Marketers caught on long ago to the advantages of involving kids in their brands at an early age. Now natural foods heavyweight Whole Foods is applying the notion to the YouTube generation with a video contest focused on green living.

Earlier this month Texas-based Whole Foods launched the Whole Earth Generation, a video podcast series dedicated to raising environmental awareness among today's youth. Episodes of the series will address topics generated by Generations Y and Z, with highlights including interviews with celebrities and peers, ideas for a sustainable future, cool green products, and how to convince skeptical families and friends to go green. To kick off the new initiative, the company announced a contest to find six kids aged 8 to 17 to serve as hosts of the green-themed series, which will run through April 29. Children from all over the United States and Canada can either submit a video at Whole Foods' YouTube page, or they can show up in person at one of the designated Whole Foods Market stores in New York, Chicago and Austin throughout March for auditions on select days. Videos can include singing, dancing, rapping or documentary-style footage, for example, and must be no more than two minutes long. The contest closes March 24. Select videos will be featured on the site leading up to Earth Day, and ultimately, six winners—three from the YouTube entries and three from the in-store auditions—will be chosen to be hosts of the podcast series.

"So many shoppers tell us they have learned how to be more environmentally conscious by listening to their kids," explains Heather Kennedy, Whole Foods' senior coordinator of national marketing. "We hope this program takes that trend to an even broader audience via the Internet."

Besides helping to spread the green word, of course, Whole Foods' initiative will also involve kids in many of the company's core values and maybe even increase the likelihood that they'll be loyal customers themselves in a few years. Not a bad way to ensure your own sustainable future!

Website: www.youtube.com/user/WholeFoodsMarket
Contact: questions@wholefoods.com

Spotted by: Bjarke Svendsen

The online invitation marketplace is a crowded one, with heavyweight Evite and a raft of smaller contenders all vying for their share. But a new site recently launched in the hopes of taking online invitations to a new level.

Unlike most of its competitors, pingg is taking an ad-free approach to online invitations. With a library of more than 2 million unique images, it's also focusing more on the appearance of its invitations, and incorporating more Web 2.0 features into managing the process. Users planning a party can use pingg's basic email invitations and event management services for free. That includes choosing pre-designed invitations from among 50 or so event types, creating an event page with photos and video, managing RSVPs, accessing event reporting, linking to charity or gift registries, collecting money and sharing event details on Facebook. In addition to its basic services, however, pingg offers several customisation services for a fee, such as access to unique invitation designs and invitation printing, as well as use of photos from the pingg Plus+ library. pingg users can also choose to communicate with guests using SMS/text for a fee of USD 1.50 per 20 messages. pingg gets a commission from its gift registry partners (currently just Amazon); other revenue-adding features on the way include offering the ability for users to sell tickets to their event, and a white-label service offering pingg's core functionality to other businesses.

Cofounder Lorien Gabel explains: "We know that unrelated banner advertising detracts from the user’s experience and is one of the fundamental reasons online invites have not evolved. Our approach from day one has been to identify revenue sources that actually add value to the invitation and event planning process." New York-based pingg just launched in February, so it remains to be seen how well its ad-free model will work. If nothing else, however, the site is further evidence of one of our favourite refrains: everything can be upgraded!

Website: www.pingg.com
Contact: mspiritus@pingg.com

We've written before about small-scale wind turbines that consumers can use to generate their own power, and now a new device uses wind power to create mesmerizing outdoor light.

The Firewinder, also known as the Original Windlight, is a decorative and completely wind-powered outdoor light from the UK-based Firewinder Company that transforms the ebb and flow of the wind into an upwardly spiralling glowing light. Wind from any direction spins a small turbine on the helix-shaped device, thereby lighting up LEDs along its outer edge. With light winds of at least 3 mph, the Firewinder emits a dim glow, but as winds increase, so too does the brilliance of its light. In variable winds, the result is a pulsing, twisting glow that appears to float in mid-air. The Firewinder can be hung or mounted to a post or wall, and it's made of recyclable materials; no batteries or wires are required. It will be available starting late summer in the UK priced at GBP 99.95.

As the greening of the consumer world continues apace, the market for ecologically sustainable goods will only increase. There's no end in sight to the benefits of thinking green!

Website: www.firewinder.com
Contact: info@firewinder.com

Spotted by: Bjarke Svendsen

Childhood obesity is a growing problem in the developed world, and the widespread obsession with sedentary computer games certainly doesn't help. Nintendo's Wii has been applauded as a step in the right (more active) direction, as have gyms that integrate gaming. Now a UK-based firm is gearing up to go a step further—and right out the door.

LocoMatrix, which is still in beta, has developed location-based games kids can play outdoors using their GPS-enabled mobile phones. Fruit Farmer, for example, is a game in which one or more players run around a real environment such as a park, football field or beach collecting virtual oranges (visible on their mobile phone screens) while avoiding virtual obstacles and killer wasps. Multiple levels of play are available, and users can even create their own versions using a special program on LocoMatrix's website. In Treasure Hunt, meanwhile, the player follows a set of pictorial clues to find a series of locations. The game can be configured to display information about the destination locations, while its "warm-ometer" feature shows pictorially whether the player is getting hotter or colder in relation. As with Fruit Farmer, users can produce their own customized versions. Coming later this month is Locix, in which players capture territories by running in a circle around that area. If another player enters the circle before the first player has completed it, he or she has to start again. All games are free to play during LocoMatrix's beta phase, but it will soon begin charging a small fee. Ultimately, the company plans to adopt a subscription scheme in which users pay a monthly fee for access to games and more, such as the ability to enter teams into competitions.

LocoMatrix hopes to expand its offerings into role-playing games, strategy games and games of cooperation. It is also working on making its platform open so that other developers can create their own games for it.... Ideas, anyone?

Website: www.locomatrix.com
Contact: info@locomatrix.com

Spotted by: Bryan McAndrews

Consumers are never too young for a little gravanity, particularly when proud parents are buying it for them. Enter 5starbaby.com, which offers personalized birth announcements fashioned after movie advertisement posters.

Each movie poster birth announcement from 5starbaby is tailor-made for the new arrival, complete with all the critical “stats” about the baby’s birth and the names of loved ones as "supporting cast." Parents are listed as "producers," the doctor is named as "director" and the hospital is listed as the "filmed in" setting, for example. "Critics' quotes" can also be included, as can "catering" by the mother and options for virtually any other special people or ideas the parents want listed. "Ratings" given are "B" for boy, "G" for girl or "T" for twins. Movie poster birth announcements are 5-by-8-inch mini posters; pricing begins at USD 2.50 each with envelopes included. 5starbaby.com also offers large poster formats ranging from USD 25 to USD 120 each, and gift certificates are available for baby showers or other occasions.

Buffalo, NY-based 5starbaby.com will ship orders anywhere in the world, but localized versions in other languages are a natural next step. One to bring to proud parents and gift-givers around the globe! (Related: Gravanity books for kids.)

Website: www.5starbaby.com
Contact: pete@5starbaby.com

Spotted by: Bill McMahon