It really shouldn't be a surprise. After all, it's December and that's when the flood gates open for holiday-themed timewasters, agency Christmas cards, silly videos and Elf Yourself. Yes, it's December and this December brings us Sprint's The Gingerbread Man With Everything, a dress the gingerbread cookie make which OF COURSE you can, YES, send to your friend.
So stop screwing around on Twitter. Stop updating your Facebook page. Finish Digging stories. Stop tagging photos on flickr. And for the love of God, quit hanging out on AdGabber! OK, maybe not so much the last one.
Goodby Silverstein & Partners and Ted Perez created.
It's official. Two makes a trend so the rebirth of the send-to-a-friend time waster is upon us yet again. Following Ceiva's Sit on Santa's Lap, Mullen has created Frozen Pole, an upload-your-face, choose-your-wardrobe, send-to-a-friend thing. It's purpose? To get your tongue stuck on...wait for it...a frozen pole. You know. Like in the movie.
One might assume this little effort could be for some sort of fireball-style candy or some hot chocolate brand or a even reverse logic effort to promote travel to the Caribbean. But no.
It's for...voice recognition company Nuance which is introducing a new product..
Hello? Hello? Anyone? Can some one explain this? Or at least point out my utter stupidity at not grasping the concept? Because it wouldn't be the first time my stupidity got in the way of grasping a concept.
UPDATE: Someone has saved me from my own idiocy. Apparently, though it wasn't clear when I did it, I've been told "when you send message to someone from the site, it translates what they are saying with their frozen tongue into a readable holiday message."
This random spot by Heat/SF for Electronic Arts depicts a tragic sk8erboi who can't play Skate It because he has crab claws for hands.
"All my friends play it. They say it's rad. It's just my dad married a ... crab."
Collective awwwww. Sucks to not be able to live the dream. But hey, he'll get over Skate It, and you know what they say about men who like fish.
By Green Dot.
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Every Saturday in November, registrants for Gillette/EA's Champions of Gaming Tournament could have their avatars broadcast in gigantovision over the NASDAQ and Reuters signs in Times Square. (Those chosen will be emailed and sent a picture of their billboard for posterity.)
Few things are cheaper or more effective than a shout-out. See PGA Tour '09 variant.
By Proximity Canada in tandem with BBDO/New York.
- Massive inked a multi-year, in-game ad deal with THQ. So far, the only game that will for certain feature dynamic advertising is Saints Row 2.
- Queen Rania of Jordan has won the first-ever YouTube Visionary award for her daily videocast. I kind of love her.
- Six Apart has launched something called the TypePad Journalist Bailout Program. Under it, about 30 ex-bloggers or journalists will receive a free TypePad Pro account, tech support, representation on Blogs.com and auto-enrollment into Six Apart's ad network. 300 applications were received in less than two weeks.
- "Diddy is so Sarah Palin."
- Close-up on crotchvertising.
- New buzz word: sexting! Almost as fun as nuggnut. (Click on "Nuggnut pledge" for awesome brainwashing action.)
I don't think I could properly describe "Lips" even if I wanted to. It's an ad for Xbox game Lips, which is pretty much karaoke for the Guitar Hero generation. (The microphone's motion sensitive, and you can select songs from your own collection.)
Agency TAG enlisted Tom Kuntz to conceive a strolling pair of lips, singing Take on Me and going about his business. Then he walks into a house party and traipses creepily up the sleeve of a guy who, right on cue, belts out the chorus to A-HA's greatest hit.
I don't know if it's the lips' cheer that got to me, or the natural seratonin-explosion resulting from Take on Me, but this is an insanely infectious spot. We loves it.
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Pay close attention. The object behind the Grill the Goodness advergame is to put items on the grill, then use various tools (spatula, tongs, fork) to achieve two objectives: cook the food properly, and swat sticky fingers that try to steal the food before it's done.
Do those things with grace and poise, and maybe you won't be relegated to salad shaker when the reckoning happens.
Sassy stuff by Red Tettemer. Also one of the better advergames floating around right now, with the possible exception of Suicide Kittens. Hit the Grill the Goodness homepage for videos, tailgate tips and the Get Grilled Hall of Fame/Shame.
From now through December, expect to see Lara Croft decimating your favourite gamer sites, starting with this one. (Pull the ring in the leaderboard to get her going.)
Once all that pesky content's out of the way, indulge in a big-ass HD ad for Tomb Raider: Underworld, plus free downloadable demo. By Eyeblaster, IGN and SF-based agency JVST.
Playful immersive ad experiences like this are very cool. We saw something similar last September for Wario Land: Shake It! on YouTube. As the video progressed, Wario's kicks, bumps and big fat jiggles utterly "destroyed" the profile page.
Okay, maybe I a idiot. Pretty sure I know my way around an Xbox/PS3, but this Exploration Week site by Arcadium for National Geographic felt like it took too long to get in and just start playing. That's me though, because I've always been an impatient gamer. Screw the start-up mission short film sequences: I wanna blow stuff up and I wanna blow it up now. The site reinforces the theme of exploration, lets you customize things, and the Flash work is great. My gripe is bigger picture: Why does it seem like the one thing the internet has failed to deliver on is a gaming experience on par with the real world? While a lot of that rhetorical has to do with bandwidth issues, the Matrix-Borg Second Life OMG Experience® we've been waiting for hasn't materialized yet.
Maybe it'll be included in the release of Web 5.0.
While HALO 3 still feels like the gold standard for video game trailers, Gears of War 2 doesn't hurt the cause here with the trailer for Last Day. Just take one part contemplative hero, one part hip track (How It Ends by Devotchka) and mix with YouTube for a week. Result? Well, the internetz don't lie. Just ask captawesome014 in the comments there:
"im a hardcore gears fan, this trailer is epic, i mean how would u feel if u thought u were going to surly die underground and it is ur last day above ground?"
Sounds like a hit to me.
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