So Tumblr has launched a new content project called 'Storyboard'. Billed as “tales from behind the dashboard”, the series will follow various members of the Tumblr community.

Superheroes, like science fiction, are now acceptable to like in public. This trend can be attributed to a number of events: the cult series Heroes, the popularity of the DVD box-set that helped cult TV go mainstream and the new maturity of superhero representations on the big screen. The corny comic-book adaptations of the 1980s are now cult cinema curios compared to the superhero films that will hit screens in 2012; Christopher Reeve's square-jawed Superman would get a proper kicking from Christian Bale's Dark Knight. Confirmation of the hero concept as trend, if any were needed, arrives in form of the new Lego Superhero series that hits shops soon.

When we were working on the branding concept for the BRAVES, superheroes became part of the imagery very early on. An award that celebrated the heroes of video, needed to have some heroic figures to represent them. Eventually, the perfect amount of caffeine and lively discussion created a brief for the characters who would become The BRAVES, and this brief was brought to life by the brilliant artist, Noma Bar. 

Bar is famous for his deceptively complex graphic illustrations. Using blocks of colour and simple shapes, the man is a master of negative space and efficient graphic style. In short, he's a bit of a genius, and it's a bit of a coup for the BRAVES that he agreed to produce our characters.

Introducing: TEAM BRAVES

CAMPAIGN BRAVE

Smart and strategic, Campaign BRAVE has a plan and is in control. A master of innovation and insight, his mission is to promote the best use of video in advertising campaigns. The Campaign BRAVES category promotes the best in video campaign innovation and creative planning. 

CONTENT BRAVE

Content BRAVE is an artist, always looking to capture that moving image and experiment with new techniques and aesthetics. The Content BRAVES celebrate the art in video and specifically reward the role of branded video content where there brand has been involved from the outset. 

TECHNICAL BRAVE

Nobody knows where he came from. With tools for platforms, players, analytics and distribution, strong, silent Technical BRAVE is essential to the video ecosystem. His best work often goes unnoticed, so the Technical BRAVES are designed to recognise the best technical contributions and innovations to the video landscape.

Information about the BRAVES.

Video-based case studies found on Cream.

An interview with Noma Bar.  

Tokyo-based agency Party, who were responsible for the interactive painted billboard/website project for Toyota last year, has created a brilliant music video for Japanese electronica band Androp. Obviously, as this is Japan, the robots are cool, cute and incredibly desirable. 

The film is a triumph of sound-activated robotics, and in an unusual twist on the 'product placement in music video' business model, a limited number of robots were placed on eBay (yours for a cool $5,000). Depending on its success, Party plan to release more robots for sale with some planned for general sale.

See Party's work for Toyota on Cream. 

Catch up with the best of Cream by subscribing to our weekly newsletter. This week's 'Campaign of the week' is the digital graphic novel from Axe, promoting its new fragrance 'Anarchy'. 

Wether or not Axe is onto a good thing by launching a fragrance line for both men and women remains to be seen. Spurred on by the number of female Facebook fans on its brand page, Unilever have apparently decided that the world is ready for the scent of 'Anarchy'.

See the full case study here with details of how Axe has turned to its fanbase to inspire this online graphic novel project.

Get full, instant access to Cream's pool of case study studies with a free trial here. 

With the launch of the BRAVES, the new awards that celebrate excellence and innovation in the online video space, here at Cream we're discovering some amazing work on a daily basis. This film is from Japanese denim manufacturer Edwin, and is one of the most striking corporate videos we've ever seen. 

In this perfect contender for the 'Best Art Direction' category, there's no dialogue, no corny messages and no brand mission statement. Instead the film manages to convey the craftsmanship, the technology and the people that are essential to the Edwin brand and its heritage as a Japanese firm. 

"For 35 years, Edwin Japan have worked on improving efficiency, quality, construction and washing methods by studying and engineering machinery used in the denim manufacturing process.

By Bambos Neophytou.

Stay one step ahead with these predictions and tips for 2012. Are we heading for a world without Apple?

Detail goes into 'pretail'

Despite the ever evolving ways that agencies and clients use digital technology to enhance and encourage retail experiences, the realisation will come that digital is at its most effective prior to the point-of-puchase, and that’s where efforts and budgets will be spent.

Friendship groups are the new target audiences

The combining trends of social-commerce and powerfully accurate user-data will enable highly targeted exclusives for socially connected audiences or small groups of friends.

Big bold brand entertainment

Amid the doom and gloom or global economic meltdown, there is a huge appetite for big, bold, fresh live entertainment experiences. There will be a resurgence of brands putting on big events and experiences (as Nokia did at Millbank), and with activity building around Jubilee and Olympics. If the experience is impressive enough, products will act as souvenirs that people will want to take away from the live event.

Nokia Lumia projection event at London's Millbank tower

The beginning of the end for Apple

The shine starts to fade,  Andoid’s 70% market share starts to erode the iPhone’s perceived dominance, and their share of computer sales still does not exceed 5% of the market =  Apple’s leadership credentials without Steve Jobs start to look considerably more shaky.

Designed in China, made in Europe

As the East moves further west, Chinese brands will start to enter mainstream awareness, and the current designed/manufactured duality will begin an irrevocable reversal.

Splendid isolation

In its pursuit of an increasingly impossible tightrope act, the UK (distancing itself from Europe, yet being unavoidably drawn in to its economic vortex) will invite all the world in for the Olympics, but behave is an unusually insular and self-regarding way, initiated by the spectacle of the Queen’s Jubilee.

The revenge of heritage formats

Analogue trumps digital, as new media gurus espouse the value of print media and paper books (cf. Clay Shirky). The tangible, multisensory experience of using cassette tapes, vinyl, old printing presses provides a thrill which proves irresistible to those who did not grow up with them.

Initiatives like Record Store Day reflect the rise in popularity of traditional media formats.

Death of despicable brands

Only the fittest and most necessary brands will survive. The new logic of necessity will obliterate a host of familiar brands that have no (functional, emotional, experiential) reason to exist, whether old school badly integrated retailers, or fmcg dinosaurs that have no visibility.

An eruption of niche business models

Youtube is revenue sharing with users for popular uploads, other brands are involving ordinary folk in monetising their consumer generated ideas and content, there are no boundaries to the kinds of new business models that brands and consumers can co-create. Co-creating content with no revenue stream is so 2009.

Bambos Neophytou, Head of Strategy at Inferno, specializes in retail, environmental issues, cognitive science and author of Guilt Trip: From Fear to Guilt on the Green Bandwagon.     

What do you get when you bring four leading talents from the British design and creative scene together with a mission to do something very cool for cancer?