December 23, 2004
Virgin Catches Viral Marketing Bug
[from mediapost]
by Shankar Gupta
The latest virus going around the office isn't the flu--it's Chrismahanukwanzakah.
The Internet spot, a cartoon jingle from Virgin Mobile USA that dismisses the theological concerns of the holiday season, proclaims: "Whose faith is the right one/that's anybody's guess/what matters most is camera phones for $20 dollars less." Virgin Mobile's product is no-contract cell phones, and the ad tries to draw a connection between not having to commit to a single faith during the holiday season and not having to commit to a single cell phone plan.
The ad is the latest hit in viral ad campaigns, and has been receiving extensive press in major news outlets like the Wall Street Journal, The Chicago Sun-Times, and the Boston Herald. The Web-based part of the campaign is accompanied by TV spots that aired on MTV and affiliated networks, like Comedy Central and SpikeTV, and in-store displays featuring the omni-denominational cast of the ad: A many-armed, sitar-playing Hindu Santa Claus, a dreidel-toting, afro-sporting, gold- toothed, black angel, and a reindeer whose antlers support a Hanukah menorah.
The intent of the Web-based part of the campaign was to harness the buzz that advertisers so covet. Fallon, the company that created the ad for Virgin Mobile, had the intent all along to utilize viral advertising to spread the word about the ad and help brand the Virgin Mobile no-contract phones, in the newly founded tradition of Burger King's SubservientChicken.com.
Posted by richard ting at December 23, 2004, 11:34 AM
December 22, 2004
Swimp3 Waterproof MP3 Player by Finis
The New SwiMP3 underwater waterproof MP3 player is an incredible audio experience. Imagine listening to hours of your own music during your swim workout. The SwiMP3's innovative sound transfer technology offers exceptional underwater sound quality. Standard players reply on the transmission of sound through air or water causing the swimmer to perceive only muffled noise. the SwiMP3 uses bone conduction - the direct transfer of sound vibrations from the cheek bone to the inner ear - to provided the swimmer with exceptional sound clarity. The SwiMP3 is fully waterproof and can be used with all competitive swim strokes.
Posted by richard ting at December 22, 2004, 07:48 PM
Just Letters
Just Letters is a free browser based Flash game. Here is what BBC's Clickonline said about it:
We've all seen those fridge magnets that allow you to spell out words from a group of individual letters right? Well FlashcomGuru have made this work for the web. Just open the page and start moving the letters about to create whatever words you want. There is a catch though - you will be doing this with up to 74 other players all working from the same board - hence the title 'Someone keeps stealing my letters'.
It gets hectic with everyone going for the same key letters as they build a word from scratch. I found a better strategy was to hijack someone else's nearly completed word and change a few letters around to create a different one. I hope you have as much fun with that as I did, but do please bear in mind that the content is uncensored, so viewing alongside your little ones is probably advisable.
Check out the site.
Posted by richard ting at December 22, 2004, 07:42 AM
Come Clean
Check out the Come Clean site.
[read the NYTimes.com article]
Entertaining Web Sites Promote Products Subtly
MARKETERS usually try to slip their names into every conceivable venue - like cellphone screens, bathroom posters and TV shows via product placement. But there are times when an ad that almost disguises its sponsor can be more effective. Many of these ads have taken the form of specialty Web sites, like www.subservientchicken.com, which is intended to entrance visitors with humor, video or games.
Subservient Chicken, perhaps the year's most prominent example, allows visitors to type orders to someone dressed in a chicken costume, who is seen obeying, as if on a live Webcam. The site, a promotion for the TenderCrisp chicken sandwich sold at Burger King, says little about Burger King or the sandwich, although there is a discreet link to the Burger King site.
Other marketers have moved into specialty Web sites, including Alaska Airlines, which operates a parody site at www.skyhighairlines.com, and Best Buy, the retail chain, which is creating specialty sites tied to particular campaigns, products and audiences. At one site, Best Buy depicts a fictional Slothmore Institute (www.slothmore.com), which brags of "enabling greatness through sedentary living."
A note from the institute's fictional founder, Dr. Harvey Funkel, explains. "Here at Slothmore we believe that everyone deserves to achieve one's dreams and aspirations," he says, "especially if one's dream is to never achieve a thing." The idea is that stay-at-home sloths may as well surround themselves with a stereo system, which, incidentally, visitors can check out by clicking on a Best Buy banner ad at the bottom.
Posted by richard ting at December 22, 2004, 07:28 AM
December 16, 2004
KOOP - Videos
This site has been up for ages, but I still love listening to this Swedish jazz crew and watching thier beautiful videos. This crew has been breaking boundaries for a few years now with their deep respect for jazz traditions while also infusing an adventurous dance music spirit.
Posted by richard ting at December 16, 2004, 02:13 PM
December 15, 2004
Secret Love - COMPILED BY JAZZANOVA & RESOUL
[from sonarkollektiv]
After the critical acclaim of the series of leftfield compilations 'Formation 60', 'Polish Jazz' and 'Forum West', the boys at Sonar Kollektiv felt it was time to explore the delicious and diverse mix of sounds found under the folk umbrella.
Jazzanova and Resoul (otherwise known as Rene from Jazzanova's favourite record shop Soultrade -> www.soultrade.de), have put their heads together and spent many an hour dancing around Rene's shop and digging deep into their record collections to come up with this lovely album. They've taken a view on Folk at its present forms and somehow managed to pare their selection of favourites down to a list of just 15 heavenly tracks. Each one is a perfect illustration of a different nuance within the genre. Highlights include Nicola Kramer's sexy, southern states sounding "Help Me", 4 Hero's re-working of sublime all-time classic "Les Fleurs" and Jolly Music's prefuse 73 unplugged in Catalonia remix of "Talko Uno".
Sonar Kollektiv's new discovery called Thief gives us glimpse on his forthcoming longplayer with the track "If There Was A Love". Thief is produced by Stefan Leisering and Axel Reinemer, 2/6 of Jazzanova. Husky Rescue contribute an ultra modern-day folk sound with their track "New Light of Tomorrow" lifted from their just released 'County Falls ' album (on Catskills), in contrast to the classic Crosby Stills and Nash influenced "Gone" by The Beta Band which contrasts in turn with the epic, cinematic tone of Marden Hill's domineering tune, named, aptly enough "Bardot". Household names nestle comfortably beside more obscure treasures as if that's the way it's always been.
Secret Love is yet another example of Sonar Kollektiv's diverse output, Jazzanova strive to keep us all guessing what will be next. Highlights of 2004 include Âme's release of their debut album Âme (SK044CD), Jazzanova's release of their first mix CD Mixing... (SK033CD) and Umod's critically acclaimed album Enter the Umod (SK030CD/LP) along with an impressive cannon of other debut albums and a stunning collection of dance floor 12"s. If you feel you may have missed out, check www.sonarkollektiv.de for the complete catalogue.
Posted by richard ting at December 15, 2004, 02:01 PM
Electronic Arts Acquires Exclusive NFL License
[from gamasutra]
Further tightening its stronghold on all things related to video game football, Electronic Arts made the surprise announcement today that it has acquired the exclusive rights to the NFL teams, stadiums, and players for use in its video games. Through deals with both the NFL and Players Inc., EA will control the license for the next five years.
In addition to these cosmetic aspects, EA also has exclusive rights for online console features in its football games, as well as access to NFL Films and the NFL Network for the company's titles, which includes the Madden, NFL Street, and Fantasy Football franchises. However, EA is not limited to the above franchises in the use of the NFL licenses; the deal also allows EA to develop new football titles using the assets if it chooses. The one facet the deal seems not to cover is web-based or mobile games, such as titles for cell phones.
With Take-Two's recent announcement that the company was considering raising the price of its ESPN Football line again, after some successful cut-price competition with the Madden series earlier this year, it looks like EA's sales slip of 2004 is something the company is determined to never let happen again.
In fact, now this presumably massive financial deal now in place, further Visual Concepts-developed, Take-Two/Sega published football titles will not be allowed to use any 'name' players or teams, likely rendering them a much less potent competing force, despite a competitive graphics and gameplay engine. Should Sony or Microsoft decide to resume their own sports line after this year's hiatus, they may also have an uphill fight on their hands.
Posted by richard ting at December 15, 2004, 10:01 AM
December 09, 2004
New Integrated Campaign for Treo
AKQA has developed an integrated campaign for Treo. The campaign includes online advertising, print, television, outdoor (airport), and a Web site. The Web site launched at the end of November and invites consumers to experience life with a Treo in a choose-your-own-adventure format. Print work appeared in issues of Business 2.0, BusinessWeek, The New Yorker and Hemispheres, and 15-second spots are running during "The Today Show," "The O.C.," "Good Morning America," and "Next Top Model."
Posted by richard ting at December 09, 2004, 11:48 AM
December 08, 2004
Danger Mouse's Grey Video
Posted by richard ting at December 08, 2004, 04:05 PM
Pondering Podvertising Possibilities
Wednesday, December 08, 2004
By Steve Rubel, CooperKatz & Company
Savvy online marketers have a whole new medium to exploit: It's called "podcasting." Could this be the next BMWFilms.com?
You can?t walk 50 feet in a major city without seeing them. You can spot them a mile away by the dual white wires that dangle from their ears. They?re young, technically savvy, loyal, enthusiastic card-carrying members of the burgeoning iPod Nation. They represent an attractive demographic of early adopter influencers that marketers covet. And, thanks to an emerging revolution in online audio content called podcasting, there are all kinds of new and exciting ways to reach them through ?podvertising.?
The iPod is white hot this holiday season. Apple shipped more than two million of the portable audio players in the most recent quarter ending in September. Analysts now estimate that the Cupertino, California-based company will sell another four million devices this quarter alone. A recent Merrill Lynch report even noted that iPod adoption is outpacing the Sony Walkman?s rapid rise during the 1980s.
As the iPod Nation swells, it is spawning a completely new online content medium called podcasting -- a play on the words broadcasting and Web-casting. A podcast is a time-shifted audio program that can be created using a simple microphone-equipped PC. It is distributed to subscribers via RSS. Users who subscribe to a program's feed receive new episodes on their Mac or PC as they are released. The audio file is then subsequently automatically synched to an iPod or equivalent MP3 digital music player, allowing the subscriber to listen to the time-shifted program at their convenience.
Podcasting was hatched last summer by former MTV VJ-turned-entrepreneur Adam Curry. Since then it has been widely evangelized and adopted by the blogging community. In just two months the number of Google results for the term ?podcasting? jumped nearly 1,000 percent, from 5,950 pages in early October to more than 500,000 pages this month. Surprisingly Google still doesn?t even recognize the term (it asks if you mean ?broadcasting?), but don?t take that lack of recognition to mean that the content and audiences aren't there yet.
Posted by richard ting at December 08, 2004, 12:22 PM
December 07, 2004
videos.antville.org
[earplug]
One of the big wrap-up stories of 2004 will inevitably be the proliferation of MP3 blogs — sites that offer free daily downloads of unreleased, esoteric, and out-of-print tracks. What will 2005 have in store for us? Perhaps the emergence of MPEG blogs, where downloadable or streaming video is mined with the same obsessive dedication as audio. At the forefront of this fledgling movement sits videos.antville.org, the most comprehensive blog of its kind and one of our most trusted sources for new global video information. A simple ten-second login allows you to post your own links, comment on postings, and search through the comprehensive archives. One major sign of growth is that directors themselves have recently begun posting their own work in search of feedback. The last two weeks alone have nearly 20 postings including links to the video for Electric Six's faithful rendition of Queen's "Radio Ga Ga," three different Bloc Party offerings, and a post pointing towards Waxy.org and its mirroring of Danger Mouse's amazing Grey Video. With an open posting policy and an enthusiastic community of contributors, you can bet this corner of the web will be spreading in the new year. (SM)
Check out videos.antville.org.
Posted by richard ting at December 07, 2004, 03:50 PM
December 06, 2004
MySpace.com -- Pitch to Online Crowd Mixes Pop Stars and Personals
[from nytimes.com]
The home page of MySpace, a Web site for social networking, features a profile of the teenage idol Hilary Duff. Yes, her music is there, and so is marketing for a Procter & Gamble deodorant.
By NAT IVES
PROCTER & GAMBLE, the country's largest advertiser and an eager pursuer of new marketing methods, has begun an experimental promotion for its Secret Sparkle deodorant using music stars' personal profiles on a social networking Web site. Under the deal, the MySpace.com home page features a profile of the singer Hilary Duff accompanied by logos for Secret Sparkle, an extension of the Secret brand that went on sale a year and a half ago.
Those who view Ms. Duff's profile can try to win an iPod in the "Secret 'Discover the Secret Strength of Today's Hottest Rising Music Stars' Sweepstakes," and sign up for more information on Secret Sparkle, other Procter & Gamble products or Ms. Duff. The promotion will feature a succession of other artists and their MySpace profiles until it concludes at the end of this month. The promotion, narrow in focus and low key by design, is in some ways the opposite of a Super Bowl commercial, the expensive epitome of traditional advertising. But P.& G. has decided that mass marketing will keep losing effectiveness as media choices and consumer control grow, so it has made charting new paths to consumers a priority.
"This is the first time we've tried this," said Michelle Vaeth, a communications director at Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati. "We really hope it works, because we recognize that MySpace.com is a growing and important player in the social networking Internet space." Social networking sites, particularly those friendly to music fans, are a growing destination for the company's target audience. "We have to be where they are in this online world," Ms. Vaeth said.
The Secret Sparkle promotion represents some firsts for MySpace as well, although the site has collected most of its revenue from advertising almost since its inception in September 2003. "Procter & Gamble is a new advertiser for us," said Chris De Wolfe, chief executive at MySpace in Los Angeles. And while celebrities had been permitted to use MySpace to promote themselves and their work, the campaign with P.& G. is the first instance of the Web site's combining consumer product advertising with a celebrity listing, Mr. De Wolfe said.
If P.& G. considers the effort a success, it could mean much more ad revenue from packaged goods companies for social networking sites like Friendster, Multiply and MySpace as well as business-oriented networking sites like Ryze. Marketers hope these sites will make it easier to start and track communication about brands among friends and contacts. People who register on sites like MySpace and Friendster can set up a home page with photos, a profile and links to others in their social networks. Users can browse for friends, dates, partners for activities or contacts of all kinds and invite them to join the users' personal networks as "friends."
"As the peer-to-peer marketing takes over, word spreads very quickly throughout the site," Mr. De Wolfe said. "My thousand friends see Hilary's profile and see the branding and request to be her friend."
Advertisers are clearly intrigued, if unsure how best to use the sites. The diverse group of marketers using banner ads on MySpace includes the Consumer Research Corporation, DesignerBag4Free.com, Radio Shack, Verizon Wireless and WinSweepstakes.net.
Since June, the MySpace Music section has allowed performers or their record labels to create profiles and offer downloads of their songs, streaming videos and other material. R.E.M., for one, promoted its newest album by posting it on MySpace Music for free listening for two weeks in September. And over the summer, MySpace promoted movie releases by being host to profiles for "Ron Burgundy," the character played by Will Ferrell in "Anchorman," and "Jason Bourne," the Matt Damon character in "The Bourne Supremacy."
Friendster also sells banners and boxes on its pages, which currently display ads for companies like Cingular, the College Loan Corporation, the Kissimmee-St. Cloud Convention and Visitors Bureau, and T-Mobile. Target recently used Friendster to support one element of its holiday campaign, free recorded wake-up calls from the likes of Heidi Klum and Darth Vader that shoppers could request on the Target Web site. Target posted "profiles" of the callers on Friendster.
As with many things online, though, there is the potential for confusion. In addition to millions of real profiles of real people, users have posted countless fake profiles. A search for "Hilary Duff" on MySpace produced 99 profiles under her name, including one that describes a 22-year-old man in Yakima, Wash. Then there are profiles operated by publicity executives at Hollywood Records, Ms. Duff's label, part of the Walt Disney Company. Even this reporter, who travels in decidedly unfamous circles, was able to secure the apparent friendship of Ms. Duff on MySpace in a matter of hours.
Posted by richard ting at December 06, 2004, 01:04 AM
Stones Throw Records DVD/ mix-CD is Hot.
[from xlr8r.com]
SET IN STONE
In honor of their 101st release, Stones Throw drops Stones Throw 101 (Stones Throw; $20), a dope DVD/mix-CD package filled with classics from the label and a few unheard/seen goodies. As you would expect, the videos are all over the place, from weird alien puppets (Quasimoto’s “Come On Feet”) to a simply awesome comic book-style Madvillain clip. The skinny on the mix CD: over 40 tracks, 70 minutes, mixed by Peanut Butter Wolf, and no bullshit involved–strictly creative hip-hop that’s not afraid to take risks. Congrats to the crew on skipping the stone this far–we’re looking forward to the next 100.
Posted by richard ting at December 06, 2004, 12:58 AM
December 01, 2004
New J&J Baby EyeWonder Ad
In-Game Video Ad with Zoom and send to Friend
Posted by richard ting at December 01, 2004, 03:44 AM
Online Games Quarterly
The IGDA's Online Games SIG is proud to announce that the inaugural issue of the Online Games Quarterly has been released.
http://www.igda.org/online/quarterly/1_1/
The idea for this e-publication grew out of a discussion at the 2004 GDC among members of the SIG. The group felt that a smaller publication released at more regular intervals would compliment the annual papers and serve as a place to highlight industry peers throughout the year. In this first issue, you'll find interviews with developers and industry analysts. In the future, letters to the
editor, opinion pieces, and feature articles will be added.
Posted by richard ting at December 01, 2004, 03:12 AM
Rbk Streets
[from Trendcentral]
Rbk Streets: Reebok recently launched this interactive website where consumers can play games, as well as learn more about Rbk personalities, footwear and apparel. Aspiring musicians can also submit demos in MP3 format to the 50 Cent studio, which will be reviewed by the real 50 Cent. If you play on Rbk Streets, you might just earn enough Street Cred to win some major prizes.
Personally, I like the 'city' environment idea and using the cityscape as a navigation. I've seen this before on IBM's Software City and Nike's Battlegrounds, but I can't stand the overly 'ghetto-fied' or 'urban-fied' visual aesthetic. It just feels so gimmicky and outdated. Anyway, let Reebok keep their ghetto-bling-campaigns. I think Nike's trying to message their audiences on a slightly more sophisticated level.
Posted by richard ting at December 01, 2004, 02:35 AM
Discover Card Snowball Fight
Check out the new online multi-user snowball game by Barbarian Group/Goodby Silverstein. Fun stuff.
When you get to the site click on Holiday Games.
