Celebrating the beauty of violence and glorifying its callous regard for it, Mortal Kombat has launched a new viral (or, at least an online film they hope goes viral - after all, it's ain't viral until it becomes viral), called Blood on the Carpet, to promote the new Shaolin Monks game. The film was directed by Seamus Masterson of Maverick and will be tracked by Viral Chart. Violent or not, you have to admit, after day-long, mindless, chest-thumping, group hug, brand-building blather sessions, this is exactly what you'd want to do to the pontificating, puffery-spewing idiot sitting next to you.
Spoofing its own Pepsi Max Heaps Rich campaign, Pepsi Australia has launched a viral advertising campaign called Heaps Poor Pepsi Min which, over the past three weeks, has been viewed by 160,000 people. The site features a spoof of Pepsi's currently running promotional television spot along with purposefully bad prizes and a game that lets visitors determine how boring they are. Some nice insiderishness here.
Left-wing grassroots organizer Tom Kertes has launched Bill For First Lady 2008 which is being promoted by a viral of a Bill Clinton look-a-like dressed in pink and modeling, disgustingly, a thong. The site explains the effort thusly, "It's serious fun. It's a serious strategy. All laughs aside, Bill-for-First-Lady.com is about serious politics. It's about taking back the White House in 2008. But serious politics doesn't need to be boring politics. (We'll leave that up to the Republicans.) The Republican attack machine is already going after Hillary. That's because they know that she's the most popular and electable Democrat." Seriously, wouldn't that be hilarious if Bill actually did become First Man?
The site's got all sorts of logoed promotional items such as trucker hats, caps, mugs, t-shirts, buttons, bumper stickers and even thongs.
This viral video which pits an old lady against a pompous jerk with no patience promotes an ethereal website for IKEA which challenges you to imagine odd combinations which, together, form useful home goods. Well sort of. We still don't know why anyone would need bamboo sticks to clean a house.
The site explains, "IKEA asked 28 designers to explore and experiment. To test new materials, techniques and new ways of working. But most of all, to have fun. They responded with a cavalcade of ingenious and madly innovative ideas for every home bold enough to be unconventional and the results can be seen throughout this website."
To promote the release of FOX's The Family Guy DVD, Fuel Industries has created a Subservient Chicken-like site, called Stewie Live, featuring the character Stewie. As is usually the case with these command-based sites, Stewie, of course, burps, farts and has sex. Beyond that, Stewie reacts to 160 commands so far and the list will surely grow. To view an homage to the grand daddy of this genre, be sure to type in the word "chicken."
Called Parental Enlightenment Kit, this site is packed with ammunition and propaganda kids can use to convince their parents they really, really need a cell phone. With pressurePoint presentations, pre-written emails, stickers, iron-on t-shirt patches, a tear-inducing thank you card, wallpaper kids can put on their parent's computers, and other stuff, the site arms kids with all the tools they need for the snow job.
To insure skiers and boarders hit the slopes in droves this winter, American Skiing Company, parent to Killington, Sunday River, Sugarloaf and others, has launched Skier Intervention, a viral site with characters that dish out tough love in hopes people will get off their butts, head North, buy a season pass, make American Skiing Company rich and...oh yea...get people to take up the winter's best sporting and leisure activity. After all, skiing's not just about sliding down snow-covered hills but enjoying warm fires, cozy condos, beer and cheese fondue.
Unfortunately, there's a big problem with this viral. It can't be sent unless senders enter name, address, city, state, zip code and email. That's a lot to ask of someone just to pass along fun little viral. The site explains the information is needed to send various prizes, earned based on referrals to friends, such as season pass discounts, accommodations drawings and free lift tickets. While we can't fault a marketer for collecting leads, there's really no need to collect that information until after a person has actually won. To make matters worse, deep inside the privacy policy, which no one ever reads, it says the collected information may be used for offline direct mailings from ASC or "trusted partner companies." Just what we need - more crap in our mailbox. It seems this online viral is just a disguised direct marketing database-building mechanism for future offline marketing efforts.
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To promote Courir, a chain of French footwear stores, Paris agency Mask has created Everyday Sneakers, a spoof site which features the fictitious Takeshi Mushido, a Japanese business man who claims his company has dramatically increased productivity because all his employees wear sneakers to work. He even sings a hip-hop tune to get the point across. The site includes a Mushido interview with a stuffy French talk show host, Mushido's philosophy and even a book, Everyday Baskets which further illuminates Mushido's philosophies. It's all got just enough tongue and cheekiness to work.
Using the stereotypical motivational speaker, McDonald's, with this viral, is encouraging people to improve lunchtime blandness by helping them shatter boring lunchtime thoughts and replacing them with, of course, thoughts of McDonald's Toasted Deli Sandwiches.
To promote the upcoming Tim Burton movie, The Corpse Bride, Boston-based Pod Design has created not one but three online microsites. Adverblog points to Post Mortem where you can ask the dead questions Ouigi board-style; Bonymail where you can create messages from the dead to send to your friends; and Sept23 where you can view a scary video of a graveyard and a quick trailer for the movie. It's all nice, quick and simple - just the way we like our virals.
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