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Chewing Gum Game Let's You Kiss the World, Win An iPod

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Adverblog points to a little facial suckage contest called Kiss Off created by Dutch agency Qi for its client Stimorol Chewing Gum. It's a typical challenge game in which you choose your kissing character, your friend's character and the type of kiss. The challenge is then sent via email to the friend for viewing. The ubiquitous iPod is offered as a prize if your kiss is good enough. Britney won't be sending it to Kevin anytime soon.

by Steve Hall    Mar- 2-06   Comments ()    Bookmark and Share     
Topic: Games, Good, Online, Promotions, Viral

Pen Company Hopes For Viral Spread of Message

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Staedtler writing implement company has launched a campaign in Australia to increase use of its products. The only domestic manufacturer of pens and pencils in the country, Staedtler faces competition from the all mighty keyboard, those pesky imports and the death of the handwritten letter. Acknowledging this, Staedtler, with help from Host, have created a campaign that leverages dependence on the keyboard for correspondence. The campaign consists of a site on which visitors can craft a handwritten message and have it mailed to a friend (in Australia) but the return address will be that of the website from which the note originated. Host hopes this spirals and causes recipients to visit the site, create their own notes and spread the campaign exponentially.

The site will also be promoted with print ads and handwritten notes placed in public places throughout Melbourne and Sydney. We're not quite sure how continually driving people to a website to create digital notes will increase sales of physical pens and pencils but, like, whatever. It'll be fun to watch the whole country pen-pal'ing itself.

by Steve Hall    Feb-28-06   Comments (5)    Bookmark and Share     
Topic: Online, Viral

McDonald's Launched Bi-Lingual Filet-O-Fish Game Site

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Dallas-based Moroch Partners has launched a bilingual, interactive gaming site, called Shark Bait, for McDonald's centering on the Filet-O-Fish and Double Filet-O-Fish sandwiches. In the first level of the game, the player has to keep the sandwich away from attacking sharks and the walls of the tank. There are two additional levels for which unlock codes can be obtained by forwarding the game to a friend viral-bribe style.

The effort aligns well with the rise in online gaming and players who interact with a fish sandwich for a while just might succumb to the power of suggestion and go buy a deep fat fried slab of fish between a bun slathered with some kind of special sauce. Mmm. I'm lovin' it!

by Steve Hall    Feb-27-06   Comments ()    Bookmark and Share     
Topic: Games, Good, Online, Viral

Pherotones Extends Campaign to Viral Video

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Those crazy kids over at McKinney Silver have extended their Pherotones campaign, a guised promotion for Oasys Mobile to viral video with this clip seeded through Emily's Eatmail. While ringing cell phones in the middle of a wedding ceremony certainly cause reaction, the reaction to this ring tone...excuse us...pherotone causes a different sort of reaction with the groom.

by Steve Hall    Feb-24-06   Comments (2)    Bookmark and Share     
Topic: Viral

Poker Site Creates Fake Cause Group to Complain About Ad, Get Views

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A press release rolled across our screen today which claimed a supposedly controversial video supposedly leaked virally last week was supposedly "under fire" from a Muslim group because the video supposedly poked fun at Muslims. The whole thing's a sham. Pokershow.com is behind it. They invented the cause group Muslim Media Watch under the guise of a plainly fake Blogger blog which just launched Feb. 17 according to Whois and the fact the blog has nearly no content. It's amateur hour again in poker marketing land. Of course we just did exactly what they wanted - give them publicity.

by Steve Hall    Feb-23-06   Comments (1)    Bookmark and Share     
Topic: Bad, Online, Promotions, Strange, Viral, Weblogs

New Zealand Helicopter Stunt A Big Lie, Sponsor Comes Clean

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When one is hoodwinked, the natural reaction is to get mad and start calling people names but we're not going to do that because we think this hoodwink was one of the best marketing stunts to come around in a long time. As we reported in late January, a helicopter with a naked guy hanging from it was spotted at New Zealand's Big Day Out but the stunt went wrong and the guy fell to the ground and was injured. We also received a taped conversation between what was assumed to be a representative of New Zealand's Civil Aviation Authority and a person at DDB, the agency thought to be behind the stunt in which the CAA representative was trying to obtain details of the event.

None of this happened. While we were skeptical at the time and knew New Zealand site Nzgirl had something to do with the stunt, we couldn't get anyone to confirm or deny anything. As it turns out, Nzgirl, which has a reputation of doing crazy, stunts, wanted to top everything they'd done before so they decided to do nothing...except tell a few people they did and let the rumor mill run with it. A dozen people were hired to spread the story about the helicopter and the nude guy and that was it. New Zealand media bit and reported the story as if it had happened albeit with a bit of distrust. Nzgirl reaveals all here.

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by Steve Hall    Feb-20-06   Comments (1)    Bookmark and Share     
Topic: Events, Good, Guerilla, Viral, Word of Mouth

Pherotones Viral Is For Oasys Mobile

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The words out. The Pherotones viral, created by McKinney Silver is for Oasys Mobile according to some digging by Mike Schramm and Darryl Smith. Schramm examined some comments Smith had made on the MAKE blog in which he, through the use of some fancy Javascript, found some directory information on a file server hosting the Pherotones site. The directory info read," U:\\Interactive\\Clients\\OASYS\\OA7216_Pheretones_Microsite." With it already having been determined McKinney Silver was behind the project, Schramm performed a simple Google search on "OASYS" which led him to Oasys Mobile. There you have it. Next.

by Steve Hall    Feb-14-06   Comments (3)    Bookmark and Share     
Topic: Viral

Nike Film Series Leads Up to Football World Cup

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To promote the 2006 Football (soccer) World Cup, Nike has launched a campaign called Play Beautiful which consists of eight serialized videos, the first showing a ficticious cause group, headed by real-life, legendary footballer Eric Cantona, taking over a television station to deliver the group's message of encouragement. In the first video, Cantona says "we've let liars and cheaters make a fool of the game" and that he is here to "remind the world that this game is about skill, heart, honor, joy, team spirit." He urges us to make the game beautiful again. As football-clueless Americans, we never would have know the game had a problem in the first place so we'll take his word for it.

Future videos will also feature Cantona along with other current footballers. The video was produced by Wieden & Kennedy and F/Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi, who handle work for Nike in Brazil, created the site.

by Steve Hall    Feb-11-06   Comments (1)    Bookmark and Share     
Topic: Brands, Online, Viral

'Black' Launched WIth Microsite Game And Stealth-Like Tactics

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To promote the new, first person shooter EA game, Black, Freestyle has launched My Black Valentine. Stereotypical connotations of the word "black" and "shoot" aside, the microsite helps those who are without love during Valentine's day get their anger out by shooting things. It's simple enough, fun for a few minutes and you can send it to a friend which, by current definition, makes it a viral. At least that's what Freestyle says.

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by Steve Hall    Feb-10-06   Comments (6)    Bookmark and Share     
Topic: Games, Guerilla, Online, Opinion, Viral

Agent Provocateur Debuts 'Tied Up at the Office'

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Perhaps living up to the notion the trailer's better than the actual movie or, perhaps, we've just been teased so much by the trailer we've detached ourselves from the intended effect, the full length version of Mike Figgis' film for Agent Provocateur, released today, seems to fall short - just an extended version of the trailer. That said, if you haven't seen it yet, find a private, secluded spot and be prepared to be very aroused. The film features two women, shot in a tantalizing black and white noir style (well, we call it that but we don't speak "movie review" very well), having a sultry, sexual encounter in the basement of a lingerie store. Suffice to say, there's lots of soft sexual whimpers, moaning, sexy lingerie, nudity, sliding of fingers over erogenous zones, longing stares and trench coated women as the camera lustfully slobbers over the women quick cut-style. Sadly, there's no real climax.

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by Steve Hall    Feb- 9-06   Comments (1)    Bookmark and Share     
Topic: Good, Online, Viral

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