In Brunei, during the 20th National Day SMS Quiz, people can text and win a Hyundai Matrix. As Brunei Direct, The contest is the first of its kind to be launched in the country and will run from February 27 until April 23, divided in four rounds. It aims to enliven the spirit and celebration of the 20th National Day. Contestants will also have the chance to win PCs, flights to Singapore, mobile phones and digital cameras.

This week the online press has published a bunch of interesting stats, so let's take a look at Spanish wireless consumers market.
Vnunet reports the results of a research by CIS: seventy percent of Spanish have a mobile phone, and a further eight percent plan to buy one in the next six months. The main reason (for 66.6 percent of the people) to own a cell phone is to get in touch with relatives and friends, while only twenty percent of the people said they have one mainly to keep business contacts.

Iblnews reports about the preferred services of Vodafone Live! users: during last december, Spanish people opted to receive SMS alerts mostly about football and horoscopes. For what concerns mobile games, "Osiris" of the Tomb Raider series has been the most downloaded, followed by Bomberman� and �XIII". The most requested ringtones have been "La madre de Jos� and �No es lo mismo�.

Noticiasdot.com presents stats about SMS traffic in Spain last year. According to the data provided by the three carriers (Amena, Telef�nica M�viles and Vodafone) more than 18 millions SMS have been sent through the networks in 2003, with Telef�nica leading the market with a 50 percent share of the traffic. But the most interesting data is the one about Premium messages which generated a business worth 400 millions euros.

Next week Volvo will launch a new comprehensive advertising campaign to promote its S40 car targeting a youther consumer segment than usual. Volvo will change its communication approach to better address the target, taking inspiration for its ads from entertainment genres like music videos and video games. As explained in the press release, the marketing campaign is multi-faceted, covering television, movie theaters, magazines, billboards, the Internet, direct mail, partnerships with Virgin Megastores and Bloomingdale's, and even video games. Thomas Andersson, VCNA Executive Vice President, Marketing at Volvo North America said:

Online loyalty programs, in order to be effective, require a different approach to personalization and customization than the one usually used offline. eCommerceTimes investigates the best loyalty programs on the Internet looking at strategic issues which effect their performance. Consumers' privacy is an important aspect to keep in mind to succeed, but the key is to online shopping with offline rewards.

Diesel is online with a new campaign developed by Airlock. "Love nature while it lasts" is the tagline of the advertising set in a Garden of Eden, which will run in 18 countries worldwide, with traditional banners and a various range of rich media ads.

A post with a self-promotion... On MarketingProfs there's an article I've written:
The year of wireless marketing
Any feedback is welcome!

Kodak will soon launch in Europe an online service to publish pictures taken with the mobile phone. As reported on News.com Australia, starting next May owners of a new wave of higher resolution camera phones should be able to upload their pictures and videos to a central server, send them by e-mail or print them via wireless infrared or Bluetooth links at Kodak kiosks.

The service is already available in the United States. The initiative�confirms the strong Kodak's interest in building a new kind of relationship with its consumers, trying to fill the gap created by digital cameras and the consequent crisis of films selling.
A couple of months ago, Kodak has also sponsored a MMS competition together with the carrier Wind to assign prizes to the best MMS pictures.

In its case study presentation, iMediaconnection talks this week about Visa and its MSN minisite developed to target small-business owners. The site isn't flashy but, according to Visa, it's very effective in communicating the offer. The article is interesting also because it covers the theme of "co-branded" initiatives. Doug Fitzsimmons, Associate Creative Director, Tribal DDB Los Angeles , commented:

The power of MMS to deliver branded messages is far more effective than the one of traditional SMS. There are no stats, only positive perceptions in an article on Marketing Directo about MMS' marketing potentials. In particular the feature gives some hints for the development of cross media promotions TV/mobile, quoting the opinion of Frederic Westerberg of Brand New World:

The combination of images, text and sound opens new possibility for wireless branding, however, this doesn't mean that we have to deliver Tv spots to mobile phones. Furthermore message's relevance plays an extremely important role in wireless communication with consumers. Mobile spam is a virus that can harm the entire sector future.

MM4E (Multimedia Mobile for Europe) is a new consortium caims to push forward the industry development of MMS to unlock its huge commercial potential for major brands that require seamless campaigns across Europe. As explained in the press release, Materna, Prosodie and WIN have joined forces. Among the first beneficiaries of the MM4E consortium are anticipated to be companies that are seeking to roll out campaigns around the Euro 2004 Football Championships and the Summer Olympics.

Kevin Ryan, CEO of Doubleclick believes Internet advertising will keep on growing as marketers decide to invest more money online to match consumers habits. As stated on Reuters (via Yahoo!) Ryan expects a double-digit revenue growth for DoubleClick in 2005, but is really interesting is that he expects online advertising to begin to take market share from television this year as marketers refocus their advertising dollars to reach the 18- to 35-year-old male audience, which is spending less time with TV and print media.

Nielsen//NetRatings has release a couple of days ago a report about US Internet users and search engines. 114.5 million or 39 percent of Americans used a search engine during January 2004. The 114.5 million unique users, representing 76 percent of the active online US population, each spent nearly forty minutes using search engines during the month. The 114.5 million unique users, representing 76 percent of the active online US population, each spent nearly forty minutes using search engines during the month.

Another good indication for the healthy search engine marketing industry.

Microsoft announced yesterday that it will soon start offering a feature allowing mobile phone users to access Hotmail and MSN Messenger while on the go. They're developing the technology with Openwave Systems. As explained on Reuters (via Yahoo!) Microsoft has been working on wireless software since a couple of years, targeting handset makers and operators as a high-end business tool, now they're taking a step in the B2C market. MSN is eventually trying to extend its brand on mobile phones looking for a personal and extremely direct relationship with its consumers.

LemonAd and Strategies presents the top new European banners of the week... Not as good as my own collection, but worth checking out anyway :-) They're here...

An incredibly useful marketing tool might have been created by IMN, a firm that announced the introduction of an RSS tracking system. RSS can be the future solution to replace e-newsletter which are loosing more and more credibility because of spam. If the IMN's solution really works, then RSS won't remain a thing for geeks only, and will eventually debut (and succed) in the mass market. On ClickZ, Kathleen Goodwin, CEO of IMN said about the tracking system:

A couple of weeks ago Pepsi and iTunes launched an interesting promotion. Drink a Pepsi, get a code, and download a song for free. Cool integrated marketing idea but... the promotion has been soon "hacked". As a matter of fact, people can get the code without actually buying the bottle. Read more about this incredible story on ZdNet.

BBC News is launching an online push to target Latin America's audience and promote BBCMundo. As explained on Revolution Magazine, the campaign, which features rich media ads designed by Agency Republic, aims at introducing people to the new information Web site in Spanish.

Jupiter Research has released this week a new report on online advertising. Details about it are provided on IAR.
Internet advertising grew 10 percent in 2003 and is expected to continue at a rate of 19 percent compounded annually through 2008.
Broadband is helping the growth, leading the investments in rich media ads. Paid search is still attracting a lot of attention and, good to know, email marketing is still alive and well, showing a compounded annual growth rate of 24 percent over the next five years to reach $6.1 billion by the end of 2008, according to the report.

Toyota Motor has agreed to become the first exclusive automotive sponsor on eBay, the online auction site. The article on the IHT says that we can expect more of such deals in the very next future, since automakers are becoming more and more unsatisfied with TV advertising results (and costs).
Thanks to the deal, Toyota will be the only automaker advertising new vehicles on eBay and throughout eBay Motors which is the most-visited automotive site on the Web, according to Nielsen/NetRatings figures. Furthermore there will be a "Fueling Desire" a dedicated site for Toyota to showcase new cars and promotions.

In 2002 Mercedes-Benz reached excellent results through online advertising so, in 2003 it decided to increase the budget for online communication by 20 percent. The objectives of the German auto-maker are basically to consolidate its brand image and to get closer to its customers. They constantly look for integration with the traditional marketing channels, and they also pay a lot of attention in the selection of the advertising spaces, not only with reference to the potential target audience, but also to the timing in which ads are displayed.
An excellent article on Le Journal du Net focuses in particular on the campaign for the cabriolet CLK launched last May.

It's called "behavioral targeting" and it has nothing to do with magic. It's simply a new option for marketers: to serve ads based on a consumer's past surfing behavior. Several Web publishers are taking advantage of this possibility to attract advertisers. On Yahoo! News (AdWeek), you can read a little bit more about it.

The case study of Mitsubishi "See what happens" campaign, explained on iMedia Connection by Joseph Jaffe, tells us that online advertising has taken a step further in its consolidation process. It's all about integration or, better, as Mr Jaffe says it's all about "the convergence of form and function; TV and the Web; idea and execution; brand and business".

Today on ClickZ Tessa Wegert pictures a brief state of the art of rich media ads. Following the recent guidelines issued by the IAB, it's interesting to get an overview of the rich media future. Brands are increasing the budget allocated for this kind of advertising, while loosing their interest in "poor" standard banners.

Rich media can be an excellent tool for online promotion. But let's not forget that the success of an advertising campaign is not only linked to the ad format. Timing and relevance of the message are the key parameters we need to focus on while planning a campaign.
Just because everybody is now talking about rich media, let's not become a fashion-victim ourselves.

Brand looking for new ways to interact with consumers, pay attention: voice-enabled shortcodes are on their way to the UK wireless market. As explained today on New Media Age, the voice-enabled shortcodes will enable consumers to use the same number for anything from texting to a company, calling an interactive voice (IVR) service or making a personal call.

If you really want to know the true, I don't get what voice-enabled shortcodes are. Could someone explain it to me? Thanks :-)

Relevant stats today on eMarketer for any marketer interested in advergames.
The question is "why people play online"? The main answer, according to a research by AOL and Digital Marketing Services, is "because online games are fun". However there's also a lot of people who play because are stressed or bored. The research also tries to tell us which are the activities online gamers are spending less time on as a result of online game playing.
Eventually eMarketer quotes a survey by Harris Interactive investigating the percentage of Internet users playing online. Apparently is still rather low, but growing. Harris finds that while 49% of Net users say they never download or play games online, 18% are involved with online games �very often� or �often� � and that�s up from 13% in 2002.

Rugby fans will be able to follow the 6 Nations rugby tournament on their video mobiles. Throughout its UK network, 3 will offer video news, live scores and SMS text alerts, accessible from a new Rugby Union home- page. (Read more in a press release.)

Again, we see networks taking advantage of sports events to promote wireless video services. The more popular the content, the easier getting people's attention on new available services. Let's just get ready for the European Football Championship this June...

Ads throughout the MSN network are promoting the Visa Extras program for small businesses. MediaPost talks in depth about the campaign which also features a micro-site developed by interactive agency AKQA.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) last week announced that over 30 of the leading online publishers, representing 65% of total advertising inventory, are or plan to be in compliance with its voluntary Rich Media guidelines Version 2.0 for in-page units. Version 2.0 of the voluntary guidelines builds upon the success of the Universal Ad Package which was issued in April, 2003. The guidelines developed by the Rich Media Task Force are explained in the press release. In an article on MediaPost talking about the issue, it's interesting to read the opinion of Nate Elliot, analyst at Jupiter Research who welcomes the standards but also says:

Yes, Mr Elliot is right. Everybody is talking about rich media, but it took a (internet) lifetime to regulate them. And now let's see what happens in Europe. I hope European publishers will soon get together to come up with their guidelines, with the IAB UK hopefully leading the way. But rich media are becoming a huge business which implies a lot of different interests, which leaves no room for quick moves.

The UK new media industry is getting ready for the awards season. Last week the shortlisted campaigns for the Revolution Awards 2004 have been announced, while New Media Age has just closed the gates for agency wanting to partecipate in the NMA Effectiveness Awards 2004.
The shortlist for the Revolution Awards 2004 is online on the magazine's Web site.
The categories in which prizes will be assigned are: Best online advertising, Best integrated marketing campaign, Best consumer marketing, Best online retailer, Best B2B service, Most innovative digital business, Best brand building by an online business, Best digital direct campaign, Best costumer service, Best online property from a media owner, Best use of interactive Tv, Best use of email, Best interactive service on wireless networks, Best public sector service online.
Of course, the "Agency of the Year" will be also named. AKQA, Arnold Interactive, Dare, i-Level, Profero, Zentropy Partners are running for the gold.
Keep tuned, on March 19th winners will be announced.

On Editor & Publisher Carl Sullivan presents an interview with Google co-founder Sergey Brin. Five questions and five answers to talk about online contextual advertising with a specific look at how the newspaper industry is taking advantage of this solution.

Spanish interactive agency Httpcomunicaci� has developed an online campaign for Dentaid a company specialized in products for the oral hygiene. The campaign objective is to collect information about Dentaid customers in order to better know and understand their expectations concerning the products. In order to encourage people to provide their data, Dentaid is giving away a Sony-Ericsson T610 every month.
Is a mobile phone a good incentive to give personal information to a brand? It depends on the number of questions...

In his latest column on AdAge, Al Ries talks about the "Disintegration of Integrated Marketing". The article is not as polemical as it might sounds from the title or, at least, is not against the concept of "integrated marketing" rather against the tempting idea of "integrated marketing agencies". Specialization is the key says, Mr Ries, and actually it's simply an evolution of the positioning idea he presented us twenty years ago. Agencies can't do everything in-house, unless they compromise quality. And this reminds me of a book I read a couple of years ago, "The Myth of Excellence" whose subtitle was "Why great companies never try to be the best at everything". Think about it...

El Mundo, a Spanish magazine, presents an interview with Marc Simoncini, founder of Meetic, the matchmaking community. Mr Simoncini is enthusiastic about his job and says:

The shortlist for the Revolution Awards 2004 has been revealed last week. In the category "Best Online Retailer" Interflora is running for the gold medal thanks to its e-commerce system developed by Broadband. On Broadband's website you can find out more about the project.

Standard Life Bank is promoting its personal finance planning with an online campaign developed by DNA. The news is reported on Brand Republic, explaining that the campaign's objective is to raise awareness of the service and attract new customers.

DoubleClick has decided to strengthen its European Management Team, announcing the appointment of Ben Regensburger to vice president of sales and account management. As quoted on Advertising-UK the decision underlines the strategic importance of the European online advertising market, as David Rosenblatt, president, DoubleClick said:

Levi's brand continues to evolve on the Web. On February 18th the spring web site, designed by Lateral, will be launched, with a new section dedicated to the new Levi's� 501� Jeans with Anti-Fit campaign which works in conjunction with the offline campaign components (TV, print, OOH, cinema, and retail/instore). Within this section, a great example of through-the-line integration, is Levi's� vmx: This video mixer allows users to create and send fridge magnet style messages using the actors from the campaign - a fun way to encourage consumer interaction being fairly passive in terms of branding; with the added benefit of recruiting for further communications programs (check it out here).
Jon Bains, Chairman of Lateral said:

To learn more about Levi's online strategies, you can also read a recent interview I did with Helene Venge, Digital Marketing Manager for Levi's� Europe.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) today announced that online advertising revenue in the United States for Q4 2003 totaled an estimated $2.2 billion, with revenues for the year 2003 are estimated at $7.2 billion.
Greg Stuart, President & CEO of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, quoted in the press release, declared:

Murphy�s (the beer), and Enpocket (the marketing expert) have teamed up to create an SMS text-based, cross-carrier limerick campaign that gives the public poetic licence to showcase their creative writing skills. As explained in the press release The �Take the Murphy�s Challenge� campaign will be launched to coincide with St. Patrick�s day.
Donal O�Sullivan, Marketing Manager, Murphy�s said:

Raise of Honor is a new Playstation game that Sony will launch with a multi-million dollar marketing campaign. The press release explains that a viral and online push will support print and TV advertising. Viral advertising will consist of "wild postings" in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York. Online advertising will commence in February and continue through the end of April. The ad will be run on Web sites such as atomfilms.com, ifilm.com, ign.com, gamespot.com, and maximonline.com.

Horizon.net reports the results of 8th New Media Award. The winners are:
- Elephant Seven (Mercedes Benz user cars / �online�)
- Mediacom (Coke Light Man 2003 / �crossmedia�)
- eCircle (Unicef Video Mail / �permission�),
- Jenny Fitz (7 years later / �young creation�),
- Joern T�llner (your missing link / �young creation�)
- Chris Burggr�ve (Marketing Director Coca-Cola / �people�).

The power of the Internet as an advertising media goes beyond the browser. The latest trends talk about "desktop" advertising, but Instant messaging promotions are doing pretty well too. The new possibilities of getting in touch with the consumer through a computer are analyzed on IAR, quoting the opinion of Andy Jedynak, senior VP and general manager of desktop app WeatherBug who says that:

iMediaconnection features this week an interview with Micky Pant, Reebok's vice president of global marketing and recently named "Interactive Marketer of the Year" by Ad Week. Mr Pant takes us in the backstage of Reebok's latest campaigns like Terry Tate and WhoDunIt telling us how they came up with creative ideas. In particular, it's interesting to read Pant's opinion about funny commercials, whose branding effectiveness is often under process. After watching the Terry Tate spot during the Super Bowl, 60 percent thought the advertiser was Reebok and 30 percent thought it was McDonalds...
But the most interesting part of the interview is the one in which Pant tells about how Reebok determines its media mix:

Marketers, keep note of this!

MSN is going to ban interruptive ad formats. New Media Age reports that the ban will take immediate effect in the UK, Nordic regions and Belgium, stopping the serving of pop-ups and pop-unders through the network.

Philips has launched an online competition to promote the awareness of it MP3 player Expanium. The campaign has been developed by Buongiorno Vitaminic and targets the youth market. Until February 23rd, Italian users can join an online competition at www.expanium.vitaminic.it and win digital songs to download.

Alitalia has revamped its web site and is promoting it with a series of web-only fares. As Brand Republic explains, the site has been designed by Ehs Brann and there will also be some banner advertising promoting the offer.

The curious (or sad?) thing is that I'm not aware of any similar online promotion by Alitalia in Italy (not even in the past).

The Mobile Entertainment Forum has announced that next March it will launch in the UK the first official ringtone chart which will be compiled by KPMG. Mobile music is becoming more and more important and the ringtone chart is surely a strong sign of an industry gaining independence and relevance. There's a massive public interested in ringtones, presenting new revenue opportunities in mobile entertainment.
In the press release that explains the initiative, it's interesting to read the opinion of KPMG�s Calum Chace who says:

Yahoo! Italia has launched a special section dedicated to Valentine's Day. "The love experience" features jokes via sms, MMS, love songs, recipes for a romantic dinner, as well as the possibility for users to tell their love stories online.

Valentine's Day it's a business, it has lost its spontaneity. And this is rather sad or, simply, uninteresting.

Hewlett Packard today launched its new advertising campaign to date targeting enterprise customers under the banner of "change +hp."
As explained in the press release the campaign will run through multiple channels, with a 16-page insert appearing in today's Wall Street Journal and New York Times, as well as online advertising, television and outdoor. All the creative can be found on HP website.

If you want to know more about HP advertising and marketing initiatives, you can also read an article by Meg Carter on The Guardian, which analyses "Hype" a sponsorship for online artists or, as HP defines it "platform for the designers of tomorrow". The gallery is also available online, but it's not clear what is exactly...

The SuperBowl wasn't just about advertising crap, at least one brand managed to do a good job with the event. I'm talking about Mitsubishi, that presented a tv commercial with pathos and... no end. To see what was going to happen, spectators had to go online on SeeWhatHappens.com and watch the end of the spot. A cool marketing idea, detailed in an article on AdAge which says that during the next 28 hours more than 170,000 unique visitors flocked to the special Web site to follow the final half of the demolition derby-like saga.

�Portraits� the new Monster's campaign is now online with a series of rich media ads. Among he the websites presenting the ads there are Weather.com, About and Lycos, which features a special job section in partnership with Monster.

I've received my first Valentine's card from "a secret blog reader" or, better, I should say from "a smart marketer" (with a viral attitude :-).
There isn't much romance in the card, but it's certainly able to get a woman's attention and, most of all, to kickstart a word of mouth effect. There is an (almost) naked butt with a tattoo saying "Panlogic loves Adverblog". If you go to www.lovetattoo.co.uk you can get yourself a Valentine's butt too.
The initiative is branded Last Minute, while the creative has been developed by Panlogic.

Digital Media Communications (DMC) is today launching Polaroid�s first online buzz marketing campaign, featuring a photo-alphabet full of suggestive and risqu� �love letters� in support of a new Valentine�s Day marketing promotion created by Euro RSCG London. Mark Farris, Polaroid Group Marketing Manager, commented:

RSS is raising marketer's expectations in finding a solution to the e-newsletter decline. I've already talked about 'marketing and RSS' a couple of months ago now, thanks to an article by Janis Mara on IAR, there's the chance to further discuss the issue. It seems that in the US there's a company, RSSAds, ready to launch a new online ad network.
As the article's author says tracking of content and ad viewing has always been one of RSS's weak point, but RSSAds Ceo, Chad Williams claims that his company tracks ad views by means of a simple transparent image file. Whenever the RSS reader calls back to the server for the image, it counts as an ad impression.
RSSAds are coming up with several ad serving pricing options: cost-per-click, cost-per-time-period, cost-per-insert and cost-per-thousand impressions models and pay-for-performance ads which is expected to become the most popular.

It sounds interesting but also rather complicated. If it works, it's probably a gold mine. If it doesn't...

The strenght of online advertising is in the ability to deliver target messages to consumers. Presenting a consumer with an advertising message right on his desktop is the new dream of online marketers, as Scott Greenberg explains on iMediaConnection. Desktop Advertising Networks are joining the online marketing mix. Web site advertising typically delivers either a large, but untargeted audience, or a targeted but small audience, while the DAN can deliver both precision targeting and mass reach.

DAN can be very powerful if understood and used properly, but at the moment marketer are rather skeptic and confused. Privacy is the main issue that raises concerns but relevance, timing and frequency of such an intrusive form of advertising play a role as well.

A recent report by the Yankee Group presents a comprehensive and detailed picture of the wireless youth market in the US. As a European I'm always glad to read such kind of research to find out the difference between the two continents. However I'm also always surprised by the results which underline the fact we are living two different wireless worlds.
Let's take SMS for example. The Yankee Group says that text messaging is the most used service in the US, with 43 percent of all young adults sending/receiving at least one text message a month. In Europe this sounds almost funny, on the same kind of report you would have read: " text messaging is the most used service, with 43 percent of all young adults sending/receiving at least one text message a day if not even a hour".

A new campaign by Pepsi in partnership with Apple ioffers music fans the opportunity to download tracks from the iTunes site every time they get a 'lucky' ring pull or bottle top. As Silicon.com explains the adverts claim there are 100 million songs to be won and that one in three drinks will be lucky.

Fears that Google will be the next Microsoft victim are rising. On the IHT John Markoff says that today, nearly everyone in Silicon Valley has begun to ask: Will Google become the next Netscape? And then he presents an extensive analysis of the battlefield where Google and Microsoft might end up fighting.

This is not exactly an advertising related news, but I wanted to share my concern for Google's future.

At the prestigious Big Chip Awards McCANN-i has won the prize for "E-Marketing Campaign" for the microsite and banners produced to promote Durex. The creative work can be seen only on McCANN-i web site.
Further details about the award can be found in an article on Manchester Online.

Online travel reservation operator Opodo is starting today an integrated marketing campaign in Germany to increase customer perception of its brand image. The news is reported on Horizon.net, saying the creative will include billboards, radio spots and online advertising with the claim "Ich bin Opodo-reif" (I'm ready for Opodo). The agency which developed the campaign is Leagas Delaney, based in Hamburg.

Epica Winners 2003 have been announced recently. The press release presents screenshot, videos and links to the winning campaigns. In the interactive section, Framfab Copenhagen won for Nike Football/Panna, while Forsman & Bodenfors Stockholm for Volvo XC 90 launch campaign.

According to a study done recently by Michigan State Researchers of online privacy policies, consumers simply don't read the legal stuffs and have a gut reaction in deciding if a brand is trustworthy. There is an article on CrmDaily in which Glover Ferguson, an analyst at Accenture, says that if companies want to advance their relationships with customers, they need to focus on the mission of fulfilling the promise of the brand.

Living in the Italian online advertising "swamp", I'm always amazed to hear about the impressive use of interactive media that takes place in the UK. For example, the British School of Motoring (BSM) has a launched an online direct marketing campaign to engage young individuals and offer them free or discounted driving lessons. The viral video email campaign developed by Randommedia targets 16 to 21 year-olds with humorous video footage of a learner driver sitting in a car with his father imitating his bad habits.

In a forum on Brand Republic I've found an excellent thread talking about the worst campaigns of all time. The discussion is interesting, people is quoting Ford, Hoovers and DaimlerChrysler with Celine Dion. I can think about 3: in december 2002 the launched an impressive campaign in Italy, but they didn't have any shop or retailer ready to sell their products. They were good in building curiosity, but they didn't give people the possibility to actually buy the product, so potential customers lost their interest and soon forgot about 3's offer. A true waste of money.

More than forty percent Internet users are reached by advergames. The upcoming Gartner G2 research states it, and it's quoted on iMediaconnection. Advergaming is a phenomenon and we can see it's evolving in the wireless world as well.
But we need to remember advergames can prove very profitable only if integrated in a global push, and if marketers take advantage of the opportunity of collecting consumers data. Nothing in the world is free (a part from love, of course :-). If users want to play, they have to pay, with their personal data...

Keyword ad lawsuits could dramatically effect the way search engines such as
Google and Yahoo do business. Some companies are alleging that selling
keyword ads to rivals, which include trademarked keywords, are "confusing
potential customers." BusinessWeek talks about it.
(thank you Lisa)

Are looking for more cool interactive ideas? Check the archives