This is not new. But it looks pretty swell. The new online campaign from W&K for Old Spice. Perfect for boosting your self-esteem if your self-googling results are less than satsifactory.
Wow I haven't heard anything about this campaign but Lego have produced a fantastic resource to celebrate 30 years of Lego. Go Miniman Go. It's been up since August 21 2008 and It's a fantastic case study as to how to utilise your content, create custom content and aggregate content for a blog.
There is a nicely produced Lego Timeline which as a fan since a kid is really nostalgic.
So the next time someone asks you for a good example of corporate blogging and you're about to send them some boring dry blog by a bank talking about its products send them this. Hat's off Lego.
here's the video announcing a video comp they ran.
Ok need more proof this is good. They even held a Flickr contest.
Heinz via Daddy have release a site that is putting the theory "Talking to plants help them grow better" to the test and everyone is invited to participate.
The site talktotheplant.com was launched to promote the new Heinz concept "No one grows ketchup like Heinz" and in order to prove that - and not just say it - we set up a rig consisting of two plants, one speaker and one microphone. (The rig is actually a small room behind Daddy’s server room in Gothenburg).
The control plant is actually pulling ahead but it's nice to see the blog cover this in a recent post.
This live broadcast via the web in which users have some impact has been a popular format in the last 18 months.
One of the most interesting things in following the US Election is the distinct advantage Barack Obama has been given by his campaign's understanding of the web and social networking.
At the start of this whole 18 month long schebang, Obama and the Democrats announced they would opt-out of the traditional public financing model of election fundraising. This surprised some, but meant they were free to attract unlimited personal donations via their website and a constant barrage of email requests.
Its working. Today, the Democrats announced yet another record month in donations raised - $150 million. To give you an idea how much this is, in 2000, the two candidates raised in total "just" $350 million. Over the entire campaign.
And if you take a look at the efforts Obama has got going online, its not surprising:
On the front page of Obama's website buttons to allow donations can't be missed. McCain's website has the same, but every single one of the videos on Obama's YouTube channel links to a Google Donate button:
Not a difficult thing to implement. But when you see the kind of views Obama's channel has (almost 100 million so far, compared to McCain's with around 22 million) - that is some serious, potentially game-changing interface design. Why wouldn't McCain have the same button on their videos?
On Obama's website, folks can get involved, and campaign on his behalf, with drag and drop code that allows people to fund raise on their own site:
This effectively makes Democrat supporters agents of Obama's campaign, spreading it on his behalf. Which is good for them, and good for Obama.
Whilst McCain during his campaign has used banners that have gone for a bit more of a negative approach (not to mention the design):
...Obama's banners on the other hand offers some utility - a tax cut widget that allows people to see how much their tax bill would be under the Democrats:
Not to mention the many probama memes all across the web. This is of course not the direct doing of the Obama campaign, but more proof they are connecting with people online:
McCain, for his side of the equation, has a game of space invaders and McCainSpace, which gave me the exact same feeling I had when my dad did an impromptu "rap" in front of my friends when I was 12. It looks awkward and probably won't draw much of a crowd.
Its no surprise that McCain might have difficulty connecting with younger voters. His appeal is with conservative, traditionally older Americans. And he's admitted on a number of occasions he doesn't use email (due to war injuries I believe). But it just seems that the attempts he does make, are simply not as smart, from a media or engagement point of view. And the more we find out about who uses the web, the more we are surprised at the wide demographic that actually gets involved (retirees, housewives, etc). So there's no excuse for both parties to be all over new media as a way of engaging with people.
Obama has hit a wide range of voters from every angle possible, and allowed people to feel like they're actually involved in the campaign. The Democrats seems to be more acutely aware of how fragmented the voter audience has become over the past few years:
John McCain
YouTube Subscribers – 25, 322
Friends – Not stated
MySpace friends - 172,953
No official Twitter account
Will this all matter come November 4th? Who knows. US Elections involve countless factors and hundreds of much bigger, knife-edge topics that could prove decisive for one candidate one way or the other. We haven't seen so far how big a role the web will play in swaying a campaign one way or the other (remember a short three elections ago where e-mail use was far from widespread). And TV campaigning is an area that still involves big media spends that will end up determining a lot of people's vote. But if Obama does win, his campaign's approach to the web certainly won't have hurt. And will probably come to be a textbook approach to fighting an election online.
Sarah Silverman and Droga5 have joined forces to convince young Jews to pitch the merits of Obama in '08 to their less-enthused Floridian grandparents.
With America's election history, and how tightly the decision has come down in a few "battleground" states, this could have big impact.
Sarah does a great sell. And Droga5's thinking is visible enough to be clever, but not make it immediately apparent that this is an ad agency created microsite.
Bank West has launched a new campaign titled "Happy Banking" and just like the Commbank going all the way to the US to find and agency Bank West made the big leap to Sydney's Host. I really like the campaign as it introduces the iniatives by Bank West in an interesting and fun way.
The main part of the online campaign is this personalized message maker. Type your name and gender and have kittens sing it back to you. Who doesn't like kittens? As annoying as they may be cats dominate the web. Well lolcats that is. Get a cat playing a Wii and you've pretty much got yourself interweb gold.
Here's my name, as sadly Bannerblog wouldn't fit. The site also has the other TV ads and all the offers from Bank West. The singing cats have been labeled Experiment #1 so I believe there will be more. I like this online extension so much more than the Commbank effort.
Here's the TVC which has interviews with a variety of objects that make people happy and then relating it back to banking.
Here's the flower ad. My favs the teddy, who's double parked, but it's not on Youtube yet. The camera zooms, voice talent and set are spot on.
The Optus ad from 07 had animals running around with microphones recording people so it's the idea flipped.
This all reminds of Ardman's Creature Comforts, the same voice over lady and mic in shot.
I also just found this special for the disabled called "Creature Discomforts".
As per the article we posted last night and which has been picked up by a few media outlets, we were right. And to the anonymous poster that pointed out that it looked like Michael Bay production, how right you were!
It was uploaded by someone called 'Zazzzman' onto YouTube 11 hours ago. We've embedded it below, and also added our findings by searching public databases, including IP Australia and Melbourne IT.
We've done some digging and 'Determined to Be Different' is registered trademark #1211855 of Commonwealth Bank of Australia, lodged by CBA's General Counsel John O'Sullivan on November 23, 2007.
Whilst I don't think this is an amazingly lateral, super creative idea, I think it's an excellent business idea that will have customers talking - Dominos in the US has a site where customers can make a pizza online.
And its no drop down menu or radio buttons, its a full on Mini Roof style affair:
Mad Doctor Gleebitz is worried that CWS (Celebrity Worship Syndrome) is rampant in Australia and people cant separate celebrity from reality. Celebrities replacing friends and relatives, emotional transfer of the celebrity's feelings (if something bad happened to their celebrity they'd feel it was happening to them)
All sounds pretty normal I guess and they've been looking for Australia's top 10 sufferers to highlight the dangers of the disease.
The site is promoting ninemsn's new entertainment site thefix.com.au where users are warned that their massive celebrity content can be harmful for sufferers of this syndrome
This is f*cking brilliant. Everytime you visit the United Nations Free Rice site and play the word game, grains of rice are donated to the United Nations World Food Program.
There are reports of schoolkids from all over the world sitting in class playing this, increasing their vocabulary, and at the same time feeding other kids.
It's only been launched a month or two, and already the number of grains of rice donated (in lieu of click thru advertising revenue on the site), is in the billions.
My only wish is that you could play within a banner or widget. That way people could embed the service within their own sites.
Go and play for five minutes and see how many dishes of rice you can send.
Today in Australia we vote for who we wish to be our next Prime Minister.
Following on from Tobie's post below, this year is the first time the Internet has played such a big role in the campaigning of the major political parties.
It's interesting to see the difference between the two candidates, and how they've embraced YouTube, Facebook and even MySpace.
John Howard (Liberal) made some attempts at spreading his message on the YouTube, but didn't seem to grasp the medium too well. He was often addressing his audience as though it was a specific time or place, saying "Good Morning".
The polls favor a Labor victory, but without getting into the policies, I took my own mini poll by assessing a few characteristics of their online campaigns...
Homepage Design Kevin Rudd (Labor) has used a fresh color palette to go with his "Fresh Ideas" mantra, shown a full embrace of the social-networking tools available to him, and allows for the page's text size to be increased.
John Howard (Liberal) however, has used a not so appealing "Infra Red" style effect and has disobeyed classic Jakob Neilsen advice in going with a red text on red background motif.
MySpace Design Rudd (Labor) has forked out the dough for a custom template which aligns nicely.
Whilst Howard (Liberal) has gone with your stock standard MySpace ugliness.
MySpace Friends
Kevin Rudd (Labor) - 23,602
John Howard (Liberal) - 9
Facebook "Fans"
Kevin Rudd - 20,130
John Howard - 121
W3C Code Validation errors Neither campaign sites validate completely, but Labor has the least validation errors with 23, versus a whopping 122 from the Liberals.
Use of photography
Kevin Rudd appears to have borrowed heavily from the stock photo category for the keywords "smooth + businessman".
I wonder if "Rebecca" below, would be disappointed in real life if Kevin and her met after cyber-dating?
Whilst John Howard has used a poorly compressed JPEG at tiny thumbnail size, and not a very inspiring pose.
All adds up to a pretty shoddy effort from the Liberals.
VERDICT: LABOR TO WIN
In all seriousness though, Labor's campaign does seem that little bit more progressive in their understanding of the web, and that is obviously a big issue in terms of Education and Innovation. Their policies also include improving Australia's woeful standing in broadband uptake too.
Generally speaking, the Labor Party appeals to a younger demographic, whilst the average Liberal voter is probably a bit older. But Labor still seems miles ahead.
In about nine hours we'll see what the real outcome is!
Despite/because of the controversy around it, this show, which finishes up next week, has been a big success in Australia.
Its interesting because its the first time I've consumed a show entirely through its digital format. Well, first time *ahem off the record* anyway. The show is made available for download for a week after airing.
This is a smart move for the ABC, with nothing to lose from advertising revenue with the move. Channel Ten has promoted its "immediate download" offerings as well recently in their LIVE STREAMED FROM THE US tagline. However, apparently 'immediately' to them means around 4 days after.
The microsite for Summer Heights High works well, with standard but solid fare like character wallpapers, and a 'tag wall' for Islander character Jonah.
Check the form field below:
I'd be willing to bet that almost all messages sent via Jonah's tag wall were probably racist, contemptuous and defamatory.
If you watch mainstream news here in Aus, we're a bunch of fatties too. It's a wonder I can even type on a standard size keyboard with my fat fast food eating fingers.
Here's a few Behind the Scenes green screen photos T.Scott Major from Mono sent us.
And here's the treatment from Daddy from which the site was built from.
I wonder what the talent think when doing these types of jobs. "Yeah I was an angry lunch lady and I pretended to throw food at the camera"
Google and Sony (with Big Spaceship actually creating the site) have teamed up for an online experience to promote Bourne Ultimatum called The Ultimate Search for Bourne.
What I love best about these type of promos is you can instantly gauge its success. By using Youtube videos as a clue delivery service one only needs to check the view stats on said videos and you'll know how many people are playing. Day 4's clue (we're up to Day 5 now) is sitting on 800 views. The first videos are at 7,000. (see below)
Maybe people do what I did and just Google the questions and cheat?
It looks great but its tiny type and super long UI is annoying as is Flash's limitations with copying and pasting text but that's not the agencies fault. Also I would have liked to have done more than just find answers and past it into a message window. Mini games or anything would have been a nice change.
What's interesting is Google didn't charge Sony for the privilege of hosting the game as it saw the benefit as mutual. Without Google's support this would have made the whole thing a lot harder to pull together.
Updated: (Sorry I had my agency's wrong)
The level of complexity for this game is quite easy compared to Red's ARG game out there called Ethanhaaswasright.com And yes I can't get past the 2nd puzzle!!! (it's shitting me)
Update 2: I was completely wrong (like most other people) Ethan Haas Was Right is actually for Alpha Omega a new RPG. More info here.
Thanks B!X you tried to set me right but I didn't listen.
The Simpsons movie is 8 days away (I would say how great it is but I've been told not tell anyone I've seen it) and we're heading into the biggest marketing push Fox has ever done. So big they have put together a website to showcase the promotions. See Yellow.
What's not on there is the new Simpsonize Me tool for Burger King. Just launched by CP+B.
Now it's a little rough around the edges (read: buggy) but when it does work it's actually pretty cool. Uploading a face definitely takes the grunt work out of creating a character.
Here's me Simpsonized. I had to adjust the hair but it's a pretty good likeness. It's even captured my terrible fashion sense. I also Simpsonized myself age 80. As you can see I no longer wear glasses and my ears are bigger but I've now got a great sense for fashion. I look forward to my Versace days to come in my 80's.
What's confusing is that the official Simpsons site has their own Create your own Simpsons avatar tool. Here's the Simpsons character I created a few weeks back. To launch two similar online initiatives seems a waste and also takes the allure off the BK one.
What's missing from both is a gallery function. I want to see other people's characters. I want to see them all in a huge crowd shot. I guess I'll have to browse the Flickr groups and fan forums for my fix.
And and if you dial you age in at 200 this is what you get. Don't do it as you have to upload your photo again after.
As for what else is happening outside of what's mentioned on See Yellow, there is also:
Both Samsung and Vans should have created official sites for these promotions. Their corporate sites (Vans | Samsung) don't even mention these at all. You can't rely on bloggers as your only form of information distribution!
Even more detailed info can be found on Wikipedia.
The most annoying banner for 2007 so far is this upbeat Easter special for Hallmark. This audio version was activated on rollover and sadly I can't recreate that effect easily, so I thought I'd subject everyone to the same problem I have right now and that's "getitng the song out of my head".
Rarely am I captivated by an tv ad, infact I go out of my way to avoid them. I'd prefer to take a call from a telemarketer than watch 2 minutes of mind numbing crap.
However, during the Australian Open one ad has regularly been a head turner. Dare I say it, I actually enjoy seeing it.
The ad is for Nestle 'Drumstick' icecream that depicts the summer ritual of Australia. You can find a Quicktime version here
It's beautifully written & directed. It's a classic. It's captures an Australian truth and gives it a charm - something many clients and agencies fuck up spectacularly. I wouldn't be suprised if this took home a Cannes Lion, it deserves it.
Created by Publicis Mojo Melbourne, it's a memorable ad for icecream. I suspect it's working its socks off as well, judging by the number of families eating Drumstick's on Australia Day at the Clovelly Beach Kiosk.
Big congratulations to Publicis Mojo team, Nestle and everyone else involved. Good luck with it at Cannes.
Carlton United Breweries and George Patterson Y&R today launched the successor to Carlton Draught's Big Ad titled 'FlashBeer'.
To quote a small part of an excessively long press release :
"After parodying advertising stereotypes in previous ads, Made from Beer has taken on new creative territory with 'Flashbeer' by sending up one of the most ubiquitous film cliches of the 1980s - the audition scene from the closing minutes of the 1983 movie, Flashdance.
With all eyes on its passionate leotard-clad hero, 'Flashbeer' has fun with the notion prevalent in many 80's films (hit films like Flashdance, Fame, Footloose and Dirty Dancing) where the 'power of dance' can make any dream come true.
'Flashbeer' is the journey of 'Kevin Kavendish', a peanut inspector by day, who harbours a secret dream to work at Carlton Draught Brewery. The odds seem stacked against Kevin when he goes to a job interview at the brewery given his distinct lack of experience, but then through the
'power of dance' we see our hero realise his dream of brewing his favourite beer.
The famous audition scene was (somewhat) faithfully re-created – about as faithful to the original as you would expect from Carlton Draught anyway."
To view it, head on over to the microsite Flash Beer - unfortunately it's streamed using Vividas so no download or blog embedding options, and it doesn't appear to be on YouTube either which I think is a real mistake.
This is an interesting one if you're in the business - I'm guessing most of our readers are, as an insight into "how"...
About 6 weeks ago I was invited to go along to a 4 day TV, Press and interweb shoot near Malaga, Spain - If you're/were/have been in the UK of late you would/should/must have/may seen the TV press or online activity.
Orange, a global brand, invite 40 UK residents to make an ad in the middle of spaghetti western spain, with none of it being scripted apart from the call sheets and blow up dolls. All at the behest of Mother and Poke.
"This was about creating and capturing genuine emotion and experience.
The intention was to create an event in which the public could participate and interact, something more akin to an art installation as opposed to a traditional ad - the best works of art are the ones where normal people are as excited by it as the art establishment. Ultimately, this is an event media ad as opposed to a genuine art installation done purely for art's sake but we do feel that we managed to achieve and push what is expected from a traditional advertising campaign."
