Category Archives: Oceania

Wanna be an X-Men?

Google Maps to power an X-Men community site. From Australia, the latest idea of Soap Creative to promote the movie “X Men: The Last Stand”. On the mini-site Xplanet.net the movie fans can post their picture and description and be precisely localized using Google Maps. Users are able to develop mutant profiles and “pin” themselves to any location, which can be found by other site visitors. They’re also able to include a link to their personal website or blog within their profile, and add other users to a planet-wide “buddy list”. An interesting escamotage to create a community, even if the idea of telling the entire world where I precisely live doesn’t drive me crazy.

Scary Movie advergame

Kill some monsters but spare the babes in an Australian advergame to promote Scary Movie 4. Excellent soundtrack BTW. The agency behind it is Spin.

Yahoo and the Big Brother for creatives

A crazy idea from Yahoo! Australia & New Zealand. As Bandt (reg. req) reports, Yahoo “will send rotating teams of creatives to live and work in a transparent box as part of an innovative experiment to champion the “power of online creativity”. The Think Tank box is a fully-functioning creative studio with a desk, PC and white boards. It will house creative teams from various advertising agencies who will work four to eight-hour shifts, 24/7, creating campaigns based on the briefs submitted through the site www.yahoothinktank.com.au (down at the moment Yahoo’s idea aims at promoting the online medium among traditional marketers and advertising agencies, in order to convince them making online marketing a major component in their future campaigns. Yahoo marketing director Brett Corrick explains on Australian IT:

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Ambient toilet marketing

An original ambient marketing idea from an hotel in New Zealand. The 5 stars Sofitel in Queenstown is getting a lot of attention for its new boys room, where models look at guys while they do their stuffs. Some people have complained, but the positive buzz is actually bigger than the negative comments. If you click here, there is a video, that gives you a better idea of what is going on. [via NinjaMarketing]

Pepsi’s sense of humor

In Australia, over 160,000 people visited a web site called heapspoor.com which is spoofing the new Pepsi Max Heaps Rich campaign. As Adrants points out, Pepsi Australia is actually behind the spoof. In the end, it’s not important how people talk about you, what matters is just that they are talking about you. Anyway, I really appreciate there is still someone out there with some sense of humor!

Book samples to your mobile phone

In Australia, Harper Collins Publishers have partnered with Legion Interactive to offer customers book chapter samples directly to their mobile phone. The service is called MobileReader and it was created to fulfill the needs of booklovers who don’t have the time to gather information on the upcoming books. The first excerpts will be from bestsellers authors Dean Koontz and Paulo Coelho and from the Australian author Janine Allis. Mobile can sign up online, on the MobileReader website.

The Virgin Atlantic phobias

If when you fly you suffer of “Sansbarophobia”, “Rigamortaphobia” or “Inclinaphobia”, Virgin Atlantic has the cure for you. Adrants points to an advertainment (or edutainment?) microsite created by Australian agency NetX to promote Virgin’s business class benefits. The site humorously highlights Virgin Atlantic in-flight features, presenting them as the “cure” for the most common flight phobias. Check it out, it’s excellent.

Just the highlights

DDB New Zealand for Sky – The History Channel. This campaign won the gold at AXIS 2005 Awards in the category “magazine advertising”.

Unite for Victory

Telecom, a New Zealand fixed and mobile operator, is targeting rugby fans with the “Unite for Victory” campaign connected to the DHL New Zealand Lions Series. Telecom, which is the All Blacks sponsor, has set up www.uniteforvictory.co.nz where New Zealanders can express their support to the team, download goodies and win a wide range of prizes. The site, featuring a nice retro graphic, has been developed by BeWeb, while the agency behind the campaign is Saatchi & Saatchi.