Tour Wrist® chronicled in The St. Petersburg Times

Tour Wrist, the SPARK Labs creation we introduced you to last week, was chronicled by the local St. Petersburg Times. In the article, Charles detailed what he feels will be the next big advancement in apps:

"'Socation.' It's a word I made up for the interaction of social media platforms and location-based services, such as foursquare, Tour Wrist and Yelp. People want to participate more in digital dialogue, but they want to do it in reference to specific environments."

Read the whole story at tampabay.com

SPARK Labs releases Tour Wrist® Version 2.0

Walking into SPARK Labs CEO Charles Armstrong's office feels a little bit like stepping into a joint advertisement for IKEA and Apple. The cubed bookshelf behind him is organized and uncluttered, save for a single square on the bottom right which is stuffed with no less than six iOS devices' empty packagings. In the far corner his printer sits atop an electronic safe, the contents of which beg curiosity. The white walls of his office are in sharp contrast with the mostly black furniture and red shag rug. In the new SPARKpark, the home of both SPARK Labs and SPARK the Agency, Charles's office was the first to be decorated and organized. It echoes his attention for finely tuned design elements and clean, extensible code.

Charles begins to talk about Tour Wrist, SPARK Labs' teleportation app for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. It has just recently undergone its most massive update yet. Tour Wrist uses the gyroscope or accelerometer and compass built into all modern iOS products to give the viewer a 360 degree perspective of far-off tourist attractions, pieces of real estate, hotels, and much more. With thousands of tours, and agreements in place that will turn Tour Wrist into one of the largest repositories of virtual tour imagery in the world, it truly is something that must be experienced. To try our best, here's SPARK Labs' video about Tour Wrist.

"We see this as being the first step in something that's much broader than a simple mobile phone application that allows you to look around. The bigger vision here is that we can connect people with places other than where they're at using new and engaging, tactile methods."

And Charles is right. Even through basic usage the tens of thousands of users can easily see that there is something bigger behind this.

"We're starting to private label the product so that companies can swap our logo with theirs and submit a custom version to the app store with only their tours. For example: exclusive tours of a company's auto or real estate offerings," Charles explains. "And now we have some pretty large corporations looking to license our core viewing engine to use in their own apps. There's definitely a little ecosystem growing around the technology."

Charles sums up his work cleanly. "It doesn't matter how big you are, no one is doing anything like this right now. The closest is Google and that's only for street view, so there's certainly a lot of interest in our 'secret sauce.'"

Download Tour Wrist for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad here [iTunes link]. Learn more about SPARK Labs at http://www.sparklabs.com and Tour Wrist at http://www.tourwrist.com

humorous sweetbay value campaign hits the airwaves

With a focus on humor and value, SPARK has launched a new value campaign for Sweetbay Supermarket. The new spot echoes the recent prevalence of penny-pinching our nation has experienced and points out that at other grocery chains high prices force the average family to alter their grocery list based on specials. At Sweetbay however, shoppers can take back their list. Enjoy a first look!

David & Goliath Names SPARK as Interactive Agency

Tampa, FL – March 8, 2010 – National apparel brand, David & Goliath, has named SPARK of Tampa as its interactive agency after a national review. SPARK will be charged with expanding the e-commerce capabilities for Davidandgoliathtees.com and lead the companyʼs online marketing efforts.

"SPARKʼs interactive services proved a strong fit for our internal objective to increase our brandʼs overall online capabilities,” said D&G. “SPARKʼs interactive approach produced fresh ideas to expand our apparel brandʼs fun and humorous voice – marrying our online presence with our in-store presence."

SPARK Interactive is an emerging vertical for SPARK advertising, that also has SPARK Studios and SPARK Labs. The agency has recently experienced rapid growth being named agency of record for regional health club group Lifestyle Family Fitness and Florida grocery chain Sweetbay Supermarket.

“Through our collaborative process, we develop close partnerships with our clients that lead to key insights necessary to have a real impact on their business,” said Tony Miller, managing partner at SPARK. “The relationship we quickly developed with David & Goliath has us very excited about moving forward with them on their interactive marketing efforts.”

SPARK was awarded the national apparel account on February 22 and work is expected to begin in early March.

David & Goliath is a national leading apparel designer, manufacturer, wholesaler and retailer. Founded in 2000 by Todd Goldman, David & Goliath and The Stupid Factory offer dynamic lines of fashion apparel, accessories and stationary that is mixed with a unique blend of attitude and sense of humor. David & Goliath apparel is sold at David & Goliath stores nationwide, in national retailers including Pac Sun, Macy's, Alloy, Journey's and Spencer Gifts and online at davidandgoliathtees.com.

Mazda + McDreamy to 'Share a Little Sunshine'

IRVINE, Calif., March 4 /PRNewswire/ -- Mazda and VISIT FLORIDA today announced a special promotion that will kick-off this weekend during the Grand Prix of Miami at Homestead-Miami Raceway, providing a dash of both sun and star power. Actor/racer Patrick Dempsey will carry VISIT FLORIDA's bright yellow and orange 'Share a Little Sunshine' campaign logo on his Dempsey Racing Mazda RX-8.

In December, Mazda announced a partnership with VISIT FLORIDA, the state's official tourism marketing corporation, to promote awareness of the many attributes of the Sunshine State to race fans. Racers competing in the Star Mazda Championship Presented by Goodyear will be competing for a new award, the VISIT FLORIDA Cup. The Star Mazda Championship will begin later this month in Sebring, Fla.

"We're very excited to generate awareness for the 'Share a Little Sunshine' campaign and want to do what we can to bring tourism and jobs to Florida," said Dempsey. "It's a bright idea and when you see the color scheme on the No. 40 Mazda this weekend in Homestead you'll agree! I sent my invitation to visit the Sunshine State and I hope everyone else does too. It's a fun cause to support."

"Share a Little Sunshine" is a grassroots campaign that hopes to boost Florida's economy by helping encourage tourism, which is an industry responsible for a million Florida jobs and about a fifth of the state's economy. Tourism is Florida's No. 1 job producer and it is estimated that every 85 visitors equals one job. Interested Florida residents can find information at www.sharealittlesunshine.org.

To encourage Floridians to invite friends to visit, a prize package will be given away each quarter to someone who sent an invitation through ShareaLittleSunshine.org. The packages include such prizes as a Florida vacation or even a Mazda Miata. The more invitations someone sends, the more they are entered to win.

"Racers love Florida for both work and fun. And since racers have a hard time defining the difference between work and fun, Florida is the perfect place to be. So, Florida race fans, be sure to take a minute to invite your out-of-state friends to visit," noted John Doonan, MAZDASPEED Motorsports Team Development Manager.

VISIT FLORIDA President and CEO Chris Thompson, who will be serving as the Honorary Chairman of the Race for Saturday's Grand Prix of Miami, invites race fans to visit the Share a Little Sunshine booth in the garage area to send an invitation and be registered for the prizes.

"This partnership with Mazda Racing and Patrick's team is a tremendous opportunity to draw attention to the importance of the tourism industry in Florida on a grand stage and in a really fun way," said Thompson. "I look forward to VISIT FLORIDA's involvement in his racing effort all season and hope he has great success."