In Australia, Tequila has just launched a new initiative as part of the Absolut World global action. It's the Absolut Line to the Top, a "secret view" on the office of Kevin Rudd, Australia's Prime Minister. Four CCTV cameras follow him while he takes care of his daily duties, which include (but are not limited to) the regular update of the Facebook status. You can also interact with him, ordering Chinese food for him or making prank calls...
Not sure if I like this idea, mainly because I don't feel it's in line with the Absolut brand. It's too artificial and it doesn't have the touch of class and beauty that Absolut usually has.
From Japan, a new chapter in the Axe saga. It's now time for the Axe Full Moon Party, with a sexy Thunderbird look-alike trying to seduce the girls on the beach.
Once again, given the language gap, I'm not able to tell you much about the campaign... As usual, it would be great if someone who speaks Japanese could leave a comment to explain what is going on. The whole thing looks quite weird and different, therefore it's very appealing for us curious interactive marketers.
I like the fact that this campaign doesn't present an ideal beauty, showing beautiful models and a sexy boy. Instead, you have puppets whose sex appeal is of course granted by the fragrance.
The Lynx Effect is on air again in the UK with a new website that encourages consumers to mix the Lynx fragrances.
Created by BBH the site features the tagline "It's good to mix things up" and it's directly connected to a partnership Lynx has signed with MTV to give more visibility to the campaign and to the online competition that invites consumers to watch the Lynx "barman" mixing the fragrances, and then submit their own videos.
The Lynx Effect in this case is not as cool and innovative as we are used to. realize I'm not the target for Lynx' communication, but the site is nice to watch maybe once, when curiosity pushes you to explore it, but then the call to action for user generated content is not particularly compelling and it doesn't give you a reason to participate nor to spread the word. Too bad.
Iceland Express has recently launched an advertainment website to promote its flights. The project is called "Iceland Socks" (watch out, not "Iceland Sucks" ;-) and features a series of talking socks visitors can use to create custom mini-story.
The concept isn't extremely original but the characters look quite nice and funny. The story can be customized selecting the location as well adding subtitles to the scene.
Once again, it's interesting to see online marketing examples from all around Europe.
I guess this Fanta website is out in the UK since quite some time, but I found it out only today, after reading on NMA about a mobile on-pack promotion the soft drink brand is about to begin.
I'm not very familiar with the Fanta brand (I don't even drink it to be totally sincere) but I must say I really like the new characters they are using in their communication in Europe. Todd, Marv, Winnie and their friends are really cute and the experience designed around them is simple yet consistent and effective.
If you're looking for a new job, and you can speak Japanese, you should definitely have a look at the 100 Cheer Girl project launched by Soft Bank Human Capital in Japan. The idea is quite simple, 100 girls share with you tips to to succeed in your career. The interface in Flash is bright and amusing, while the videos are weird and quite sexy... well, the sex sells idea applies also to recruitment companies...
By: martina // Permalink // Comment(s): Category(s):Advertainment, Asia
Lynx have made male soap use a crime in Australia and created a squad of beautiful women charged with reducing male soap use and turning guys on to Lynx Shower Gel.
The website launches with a contest where guys can dob in mates who use soap, posting their friends on the wall of shame. It also features a 2 minute web film showing the squad in action.
Farfar is behind a new weird initiative launched by Nokia to promote its new N82 model. The concept is based on "position art", which consists in creating works of art, by physically walking them, and then transferring it on to a satellite image. Basically it's an art form that tracks your position using GPS.
At www.theworldismycanvas.com visitors can meet Stavros, the self-proclaimed Position Art "Genius" who uses the Nokia N82 Sports Tracker application as his tool while he walks around anywhere in the world to "draw" his motif.
Last Friday, on the website Nokia has broadcasted a live art performance by Stavros, who has been walking around Rome for the whole day creating his "greatest work of art ever".
The football finals are in full swing in Australia and Sydney FC has come up with a novel way to get fans into the spirit.
Using the 90 minutes, 90 emotions brand campaign idea as inspiration, they used actors to bring to life the various emotions fans go through when watching football in popular Sydney and Brisbane public spaces.
He even ran into the Free Hugs guy...
By: marka // Permalink // Comment(s):(0) Category(s):Advertainment
In Japan Lupin is still alive and kicky as in the Seventies. I've just discovered this site www.lupin-steal.com that I don't understand as it's in Japanese (once again it would be great if Shingo or someone else could explain me/us what the site is about :-) but I still found great, not only because it reminded me of the hours spent watching Japanese cartoons in the Tv when I was young(er).
I clicked all around, enjoying the bits and pieces of the cartoon I used to love and discovering a page with a game...
What value can Facebook provide to brands? What can brands do with Facebook? I'm sure a lot of questions like these have been buzzing in your mind in the last couple of months. I must say that until now I've been paying attention to Facebook only as a user, not even asking myself the marketing potential of the hottest social network of the moment. My fault, of course... so now it's time to "wake-up" and start thinking about ideas and applications to get the most out of it as a brand...
A good starting point is the application recently launched in France by Virgin Mobile to promote its "parlez dooble" offer. It's called Dooblebook (if the direct link doesn't work look for it using the Facebook internal search engine), and it's nothing else than a branded match making quiz.
In France, Gillette (ops! I've just spoiled everything ;-) is online since about a month with Mission 5v1, an investigation game to recover an object whose code name is 5v1.
The hints to solve the crime are provided through a series of videos distributed via Dailymotion and on the Mission 5v1 site itself. Google Maps are also embedded in the site, as players are asked to spot the city where the object is kept hidden.
