I photographed this advertisement while riding on BART in San Francisco recently – it struck me as a creative way to engage Generation Y, and in 2008, a reminder that for some people, online connections are becoming dominant to in-person ones (that and the fact that no one is advertising to Generation X, we’re the generation lost to marketers…). I liked it also because it supports my occasional motto, “in person is the new online.” On a more basic level, though, it speaks to the revolution that Web2.0 is creating around community – as I learned in the patient portal work I have done, these online connections can actually strengthen rather than weaken the offline ones.

You can see the rest of Dentyne’s innovative campaign on their site – they missed one crucial detail in their appeal to the Web 2.0 generation, though, by not making this content embeddable, which should be the case for a campaign like this. From my own experience, I know that big companies are often not of one personality, so there can be some disconnects as large organizations move into the future. In the meantime, enjoy the images.