Apple seriously pasted thousands of real size iPod nanos on a magnet wall inside Shibuya station to promote their new little gadget. On 4 huge walls the Apple workers pasted those plastic iPod nano imitations with some kind of stencil to make sure they are all in the same distance from each other. As soon as they finished, the crowds went along and grabbed either a black or white one (or both), as some kind of proof, that they all desperately wanted to own one… or at least one, that looks like real! The QR-code on the back of the “nano” made sure people could easily access Apples web page for more information. That must have cost a fortune!

workers starting to paste the iPod nanos - white wall (taken with Wakako's mobile phone camera)

already the first few curious passers-by watching - black wall

the Apple workers with their stencils

proudly showing off his iPod nano

a few nanos missing right away

people starring...

...and grabbing!

back in the office comparing the iPod nano dummy to Jon's real one (of course he already had one....)

QR-code on the back
10 Comments
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great. big budget marketing for overpriced gadgets. i thought this was a magazine about “design and making things”. there are some great articles on the site, but this is just a weird tribute to consumerism…
Posted by: salvatore on December 9th, 2005 at 6:02 pm
Personally, I thought this was a clever and original way of marketing a product - which alone made it worthy of mention. Sure it’s big budget, sure it’s a shameless tribute to consumerism, but that doesn’t stop it from also being really damn cool. If it’s cool and in Japan (and this one was in Shibuya, right on our doorstep) there is a good chance it will wind up on PingMag.
Posted by: Jon on December 9th, 2005 at 9:09 pm
a crazy idea to promote a crazy product ,simplly shows the power of the product and the place it has in the minds of the consumer.grabbing even dummies….hmmmmm
Posted by: glenn on July 3rd, 2006 at 5:32 pm
high course high budget high success
Posted by: duck you on October 15th, 2006 at 6:40 pm
if our north-american ads were this creative and so aesthetically-fitting to their environment, consumerism would be cooler.
Posted by: khy on October 21st, 2006 at 3:19 pm
Wait…Were they real?
Posted by: Anonymous on February 19th, 2007 at 8:57 am
It would be even cooler if they give discount for owner of dummy nanos.
Posted by: Yuu on January 6th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
pretttty schweet yet i still dont own an ipod. haha. to expensive.
Posted by: shawni on April 9th, 2008 at 7:55 am
I guess that’s pretty good for the environment, throwing all those fake plastic ipod away.
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