MINI Usa has recently launched a new website very much focus on advertainment. It's called Hammer & Coop and it features a story which is something between David Hasselhoff in Knight Rider and Starsky & Hutch. It's all about video, with a series of webisodes starring the MINI (Coop) and an improbable hero (Hammer).

Together with the webisodes, the site also presents an "Action name generator", which is a tool that tells you what will be the perfect name for you and your partner to star in the story. Mine would be Mindhunter Zugger... I quite like it ;-)

Very well designed (the site) and directed (the episodes) the whole thing is quite fun to watch, but I'm not sure I will check back to see what's going to happen in the next episodes... but maybe this is because I'm a woman and, you know, cars aren't really something I live for...

Check out this cool new commercial for Snickers in the United Arab Emirates. It's from Impact BBDO and directed by Joeri Holsheimer from Czarevich. The local theme Don't Stop is worked out with red and green traffic-light images that hit on eachother. The TV version can be found here, while the exclusive directors cut can be seen below.

Nokia has just launched on the market a multimedia car kit, and it's promoting it with a nice videoadvergame. The site is called "The Passenger", and from the very first sight it looks like every other branded entertainment site (I don't know why, but I feel these kind of sites all look somehow the same) and it features a video driving game around Paris.

A driver, a femme fatal and another mysterious man are the characters who support the user in the interactive experience. As you know, I'm very picky when it comes to advergames evalutation, but in this case I can admit I was impressed... it's video based (and therefore innovative) and quite fun to play (for a few minutes :-)

If you want to learn more about the project, you can check out Netanel's blog.

Actress Uma Thurman and director Kathryn Bigelow are the two stars involved in the second Pirelli online movie. Last year the tires brand debuted in branded online entertainment with The Call, starring John Malkovich and Naomi Campbell. The new movie, "Mission Zero" has been created to promote the P Zero tyre and features a car chase with Uma Thurman driving a yellow Lamborghini.

Being behind a firewall at work I wasn't able to watch the movie, but looking at the homepage I can't avoid saying that the poster seriously reminds me of Kill Bill: the association Uma Thurman / yellow is very strong.

Can you make the Royal Guard laugh? Accept the challenge and give a try to the latest Eurostar campaign which just debuted in Belgium. You have got several tools at your disposal: you can tell jokes, or you can use a small duck or a feather. Find the right combination and see what happens. If you succeed, you can also win a trip for 2 to London.

The advergame's concept is irreverent and funny, perfectly in line with Eurostar's approach to online communication.

In the UK, the Department of Health is running an integrated campaign against smoke. Below you see some of the strong images which belong to the Get unhooked series of ads.

On the Web there's of course more to discover. For example, on the interactive side, it's interesting to have a look to a series of ads created by Lean Mean Fighting Machine... you can even play space invaders against cigarettes packages...

From JWT Frankfurt (via Ads of the World) a very "strong" campaign to promote Bayer Priorin, a product which increases the strenght of you hair.

Tip: if you don't get the ad, step back and watch it from a few steps away. I love the idea of an ad which challenges the perspective you look at things. It reminds a me somehow at the woman drawing often used in psichology.

Oh yes, Photoshop can do wonderful things for you... as this spot by Jung von Matt Hamburg for Adobe tries to demonstrate...

Via Adme.

Dove continues its campaign for Real Beauty launching a new series of ads dedicated to women in their fifties. The campaign is called Pro Age and aims at generating the same level of buzz of the previous effort with this approach. This time Dove decided to challenge the common view of ageing.

As a woman I surely appreciate this approach to communication, however this time I feel it isn't as sincere as in the campaign with size 32/33 women. The Pro Age site features a wide section dedicated to "Join the debage" starting from the question "can a woman be beautiful ad any age?". Well, as in the case of virals (where you can't send out a press release saying "we've launched a viral", because it's the audience who will decide if that video is really a word of mouth driver) I don't think you can launch a campaign and immediately state "this is a controversial ad, what do you think". So I've found so fake and irrealistic the twist they've decided to give to the campaign... there's even a competition (!!!) "Tell us what beauty after 40 means to you and help us show society that your later years can be the best ones. You could appear in a new campaign for Dove Pro Age products.".

Well, if I think about it a little bit more I don't know why I'm so annoyed. After all, it's advertising. It's not supposed to be sincere...

Imagine you get an "image not found" error while you "browse" on a street... this is what you will get.

I love to see there's still someone with some sense of humor out there, and I've found brilliant the contrast with the old man passing by...
via Werbewunderland.

I'm sure you already read this several times: mobile advertising it's about to boom. I had one more article to the list, even if I'm no longer very confident in the potentials of the market. Sounds like we've been talking about this for ages, but the so called "explosion" never happened yet. I think it's also a problem of wording (mobile marketing/mobile advertising and marketing integration) but also a big issue related to costs. Isn't mobile internet (still) too expensive for users? As a consumer, sorry but in Italy I cannot afford a mobile connection, therefore I don't use my 3G phone to browse the Web.

In any case, for those of you interested in the topic, there was an interesting article last week on Infoworld which investigated the potentials of a market which is expected to more than double in 2007 to $1.5 billion.

In Norway the Norwegian music industry has launched a campaign called "Piracy kills music". A short documentary in black & white created by McCann, explains the history of music piracy so far and analyses the effects on the industry.

The video, in three chapters (also available in English), it's very nice to watch, as it looks like Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein meeting an American documentary of the Fifties. Yes, maybe I have my very own way to associate movies and ideas, but have a look and tell me what you think...

via Laurent's blog.

I love reading comics (the latest I bought is the brilliant Shenzhen: A Travelogue From China by Guy Delisle) so I couldn't help spending a few minutes on the Jeep Patriot Comics site. A part from the fact they tried it hard to make the site less usable as possible (register and login are the first 2 menacing words you see, while you actually have to register only if you want to submit a story), the project is definitely worth some attention. Again, don't be surprised, it' all based around user-generated content.

The Jeep Patriot Comics is defined as "the first interactive collaborative creation the comic world has ever seen". Yes it does sound very American, but it also seems to be kind of true. Jeep and Marvel drafted the first pages of the story, and now it's up to the users to submit ideas and see them converted into the real story by the pencil of Bing Cansino. The interactive comic is also supported by a tips&tricks; section in blog-style, a good idea to catch-up with the project. Also, according to what declared on the blog, registered participants will receive a printed version of the comic book.

If online actually meets offline at the end of everything, than I can really say I like the Jeep idea.

How much is a Bud Buck worth? Well, as it's a virtual currency, its value can change randomly and become anything ranging from $5 to $100... The Bud Bucks are the main gimmick used in the new Budweiser online campaign which debuts today in the UK. Bud drinkers are encouraged to collect the unique codes they find on beer's bottles and cans and text them or submit them through the site in order to get Bud Bucks in exchange.

The accumulated Bud Bucks can then be exchanged for a series of prizes and/or to buy Budweiser merchandising in the dedicated virtual store.

From The Netherlands, the country where the Big Brother was invented, now it's time for WK (Webcam zitten), which I think translates into something like "sitting in front of a webcam". It's a reality show (this time it's real, not fake as the Heidies... ops!). The site is all in Dutch, but to understand what's going on I can share with you the concept Floris has explained to me.

10 people have to sit one week in front of their webcam, 24/7. Sleep, eat, etc. Every day they get an assignment via a popular radio station. The contestants also have to gain votes, so they write to blogs, call tv-stations etc. to make themselves famous. By the end of the week only one person survives the ordeal and wins a year of free housing (the contest is linked to a bank who does mortgage consultancy via a webcam). The agency behind it is Qi.

Tokioplastic is the creative mind (and arm) behind the recently launched MotoSpeed webisodes. The idea behind the digitally animated short videos is to highlight the benefits of Motorola's mobile broadband handsets.

Having watched the first episode now available on the site, I'm not sure the clip really tells much about the product, but for sure it's very nicely designed and pleasant to watch. Maybe this is enough... (but I'm not sure).

Have a look at Careerbuilder's age-o-matic... upload your photo, fill in some details and find how you're going to look like in 50 years if you stick with your current job. Once you're done, open a new window in your browser and keeping your retouched photo in the background go back to Careerbuilder to immediately start looking for a new position ;-)

I didn't try to upload my own photo. Or at least I don't dare publishing it here ;-)

In its new marketing effort to promote Axe Vice, the brand has come up with an idea which is half way between CSI and Kiss the girls. The campaign is not running in the major Westerne countries, but just in a selected and limited number of regions such as, for example, France, The Netherlands, Mexico, Argentina and Portugal. The site they've launched to complement the offline effort is quite interesting and not as sexy as usual (but don't worry, it's not boring!). As I said, the concept behind it's an investigation. You have to find out why so many girls in town have become extremely naughty.

The advergame conceived very well and it definitely takes an effort to be solved. I gave it a try, but I'm not Grissom, so after the second try I sadly had to give up. I hope you have better luck (and will ;-)

In my January "madness" I didn't manage writing about this campaign Olivier from DDB Paris forwarded me. It's a series of in-store ads they've created thinking about John McEnroe's unique attitude on the tennis court. I'm not sure if they're ment to motivate the store staff or simply to amuse the customers...

We're just ten days before Valentine's Day, and we have a big problem: apparently Cupid has decided to resign and stop helping people falling in love and/or solving their problems with their partners. The situation is dramatic, someone needs to help... This is more or less the idea behind the Love Machine, an advergame Levi's has just launched in Turkey (the agency is Manajans JWT).

The design is nice and the game is worth playing a couple of times. The site is available also in English, so you don't have to put too much of an effort to find your way as Cupid. The only negative aspect is that you are forced to register in order to play. Yes, for Turkish players there are prizes to win, but this isn't always a valid trigger to make registration mandatory, especially if players cannot try the game first.

Believe me, this is not done on purpose... but here comes the third post in a row that talks about "hands" in advertising... This time it's a Guinness campaign ("Good things come to those who wait") by Abbott Mead Vickers.BBDO which will debut in a couple of days on TV and throughout more or less traditional media.

The website is already online at www.guinnesshands.com and it features a lovely black&white; layout, the TV spot as well as an application which allows users to play with their own hands and create personalized messages. Each letter on the keybord represents a different gesture to choose. I didn't find it very addictive, but maybe it's because I'm Italian and I miss our own dozen gestures we use when we speak ;-)

Another advertising ideas which "exploits" hands. It's a a promotional website developed by Indusblue for Nokia Canada. "Push to start" features three advergames which challenge your right hand to play against your left hand. The games are extremely basic, but also quite nice and difficult to play, as they are all about coordination.

A new TV spot for Volkswagen Phaeton, "handmade" by the German agency Grabarz & Partner.

You can think of Orwell's Big Brother or, as you prefer, of Dick's Minority Report. Whatever the case, it's no longer science fiction, it's real. MINI Usa has launched a scary (sorry I must say it) outdoor campaign targeted at MINI owners. In cities such as Chicago and Miami they have installed digital billboards who are able to receive identification messages from the MINI's passing by. As the car is tagged with information about the owner, the billboard is able to recognize the driver and greet him/her with a personalized message.

This campaign sets a new frontier in 1to1 marketing, but it's also important to say that the drivers involved in this promotion actually opted-in to be part of the game. Fools or curious it's impossible (yet) to say. However the campaign is rising comments and polemics not only for the extremely personal yet public relationship MINI wants to establish with its clients, but also for the potential risks of such campaign in terms of driver distraction and road safety.

On Marco's blog another great social campaign I feel like "stealing" and sharing with you. It has been created by the Miami Ad School for the Transport of London, and it aims at encouraging people to report unusal behaviours they might happen to see on public transportation.

At first I've been attracted by the artistic side of the creations, but there's actually much more than a nice illustration to observe and comment.

Click on the images to read the story they portrait, and think about the feelings they trigger in you. I must say my reaction has been of sadness and conscious awareness of the world we're living in. And it's weird that one has to use art and poetry to get people's attention on the dangers we might face and might help avoiding. Art and poetry should be used to celebrate love and happiness, not to force you to keep your eyes on your travel companion's bag. In any case, the ads are lovely.

Are looking for more cool interactive ideas? Check the archives