Not that we didn't think it was a big joke in the first place but as the furor over Boston's Cartoon Network guerrilla campaign subsides, the predictable trend of spoofs and games has begun. Boing Boing points to Save Boston, a whack-a-mole style game in which you gain points by clicking on the light bright/moonite objects as they dart in and out of Boston's architecture. Depending upon how many Moonites you get, you are graded by hairstyle. Some one send this to Mayor Menino.
It's become part of the 20-something cliche to leave college and see the world. That's why we think the STA Travel 193 campaign by Night Agency is doing so well. Upon the contest's end a winner will be selected to become a "world traveler" over a two-person trip to four countries.
The campaign features a little Flash globe with clickable videos where you can watch people talk about their experiences in a given country. It's a little like being back in college again, watching those EAP kids give speeches about how their lives have changed forever post beer-chug in Munich.
With next to no media money spent this invitation has garnered over 6000 leads for STA in its first week. Now how can we possibly have an immigration problem when everybody's just raring to leave?
Candystand concocts yet another diversion called Eclipse Polarity, an odd cross between a space and a jungle game where you shoot at mechanical bug-looking things before they shoot you first. Careful, they can shoot in diagonals too.
We've died several times in our generous attempt to test it for you and we have to say ping pong remains our favourite out of all the games Candystand has sent us in its effort to sway us from our divine ad-trashing mission. So if you want to try Eclipse Polarity, godspeed. If not, we'll see you at the ping pong table.
If for nothing more than to waste a few minutes during your lunch hour or during the excruciating boring weekly traffic meeting, have a little fun with this Virgin Money game, Lose Your Lunch Hour, in which you get to wreak havoc and physical damage to a bank branch of your choice because they closed the window right when you got to it. We like getting our virtual anger out and this game made it easy for us to do which is a very good thing becasue we suck at online gaming.
Tax preparation firms aren't known for giving their own money away, but that's what H&R Block is doing with Toss Out Your Bills, a contest where entrants can win up to $10,000 toward everyday expenses.
In tangent with that campaign is the Super Sweet Refund contest, where users can send in videos in the hopes of winning $5,000. One video features a girl prepping herself for plastic surgery and another features a boy who collects paper clips. Other entries are also really strange - and here we were, thinking everybody uses their super sweet refunds to pay off credit card debt. Maybe this year we'll use our refund to have a tail surgically implanted. We always thought we'd look nice with a tail.
We're going to venture a guess and say Pepsi is fast losing the identity contest between itself and Coke, which reminded everyone in its series of Super Bowl spots of its place in feel-good Americana. That's the only explanation we have for this invitation to design Pepsi's next billboard, a campaign that falls in line with their new series of customized can designs. Very Jones Soda.
Well, here's to hoping Pepsi finds what it's looking for (a salute to the spirit of youth and discovery, according to their site intro). If nothing else, the Super Bowl showed us consumers can outdo marketers on their own territory. And we have yet to see a really good consumer-generated print ad.
Here's a fun time-waster that falls into the shoot-the-hottie category. Called School For Scoundrels: Fight Dirty, it's an online paint ball game to promote the movie School for Scoundrels that lets you shoot paint balls at guys, girls or an image of someone you upload into the game.
It's not often you're rewarded for your dirty fingernails. Discovery Channel Sweden aims to change that with Dirty Jobs, a contest for consumers who have the filthiest jobs imaginable. A winner is picked each week for five weeks, and each gets 1000 Euros to spend on a vacation away from the latrine they're wallowing in.
The contest is promoted on custom printed toilet paper, courtesy of Miami Guerilla Agency in tangent with Discovery Channel's Zenithmedia. At the outset we considered trashing the firm for being just the umpteenth to think wiping one's ass on the company logo is a good idea, but we find the use of toilet paper apt for their purposes. Right now big contenders for the prize are nurses, pig farmers and heavy divers. It might do well to enter Chuck McBride into the mix, as he seems to be the only one happily at work in his plasma-splotched mass murder scene of an office. Oh wait, he left. Never mind.
Everybody likes a virgin-turned-vamp and a chick who undresses while talking. Mitchum takes these patently American communication strategies to colour the Mitchum Man Man-o-Meter, where Nina the "no-sweat" girl gets sillier and sexier as rankings climb.
So you know, Adrants nailed a 95. (Given the choice, don't compare your manliness to Shaq. Nina knows about the genie movie.)
Mitchum also does the usual strip-tease one better with viral outtakes which you can check out here and here. Speaking from the less testosterone-enriched sex, we confess we like Nina 10 times better knowing she laughs at her own lame come-hither jokes and gets snarky with the back-end guys. Nina rocks well, and not just because she strips without giving us that don't-eat-meat insanity.
Chevy's running Super Bowl College Ad contest draws to a close as February creeps closer. And this teaser for the reality webisode series that started Monday is the sugar they've got to show for it.
By gad, the Chevy Aveo is textured, spacious and roomy? Good use of $5 words. And we love how the ad devolves into a beer-keg yell. These guys are geniuses. Really.
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