Mini UK has launched an online campaign to celebrate the Mini Cooper,
called 'Follow the white rabbit'. Rather than following
the standard banner - clicktrough - landing page scheme, the banners
take you on a randomised tour of independent sites, such as
Roundabouts of Britain, Ugly Footballers, or Street Mattress.
The teasing banners are placed on lifestyle sites, such as Urban Junkies
in the first place. I wonder if all of these inofficial sites were
made up for the campaign, at least it seems that the Agency Profero,
responsible for the work has placed a page on these sites.
MySpace marketing potentials are very much questioned at the moment. Does advertising work on MySpace? Which is the right approach to the huge audience moving around the social networking website? The music industry has probably already found some good answers to these questions, moving into MySpace with previews of upcoming albums. Revolution, for example, reports that artists like Basement Jaxx and Kasabian have currently made available their new work on MySpace, some time before the official release in the stores.
Music is one of the strongest areas on MySpace, which has become a unique promotional tool not only for affirmed artists wanting to connect with their fans, but also for small bands who want to make their music heard at an international level in the hope of signing a deal with a big record company.
Forsman & Bodenfors has just put online a new promotional website for the Ikea's closet. Even if the content is only in Swedish, I'm sure you will enjoy the experience.
Nice use of video (with a little bit of interactivity) and excellent soundtrack to explore five floors and five different environments furnished with Ikea.
By: martina // Permalink // Comment(s): Category(s):Online marketing
Levi's mixes art and jeans in the new Fall/Winter Denim collection website for the Japanese market. Music is the theme that inspired the artists who contributed to the site. Every product section has its own soundtrack and peculiar illustrations.
It's very much a product site, too bad that all the copy, a part from the menu items, is in Japanese, it would have been interesting to see if they have been creative also with the denim description.
In Russia, Samsung has launched a new website to promote its E900 phone. The hands of a magician invite the user to explore the phone and an excellent soundtrack creates a nice immersive experience.
I appreciate the interesting way to present the product, but I also believe the good concept could have been exploited more. For example, interactivity is almost non existent and could have been definitely taken much further. Apparently the magician was lazy :-)
The Rogers Cup, an ATP tennis tournament currently being played in Montreal has launched (a few weeks ago) an advergame to promote the event and give away exclusive tickets. It's (of course) a tennis game, in pixel style, quite sticky to play, especially since tennis videogames are so rare to find.
By: martina // Permalink // Comment(s): Category(s):Advergames
It's summertime, it's music time, it's reading time so I've decided to start a new weekly post. It isn't really advertising related, but you know, talking about lifestyles is now so trendy, that I couldn't help joining the bandwagon. So I decided to start a weekly music recommendation, suggesting CDs I currently play on my iPod.
My first pick for this week, is a CD I bought during one one the moments of compulsory shopping I happen to have (fortunately not so often :-) The artist is called Jehro, and his CD, guess what, is also called Jehro... He is a Frenchman whose music is influenced by Jamaican and Spanish flavours. It's a lovely CD, perfect to chillout in the evening, or to start softly a day, especially in summertime.
If you feel like buying it, these are the links to Amazon UK and Amazon US.
By: martina // Permalink // Comment(s): Category(s):CD of the week
Via Lounge 72 I've found out today that Hugo Boss has an online (lifestyle) magazine. The idea is very interesting, and it clearly shows how fashion brands are moving away from product centric websites.
The eMag site design is quite flat, maybe stylish, but definitely not as appealing as the concept behind the magazine. In any case, the content is nicely produced, and it covers a wide range of topics from fashion, to lifestyle, beauty, arts & sports.
I'm wondering (and it's not just pure curiosity) how they are promoting this. Online advertising? Offline advertising? Both? None of them?
The agency behind the online magazine is Werbewelt.
Several blogs have been already posting about the new Coke Tv spot inspired to the videogame Grand Theft Auto. It's a great work by Wieden + Kennedy and Nexus which I post also because (as per my previous post) it's an example of advertising in "musical" style.
By: martina // Permalink // Comment(s): Category(s):Tv advertising
In Sweden, interactive marketers like musicals: after the amazing, award winning "Stockholm, The Musical" by Farfar for Visit Sweden, now we have Absolut Red Ruby by Great Works for Absolut Vodka.
Video, animations, music and some interactivity to experience the Absolut brand, once again, in an innovative way.
The new episodes of the movie Pirates of the Caribbean is promoted online in partnership with Google Earth. Basically they have created a map of a fictional island in the Caribbean, on which users can navigate and discover the movie related content.
I must say I didn't spend much time browsing the island... maybe because I didn't find it very interesting... maybe because it appears to simply be a sort of external (unusual) menu to navigate the movie's content (trailer, downloads etc...).
Barclays is sponsoring the Transaid Challenge, an advergame to support charity group Transaid, which works (particularly in Africa) to improve the way that transport is managed and give people better access to basic services like healthcare and livelihoods opportunities.
It is nice to see how the range of communication tools available for charity is constantly growing and how, especially in the UK charity groups are actually using the Internet to spread their message. The Transaid Challenge puts the player in the driving seat of a four wheel drive health service vehicle, charged with the task of delivering services and supplies to remote African villages that need them.
BBC Radio 1 has recently launched a new project called the Musicubes. Being behind a firewall I couldn't experience it at full, but looking at the interface and analyzing the concept it appears to be very interesting. As stated in the copy "Musicubes are a new way to share and express your musical taste online. Put a Musicube tower wherever you have a webspace or send it to a friend to show them what your're made of". Basically it is a music player you can customize according to your tastes, and then you can share it with your friends and with the visitors of your blog.
The choice of using Real player is somehow questionable, and probably will limit the diffusion of the Musicubes, but I also understand Real is the technology usually used by the BBC. Also, you can select only your favourite genres, but you can't actually pick the artists you want to listen to. Not a big deal, but certainly a point in which the service can be improved, especially if the benchmark is either Pandora or Last.fm. In any case, a very good concept, taking advantage of blogs to generate awareness and word of mouth around BBC radio, and also a very good idea for a music interface.
Gerald Mark Soto is the illustrator behind the GAP Fall Denim campaign "Jeans Take Shape". On his website the artists shares several aspects of the campaign, developed by Laird+Partners. The TV spot is (of course) available on YouTube also...
Freestyle Interactive has launched Maddenoliday, an advertainment website as teaser for the upcoming release of the videogame Madden NFL 2007. The concept is extremely original, as it's inspired to the Christmas period and the Advent calendar. Maddenoliday is definitely very sticky and it creates an amusing experience also for those who are not interested in the game.
The site doesn't tell much about the game (but for this there is the official website), but it's full of goodies you wouldn't expect to find on a site for a football videogame. So congrats for the creative idea!
By: martina // Permalink // Comment(s): Category(s):Advertainment
MTV (Viacom) has signed a deal with Google to start syndicating its TV shows on the Internet. As reported on Brandrepublic, the deal will begin as a test run at the end of the month via the insertion of video into Google's targeted advertising system, AdSense. A new appealing model of revenue sharing on the Internet, once again "invented" by Google.
By: martina // Permalink // Comment(s): Category(s):Online marketing
An article on Netimperative points out more and more companies are looking at bloggers to fill positions in new media. Traditional recruitment channels are currently being replaced by blogs, social networks and community forums.
... and my personal story confirms the case :-)
By: martina // Permalink // Comment(s): Category(s):Blogs, RSS & mktg
Following up from the use of Street Art late last year with the commissioning of Speto, Brahma have created this hand painted Outdoor poster to advertise the Troco Brahma festivals in the UK. An extremely impactful execution which is only ruined by fact that still up despite the festival being over.
A while back I told you what Creative Social (www.creativesocial.com) thought digital agencies should be learning off their traditional counterparts. Well here are the 5 things we don’t want to learn from the traditional agencies:
Must always be open to change or we will become the next generations of dinosaurs
Making sure the best people work on the best work e.g. Creative Directors directing not doing admin
Not putting our best people on the next new client toy
Don’t let media and creative separate they are both integral to a great advertising campaign and so need to work together not in isolation
Don’t create inner divisions e.g. The suits v The creative. Let creative people talk and explain their work and at the same time let creative people appreciate the role that the account planner do
More thoughts from Creative Social to follow shortly.
Advertising is hijacking all the blank spaces. Eggs, body parts, air-sickness bags... no blank space will survive. The world has become a stage for product placement. The Baltimore Sun has a good article on the new advertising age, where marketers are trying to catch you where you least expect it. Scary to read if you're a consumer, inspiring to read if you're a marketer :-)
