Earlier this year, we wrote about Shisheido's Digital Cosmetic Mirror, installed at a Tokyo department store to let women test makeup without actually applying anything to their skin. Following in Shisheido's augmented reality footsteps is L’Oréal, which will be trying out digital mirrors in the UK this summer.

How it works? Customers snap a digital self-portrait using the mirror's camera. They can then scan a product's barcode to see it 'applied' to their self-portait, using the system's touchscreen interface to select different colours or get recommendations for shades or products that match their skin tone or eye colour. Customers will also be a

Besides offering customers a convenient and hygienic way to try new shades and products, the mirror could help prevent buyer's remorse and therefore reduce (costly) product returns. The system used by L’Oréal was developed by EZface, which has also partnered with Boots and Walmart. As reported by Brand Republic, "L'Oréal will be trialling the kiosks later this month offering products from brands such as Maybelline, ahead of a possible commercial deal."

Letting customers try before they buy (dubbed tryvertising by our sister-site trendwatching.com) can be a remarkably potent way of advertising products. And a virtual approach, using augmented reality, seems like a natural fit for the fashion and beauty industries.

Website: www.ezface.com
Contact: business@ezface.com

While instantly gratifying, buying ice cream from a vending machine isn't as fun as it could be. Which is why SapientNitro and Unilever created the world's first smile-activated ice cream vending machine. The underlying technology is sophisticated, but the concept is simple: consumers walk up to the machine, smile and are rewarded with a frozen treat.

When its motion detectors sense someone is near, the machine beckons them to come closer and interact. Using facial recognition technology, it can then recognize a person's age, gender and emotion, and measure their smile using a "smile-o-meter". If their grin is wide enough, they get free ice cream. Users can also opt to have a picture of their happy self uploaded to Facebook, which ties in perfectly with Unilever's brand message: "share happy". Currently being showcased at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, the smile-activated ice cream vending machine will be rolled out at high-traffic locations across the globe over the next 18 months.

From security checkpoints that recognize eyes, to cameras that spot friends and family, machines are increasingly capable of smart interaction with humans. Throw in emotion and delight, and you'll create a memorable experience that knocks the socks off traditional advertising. One to have fun with! (Related: Ice cream factory in a vending machine.)

Website: www.sapient.com/en-us/SapientNitro/Work.html#/?project=157
Contact: www.sapient.com/en-us/contact-us.html

Spotted by: every-ware via notcot

Airports are no strangers to innovation when it comes to attracting business, and we've already seen several interesting examples—Heathrow's installation of a writer in residence, for instance, and dance lessons at the Aeroports de Paris, to name just two. None of the ones we've seen so far, however, can achieve the same heights—quite literally—as Singapore's Changi Airport, which has installed a slide four storeys tall.

Reminiscent of artist Carsten Höller's wildly popular installation in the Tate Modern a few years back, The Slide@T3 bills itself as the world's tallest slide in an airport. That may well be true, for the thrill-seeker's dream stands a full 12 metres high, permitting top speeds of up to six metres per second. To encourage visitors to experience the thrill, Changi gives consumers two slide tokens for every SGD 30 they spend at the airport in a single receipt. For the faint of heart, there's also a one-and-a-half-storey version that can be tried for free in the airport's Basement 2 level. Changi Airport also, incidentally, maintains a Children's Playground, a multimedia Entertainment Deck and multiple movie theatres.

As Höller notes in an interview about his own slide, “the state of mind that you enter when sliding, of simultaneous delight, madness and ‘voluptuous panic,’ can’t simply disappear without trace afterwards.” It leaves a lasting impression, in other words—which, of course, is what the experience economy is all about. ;-) (Related: Bungee jump for high-end thrill-seekers.)

Website: www.changiairport.com/at-changi/events-and-promotions/the-slide-t3
Contact: www.changiairport.com/our-business/contact-us/feedback-and-enquiry

Spotted by: David Rhoades

We've noted on numerous occasions the fact that traditional advertising can no longer hold a candle to promotion via social media—see New Zealand's Pass It On initiative for one recent example. Aiming to make the value of such social endorsements explicit, Pay with a Tweet is a platform that lets content owners sell their goods in exchange for a single tweet rather than cash.

Developed by German-American Innovative Thunder, Pay with a Tweet bills itself as “the first social payment system where people pay with the value of their social network.” In other words, rather than paying with currency, purchasers of any kind of content tell their friends on Twitter about it instead. Interested content owners simply sign up with Pay with a Tweet, including the download URL, the tweet to be posted and a link to their company's website. Purchasers, then, follow a “forced viral” model to promote the product in question far and wide. Pay with a Tweet is currently available for testing on Innovative Thunder's own book, “Oh My God What Happened and What Should I Do?”

Traditional advertising's impact has been fading for some time now, but this is one of the first attempts we've seen to make social media's value explicit. Content creators the world over: one to try out on your own latest work? (Related: Free products for bloggers at invitation-only events — Travel company gives bloggers free trips — Connecting restaurants and bloggers for 'tastecasting' via Twitter.)

Website: www.paywithatweet.com
Contact: team@knarre.com

It's standard practice for hotels and airlines to offer discounts and other rewards to their own best customers, but a new service aims to pass those benefits on to other consumers as well. Specifically, users of location-based social networking services including Foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp, Loopt, Brightkite, Google Buzz and Google Latitude can now coordinate their check-ins through Topguest for a variety of travel and hospitality rewards.

Topguest is a free, members-only service that automatically gives users real rewards program points for their location-based check-ins. There's no need to download or install anything new; rather, users simply sign up for Topguest and sync their check-in app account(s) to the service. Some programs, such as Delta Skymiles, give users points wherever they check in; others, such as Starwood Preferred Guest, will award points only for check-ins at Starwood hotels, Topguest says. Currently Topguest is in "sneak peek" mode, featuring a partnership with Standard Hotels; rewards include a complimentary week's stay for any road warrior who checks into four Standard hotels in the course of a single week, and a 25 percent discount for those who check into Standard properties 10 times. Over the summer, however, the New York-based company plans to add additional partners in the travel and hospitality industry, according to a CNET report.

As the mass-mingling crowds increasingly coordinate online and compete for badges and other local rewards, there's opportunity aplenty for vendors further afield to get in on the action—not to mention companies like Topguest, which stand to benefit by making it all happen. One to get in on early...? (Related: Helping consumers manage their loyalty perks.)

Website: www.topguest.com
Contact: help@topguest.com

Spotted by: USA Today via airlinetrends.com