep walking -- or pick it up and turn it in? This good deed was tested to an extreme degree in Shanghai this summer, when Time Out Shanghai purposely "lost" its cell phone and rewarded the person who found it with an …

Most in-cinema advertising features lavishly produced trailer-like spots that attempt to match the production values and epic sound and picture quality of the movies they precede. As movie trailers have become louder, attempting to cram as many 10-frame shots from the feature into them as possible, the corresponding ads have followed suit - including attempts to drive tune-in to unscripted cable reality shows that end up appearing more like trailer spoofs than ads themselves. Enter SPRINT's "No Talking or Texting during the Movie" campaign - a parallel reality of 3D sequences delivered to your phone when you power up after …