Photo: Stephen McMahon

Seven-time Tour De France winner Lance Armstrong saw over a 1000 riders turn out for a jaunt around Dublin on Tuesday after he posted a tweet on his Twitter.

@lancearmstrong: Good morning Dublin. Who wants to ride this afternoon? I do. 5:30pm at the roundabout of Fountain Road and Chesterfield Avenue. See you there.

Full story here.

When readers of Entertainment Weekly open their magazines next month, they will discover characters from US television programmes speaking to them from a wafer thin video screen. The experiment is by CBS and PepsiCo and recalls the fantasy newspapers in the Harry Potter films. Read more

We all know that advertising is having to work harder than ever to get cut through. Particularly in technology sectors where there is always a faster, smaller and more advanced model on the horizon. And at what point do advertisers run out of ingenious ways of marketing the next 40, 50, 60 gigathon model? This week the rather blandly named MSI (Micro Star International), did something slightly less bland to promote their new x-series laptop. I say 'did', because whilst they don't seem to have taken credit for it yet, the very nature of it reeks of viral marketing. But don't let that put you off - genius it certainly is.

So how do you promote the next super slim laptop range? ...how about making a viral film of people catching them with their, erm, ass.

After having hit 40 cities around the world, from the Cote D'Azur to Katmandu, from Manchester to Mombassa in the past decade with his infamous street mosaics, the artist Invader, is bringing his unique vision to Lazarides' Rathbone Gallery in London. 

Low Fidelity will feature all new works from the series ‘Rubikcubism’. Using the famous 80’s puzzle game’s cubes as pixels, the artist has recreated album covers by rock bands such as the Velvet Underground, The Cure, Roxy Music, David Bowie and Michael Jackson. In addition to these classic images as well as a selection of sculptures and original works on paper, Invader has taken the pixelated image one-step further crafting his very own ‘barcodes’. These abstract works are only discernable with the aid of a mobile phone digital camera, the image from which is then ‘decoded’ into a text message.

The exhibition at Lazarides Rathbone will run from the 14th August through the 17th September.

Lazarides Gallery | 11 Rathbone Place | London | W1T 1HR

Photos: Ian Cox

A decent PR coup for Artemis today. At Cowes last week Artemis had their two boats in the Artemis Open 60 Challenge race. The Artemis Ocean Racing sponsorship is not a cheap exercise, but it engages potential investors and influencers at a different level to conventional advertising. (Or even the rather unconventional advertising that Libertine does for them). Certainly it can create coverage in places beyond the norm.

So last week we have rock boy Bryan Adams on one boat (keen sailor and raised decent cash for his charity), and Zara Phillips with big boyfriend Mike Tindall on the other, Artemis The Profit Hunter. This led to a five-page well branded spread in Hello! magazine. It's easy to knock sponsorship, and it can be slow burn. However coverage like this (to a readership of around 1.9 million women and 22 men) provides strong support for the Artemis brand. It's not better or worse than advertising, it adds value in a different way, and the two together contribute powerfully to the media multiplier effect.