Virgin Money Offers Anger Release With Online Game

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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.

by Steve Hall    Feb- 6-07    
Topic: Games, Good, Online



HR Block Doesn't Just Save You Cash, They'll Even Give You Some

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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.

by Angela Natividad    Feb- 6-07    
Topic: Games, Online



Pepsi Asks Consumers for Billboard Help

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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.

by Angela Natividad    Feb- 5-07    
Topic: Brands, Games, Online



Shoot-The-Hottie Paint Ball Game Promotes Movie

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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.

by Steve Hall    Feb- 2-07    
Topic: Games, Good, Online



Discovery Channel Rewards Dirtiest Jobs in Sweden

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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.

by Angela Natividad    Feb- 1-07    
Topic: Campaigns, Games, Good



'No-Sweat Girl' Drops Trou as Mitchum Man-o-Meter Climbs

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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.

by Angela Natividad    Jan-25-07    
Topic: Games, Good, Online



Big Shocker: Even Citizen Marketers Get a Little Lazy

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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.

by Angela Natividad    Jan-24-07    
Topic: Bad, Games, Online, Super Bowl 2007, Television



Fame Game Fabricates Fancy Electro-Funk Concoction

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The Fame Game, an all-online talent show where the talented and not-so-talented vie monthly for money and stars, enlists Cake to create a catchy viral. The result? Kitchen Diaries.

For a good Electro Funk Daddy Superstar Break, a quirky beat-boxing chef throws together a satisfying ingredient list of ripped noises. After creating an awesome break, he recommends nixing the fish (a popular addition) and sticking the mixture in an oven to bake for three years at 700 degrees.

Awesome work and a tasty listen. Take a look at the wannabes who've already jumped on board. We recommend you not skip the Elvis impersonator who beat-boxes on the john. Definitely pimp-throne worthy, yeah?

by Angela Natividad    Jan-23-07    
Topic: Games, Good, Online, Strange



Rosie Dances with Tissue Boxes for Kimberly-Clark Sweepstakes

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We stood behind Rosie after that Donald Trump nonsense. We like that she stuck by what she said even when the Trumpster threatened to fling a lawsuit in her direction on one of his ninja-star toupees. But this makes us feel funky about her.

Kimberly-Clark hits The View to push their room makeover sweepstakes. Rosie gets exhaustively excited and right when we think she can't look more insane she does a Broadway number complete with dancing K-C products. And that's not something we could have made up even if we tried really, really hard.

Rosie, we hate to be the ones to tell you, but you're not funny anymore. We can't remember whether you ever really were. You're a bit cartoony. And not in a neat Jim Carey way. You're more like, well, that Roger Rabbit villain who tried to kill the other cartoons with Dip.

He gave us the horrors. And these days, you do too.

by Angela Natividad    Jan-22-07    
Topic: Brands, Celebrity, Games, Online, Strange, Television



Candystand Brings Ping Pong to the Detriment of Idle Web Workers

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Considering how often we've moodily blasted them, it's humbling to announce Candystand has put out a game so appealing we've lost half our morning. And you're about to lose the rest of your afternoon. Welcome to their Wrigley's rendition of Ping Pong.

There's also a game called Around the World that's not nearly as much fun but merits checking out because we know how badly you need something to do after lunch.

by Angela Natividad    Jan-19-07    
Topic: Brands, Games, Good, Online