Tag archives: advertainment

Good Things Should Never End

From the UK, a very original website created by Poke London to promote Orange’s “Speak Easy” pay as you go plan. Perfectly in line with the campaign’s tagline “Good things should never end”, the site offers an unlimited experience. At first sight, nothing happens, so you’ll better start loading the site then go, have a drink, and come back to explore it… Also, it might help if I tell you you have to scroll down and scroll down to discover what it’s all about.

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Are you ready for the Read Fruit Farm?

Girls, if you’re looking for a new job, there’s an open position as Managing Director at the Red Fruit Farm, a new branded entertainment website and competition launched in The Netherlands (but everything is in English) to promote the drink Coebergh. Watch the video to understand what is all about, and then take the test to apply for the open position. I’m sure you’ll appreciate the experience. Yes, it’s a sexy (and rather sexist) campaign but it’s a very good example of how far we are now with branded entertainment. The concept is good, but what’s impressive is the work behind the site: the video and all the little tests to take to submit your application show a great attention to details (why don’t you send an “e-male”?) and a significant investment in terms of budget in this online marketing project.

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Wait less, live more

To promote a new unlimited calling feature, Sprint has launched Waitless to give you an idea of how time passes in your life. The site presents two main sections: a time calculator and a series of “Sprintcuts”. The time calculator it’s a rather disquieting feature that calculates how much time you spend on a particular activity in a lifetime. I tried it with “blogging”, assuming I blog half an hour per day, and below you see the result… Actually, the disquieting part of the calculator is the disclaimer sentence at the bottom: The calculation is based on 78-year average human life span. Sprint is not responsible for how long you actually live. I hope it’s a joke… The most interesting and amusing part of the site is the SprintCuts sections, where they use videos to teach you how to save time in some common daily activities, such as opening bottles, peeling an egg or tying your shoes. There is also a YouTube channel where you can upload your own Sprintcuts. The agency behind the whole thing is Goodby Silverstein & Partners.

HP and the world of Toyrama

Valerie, creative director @ Arc Worldwide Singapore proudly sent me the link to their latest work: Toyrama. They’ve done an impressive job, creating a great, theatrical, setting around Peter Fowler’s Monsterism Island toys. But don’t get me wrong, the site isn’t just about Fowler’s characters. It’s also a good marketing tool to promote HP workstations for animators. Since realize I’m not the best person to evaluate the site from an art direction point of view (althought as consumer I find it excellent) I’d like to share with you my view on the project as a marketer. The goal of HP with this campaign is to tell animators they’ve a new powerful machine for them. It’s a piece of technology, but they have decided to stay away from the traditional way of presenting such products that usually focusing on highlighting the computer’s performance with a lot of big words for techies. Animators are artist, this is why I like the fact that HP decided to impress them using their language: a beautiful site, which, for its quality, it’s able to generate word of mouth among digital artists in the blink of an eye.

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Stride Gum Factory

If you’re a chewing gum brand, the latest trend is to put online a site that takes consumers “inside your factory”. After the Trident (Europe) brilliant example a few months ago, now it’s Stride Gum‘s turn to open the doors of its production facilities. As you can easily expect, the site is all about branded entertainment, with quite a lot of content to explore if you have some time to waste (and this can be the case today, since it’s Friday…). I especially enjoyed the Ping Pong Factory Challenge…

Slap the mat

Product demonstration meets advertainment in Splat the mat a mini-site to promote automotive floor mats stain and odor resistant. You can test the product’s characteristics yourself, by throwing on the mats everything from ketchup to coffee and blueberry pie. Rest assured, with water and tissue every spot will be clean. If you feel like, you can even “suggest a spill”, but the end result will not change. The site experience is quick and funny, plus the video demonstration grabs the user’s attention and surely delivers the message. There’s also a call to action for an immediate buy which makes the effort even more interesting from an online marketing perspective. It’s great to watch a clever example of advertainment so much sales oriented. The agency behind it is Erwin-Penland.

Get the Glass & wait (but it’s worth it)

If you have a couple of years to wait until the site loads, check out Get The Glass, the latest Got Milk? online campaign. The site is a Flash 3D advergame, an entertaining experience based on one of the most classic board games, starring the Adachi family. After a few seconds on the site, you understand the campaign claim “Get the Glass” which should actually continue with “Chill out, relax, enjoy your glass of Milk and wait for the site to load”. Due to the long loading time the navigation results quite painful, I must say, but the animations are just brilliant and, in the end, you realize that it’s worth waiting. If you care more about aesthetics than on the marketing effectiveness of the site, you will surely like it. Kudos for now, and awards to follow to North Kingdom (a Swedish agency) for the amazing job. via Laurent‘s blog.

My name is Bond, Interactive Bond

James Bond is taking the Web very seriously as you can tell from a series of online initiatives I’ve recently discovered. Unfortunately the outputs are not always as good as they could have been… Let’s see in detail… To celebrate the release of The James Bond Ultimate Edition DVD collection and the Buy Bond Get Bond Free promotional period, MGM Home Entertainment and 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment have launched an interactive insight into the James Bond world using Google Earth technology. Users can click on individual film titles to open up a chronological walk through each of the classic 20 Bond films. Each location is presents info and trivia on Bond’s adventures. Users will also be able to visit the virtual lot at Pinewood Studios, and see some exclusive images from the real home of Mr Bond. The Google Earth James Bond plug-in can be downloaded here.

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Hubba Bubba and the Big Bubbles

From Scandinavia, a nice advertainment website for kids. Learn everuthing you need to know on the Hubba Bubba Big Bubbles (if you speak Norwegian or Swedish). I especially liked the “school” section, where they actually teach you how to make a bubble with a chewing gum (see screenshot below). The agency behind it is B-Reel which, btw has a quite interesting portfolio.

C koi ce hold Up ?

In France, Publicis Net has recently launched a promotional website (C koi ce hold Up ?) for the mobile phone carrier SFR. Heavy use of Flash for a colorful and pleasant experience, especially designed to appeal the youngest consumers. I loved the sound design and in particular the integration of loading effects and music. Click for example “Boulafa Safe” or “Le son SFR music” and enjoy!