For St. Louis's City Museum, salvaged garbage helps create a hyperlocal feel. For the Save the Beach Hotel, it's not just a building material but also a warning about the current state of Europe's beaches.

Led by Mexican Corona Extra beer brand, the Save the Beach effort aims to recover at least one European beach per year from destruction by pollution and other human-caused damage. Last year it was Capocotta beach in Rome, and votes are currently being accepted online for this year's choice. To draw more attention to the challenge, the Save the Beach effort this summer built a hotel from garbage collected off Europe's beaches. Created by German artist HA Schult and installed next to Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome, the Save the Beach Hotel was open from June 3 through 6. Some 12 tons of garbage collected from Europe's beaches—more than a million pieces—were used to build the two-story structure, which could accommodate up to 10 people. Its very first guest was former supermodel Helena Christensen.

Schult explains: “The philosophy of this hotel is to expose the damage we are causing to the sea and the coastline. We live in the era of trash and we are running the risk of becoming trash ourselves. Do we really want this world?”

If a picture is worth a thousand words, just imagine how many could be packed into a trash-based hotel—not just about the problem at hand but also about the Corona brand's eco-generosity. One to be inspired by! (Related: Pop-up cafe is a (straw) monument to sustainability.)

Website: www.coronasavethebeach.org
Contact: www.coronasavethebeach.org/contacto/

Spotted by: Martina Meng

The failings of survey panels are nothing if not well-known to market-researchers and clients alike, but still they remain widely used—albeit expensive and slow—tools for collecting data. Aiming to provide higher-quality results at a lower price, Chicago-based Lab42 conducts its clients' surveys not in artificially assembled panels but in the social networks where target respondents naturally spend their time.

Clients begin by telling Lab42 about their products and their target consumers. Lab42 then helps to craft a survey, with the option of focusing it based on gender, age, location, lifestyle and interests. Next, Lab42 takes the resulting survey to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and smaller niche social networks, using highly targeted incentives to garner attention and responses while consumers go about their day-to-day activities. Two packages are available from Lab42: a premium one for USD 500, with results in three days or less; and a preliminary one for USD 300, with results in 5 days or less. Custom arrangements are also possible.

It's always refreshing to see services that have traditionally been performed slowly and expensively rethought and remade to reflect new technologies and new societal shifts. One to try out when researching your next big thing...? (Related: Advice from the crowds, with a market-research twist — Open polls gauge popular opinion in minutes — Brainstorming service uses Twitter to crowdsource ideas overnight.)

Website: www.lab42.com
Contact: info@lab42.com

Spotted by: Sara Robinson

As bicycles grow in popularity, so do related opportunities for smart entrepreneurs and marketers. A concept we've increasingly spotted in bike-loving European cities—including on our own rides in Amsterdam—is bike seat advertising.

Ads are printed on plastic bike seat covers, which are then placed over the seats of parked bicycles, keeping seats dry and leaving an unavoidable impression. By selecting specific locations or even certain types of bikes, advertisers can focus on an audience that's as narrow or wide as needed. Parked bikes near universities to reach students, for example, or schools and cargo bikes—the Amsterdam version of the minivan—to target parents.

In Europe, the covers are sold by numerous companies, including Zadelhoesje, which addresses environmental concerns by selling seat covers made of recycled plastic. One to look into if you're in advertising or promo products. Or why not set up a standalone business, offering both printed covers and promotional teams to distribute them?

Website: www.zadelhoesje.com

It's long been recognized that celebrity endorsements can help sell products, but typically it's only the biggest brands and the brightest stars that are lucky enough to strike such deals. Aiming to bring celebrity endorsements into the realm of possibility for all the other brands and professional athletes out there, Brand Affinity Technologies has created a platform focused on creating the right match.

Founded in 2007, California-based BAT gives advertisers of every size and shape the ability to quickly and easily launch endorsement campaigns using its endorsement platform, which currently includes more than 3,300 contracted athletes and celebrities covering every U.S. DMA. BAT's celebrity roster includes Olympic athletes and marquee active and retired players in nearly every sport, including Drew Brees of the NFL, Jorge Posada of the MLB and the NBA's Rajon Rondo. Advertisers can browse that talent based on geography, branding and targeting considerations; included in the platform are detailed talent profiles with photos, videos and personal information—what type of cellphone they use, for example—as well as proprietary metrics that can help compare talent by region, sport and status. Endorsement offerings include digital, radio, outdoor, print and television advertising as well as appearances and virtual memorabilia that advertisers can provide to consumers as incentives and rewards. The BAT platform's interface mimics an “iTunes experience,” the company says, and standardized contracts help get campaigns up and running quickly. Pricing is on a pay-for-what-you-use, CPM or flat-rate basis with no long-term lock-ins or additional costs for talent or targeting.

Some 80 percent of all Americans are self-proclaimed sports fans, and half of all U.S. adults closely follow sports, BAT says. One to emulate for all the fans and brands in your part of the world...?

Website: www.brandaffinity.net
Contact: www.brandaffinity.net/contactus

Spotted by: Wired Magazine

While we usually feature companies when they launch, we love seeing their creativity develop and grow after that initial period. And we just spotted a fun example: the made-to-order muesli mixers of mymuesli recently created the first TV commercial filmed and edited entirely on the iPhone 4.

In the three years since we first featured mymuesli, they've expanded to the UK, Switzerland and the Netherlands, and have been joined by similar concepts in other countries, including [Me]&Goji in the US. They've also forged smart alliances with established health, fitness and beauty brands, and developed a convenience product: mymuesli2go.

Which brings us back to the iPhone. mymuesli's founders were so impressed by the phone's video quality, that they decided to use it to shoot and edit an ad for their new product. Highlighting the convenience aspect of mymuesli2go, the ad features a skydiver eating cereal before jumping out of a plane. (The video below shows both the ad and 'the making of'.) The commercial aired on German and Austrian television over the weekend.

Whether or not you're an Apple fanboy, there's no denying the buzz surrounding their product launches. And latching on to that early fervor can be an inexpensive way for young brands to draw some attention their way. Watch and learn ;-) (Related: Fashion shoot uses iPhone 3GS.)

Website: www.mymuesli.com
Contact: www.mymuesli.com/kontakt