Bright Kite: Here users can upload pics from their phone, write a caption, and put the link up on their Twitter or Facebook accounts. When they do this, their location is tracked on the GPS and uploaded with the picture, bringing the viewers right to where the user is and helping users connect with each other online and in real life.
Urban Spoon application: Pretty simple. It finds you on GPS. It gives you the restaurants in the neighborhood you're in, instead of making you leave where you're at. Helps you support the community you love. (Of course you can still just change the neighborhood, but you get where I'm coming from.)
My Urban Rabbit Hole: These t-shirts are printed with city maps. The purchasers marks five locations that have special meaning with red permanent paint, "telling their stories through urban geography."
Social Souvenir: This is a project through the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denmark, where 300 shirts were created with text fragments inspired by 15 of the artists featured in the museum. When purchased, the new owner has to offer up their name and address, and the "work" is then mapped on google maps. This is supposed to both share the art with the community, but also strike up community between the museum-goers. (Thanks PSFK for the tip!)
Buying Local: Huge trend, for a number of different reasons. But there is a huge sense of pride amongst folks buying local and support local businesses. Many of these businesses have started producing community-based badges to let these consumers reflect their passion, such as pins and bumper stickers.
There are many other examples of this, but these were the first to come to mind.
So what does this mean for advertisers? I think it means that more than ever, we need to be looking at subculture, at the little stuff instead of the big picture. We need to stop making easy assumptions based on age and race. We need to see what really matters to our consumers, and I think what matters to our consumers is very close to home.
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