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.

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If your boss flies with Finnair he might be back in the office earlier than you expect. You'll better take this into account before making the same mistake Joe did... EarlyJack is an amusing mini-site launched by Finnair to promote its flights from Europe to Asia.

The site also features a video advergame that challenges viewers to play and have fun with Joe before his boss comes back from Japan. If you manage to to see all stunts before his boss Jack comes back from Japan, you will win flight tickets for two to Asia or Europe.

via Brainwash

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.

... but I can end up in France... there's a new online campaign, by The Moon Travel corporation, a fictional travel agency, to drive tourists to the Moon. Those who apply to reach this destination will actually arrive in Nancy or Metz, but I believe this is just a detail... :-)

Le Journal du Net reports more details on the initiative which debuted online last November with the mini-site and advertising spaces bought on MSN and Yahoo! messenger services. Since the launch over 45.000 French users have visited the site (which isn't much...), to take a series of (advergame-based) tests and win the travel to the moon. Overall the concept is nice, but according to me it has been developed though a site which looks somehow too complicated.

Hold on a second, before your read further: this post IS NOT about Paris Hilton. C'Est So Paris is a brilliant website by BDDP & Fils agency for the Regional Tourism Committee of Paris Ile-de-France. They came up with a great concept to promote a city you wouldn't expect to have to promote (do we really need an advertising campaign to send tourists to Paris??) and they did it with a lot of sense of (French) humor.

You don't have to speak French to fully enjoy Paris (but it surely helps a lot, despite what the website is trying to communicate...). The website is fun, the offline campaign maybe it's scary...

Thanks Jean for the link!

British sense of humor arrives to France, with a new Publicis Dialog advertainment website for British Airways which makes fun of low cost airlines (link removed). Unfortunately my French is not good enough to appreciate the jokes, but I find very interesting the fact that British Airways "dares" launching an interactive campaign in France to challenge its natural competitor Air France (and not only the low cost airlines).

An article on Le Journal du Net, explains a few more things about the campaign. The site Serviceaprèsvol.com is actually only the first of an effort which will grow over the next few months with more media (outdoor and mobile marketing, for example) involved.

To my Italian friends, the website will remind the brialliant "No Alpitour? Ahiaiaiaiai" campaign realized a few years ago.

KLM has launched a new advergame, called Fly for Fortune. Before playing the game you are invited to watch a lovely Pixar-style game trailer (by Publicis Dialog9, which to a certain extent is even better than the advergame itself.

The whole experience is pretty nice (you can personalize your plane - see mine below), even if they could have invested more in the game longevity.

What is impressive is not that the game is available in 10 languages (nothing strange with this) rather the fact that players from 58 countries can enter the contest... what a massive work for the KLM's legal office :-)

British Airways is using Google Earth to promote its discounted rates to over 100 destinations worldwide. NMA reports the airline has created a "layer" to Google Earth which allows users to research holiday or business trips with high-resolution satellite images. By browsing the world with Google Earth, travellers wannabe can learn the most relevant information about the chosen destination as well as the most updated British Airways fares to get there.

A very original idea that once again confirms how powerful Google's tools are when it comes to online marketing. It's just a question of using a little bit of creativity and imagination, then the sky is the limit, and British Airways (together with Agency.com, I believe) has clearly shown how far and cleverly you can go.

Guess the cities in the advergame launched by Lonely Planet.

Very very similar to the popular Virgin "Exercise your muscle" advergame online at end of last year.

I know it might sound like a naive comment, but it's so nice to see more and more extremely traditional businesses, such as postal and train services embracing online marketing.
Yesterday I talked about The Royal Mail in the UK and TPG Post in The Netherlands, today I will point you to what Eurostar is doing in UK and SNFC is doing in France.

Eurostar has just launched blog, "Voice of a city" in which it provides insider's views of Paris, sharing tips on how to get the most out of La Villa Lumière. Actually the blog, created by Proximity London, has been online since September last year, but I only found it out today reading NMA. Anyway, it's good to see that after six? seven? month, they still keep it very much updated- In a way this initiative reminds me of Virgin Atlantic's travel guides delivered as podcasts.

The Swiss Tourism Board has created a tv-spot "for women only". The video (opens .mpg) shows a series of good-looking and kind of sexy men welcoming the viewer to the country.

As explained on Persoenlich (in German) the campaign idea is to target the wives of the men who will go crazy next June watching the World Football Championship. The campaign will mainly run in Germany and France, but also in other European countries.

While your man drinks beer, watches 22 men running after a ball, and yells at the referee, come to Switzerland and enjoy its natural beauties... An unusal but smart idea to promote a country!

Saatchi & Saatchi Copenhagen for Kilroy Travels, Epica Award winner in 2005 for best Transport & Tourist print campaign.

S-W-H, Amsterdam for Expedia.
Copy says: "You really need to get away".

A new spot for airport advertising

Thanks for your feedback

The Eurostar viral casting

The Easycruise advergame

Virgin Express: pee & win campaign

What's your travel personality?

The Virgin Atlantic phobias

Viral marketing for holidaymakers

Dangerous (but sexy) holidays...

Ryanair partners with Lastminute.com to sell ads

Win with American Airlines

Are looking for more cool interactive ideas? Check the archives