Random Culture

Tostitos: NOLAF

Great site from Tostitos, the NOLAF website (National Organization For Legislation Against Fun) is a funny site that uses full screen video to its fullest. Worth checking out. Designed by Mekanism and Element 79.

Good Design Friday: Starbucks Coffee At Home

Starbuckscoffeeathome.com is a nicely designed site to promote the purchase of Starbucks beans you can brew at home. Designed by Draft FCB and Your Majesty.

Friday Fun: Coke Zero Advergame

Coke Zero has launched a great advergame in Germany. It's a testament to the type of quality entertainment you can create online, leveraging a ton of video and 3D. Yes, the site's in German, but you can play the game without understanding it, and if you choose the "standard" options, you aren't required to register. Visit CokeZeroGame.de to check it out.

Link via Culture Buzz.

Branded Entertainment: Kit-Kat

Following in the footsteps of animated branded entertainment such as Coke's Happiness Factory, Kit-Kat has created a short animated film. Watch it below...

Link via Adverblog.

Embracing The Free Exchange of Ideas

Prior to Macworld, many websites were buzzing with links to a beautiful application for ordering at Starbucks. Turns out, it wasn't an official Apple release, but the imagination of a multimedia designer, Phil Lu. You can view an animated concept of the application here, and the folks at Influx Insights have a short interview here. If someone doesn't hire this guy and treat him like a rock star, something is wrong with the universe.

Ideas like this make me even more sad that Apple didn't embrace developer applications from the outset. As we've seen with Facebook, the value of opening platforms to developers can have an amazing impact. We're waiting...

Friday Fun: Cadbury vs. Sony

It seems that the Cadbury drumming gorilla isn't the only musical monkey. Check out this great ad from 1987 for Sony in Japan...

Link via Hi-Res.

Whopper Freakout

Crispin Porter has created yet another magical piece of advertising with the Whopper Freakout. To show how much customers love the Whopper, watch this seven minute video in which Burger King "pranks" customers by telling them that the Whopper has been discontinued.

Cadbury Dairy Milk UK

Who cares if you don't know what an ad is about? This, quite simply, is advertising GOLD!

Link via Adthropology.

Patron Social Club

So I have to toot the proverbial horn every once and a while... The company I work for, Click Here, the interactive division of The Richards Group, has launched a new website for Patron. This is the second website we've launched for the premium tequila brand, and it's called The Patron Social Club. Over the weekend, Adweek wrote an article about the site, which you can read here.

It's a great community site, and we're excited about its launch. Check out the site by visiting PatronSocialClub.com.

Guiness Hands

Guinness has launched a new site, Guinness Hands, that features a weird short film (long commercial) using stop motion animation. The site includes a feature that allows visitors to create their own videos through a tool that allows them to manipulate different hand gestures using the keyboard.

Coke & YouTube Team Up

Coca-Cola has teamed up with YouTube for one of the first real custom co-marketing efforts we've seen with an advertiser so far. They've created the "holiday wishcast" that allows visitors to send "video cards" for the holidays.

Link via Adverblog.

Absolut Bling Bling

Absolut has launched a new site for their "Bling-Bling" gift pack. The site includes recipes, downloads, and a section on the history of "bling." It was designed by Swedish agency Great Works.

Link via We Are Ideas.

Wendy's: Bureau for Better Value

Wendy's has launched a new microsite, The Bureau for Better Value, to showcase their value menu. The site includes some nice video and flash integration. As a part of this campaign, the Bureau for Better Value has also created an account on YouTube, with a number of videos they've uploaded to support the campaign. You can access all the YouTube videos here, and I've pulled out a couple of them for you to watch below.

Link via AdJab

Tiger Beer: Unravel The Secret

Adverblog has posted about a great new integrated campaign for Tiger Beer in Singapore. "Tiger: Unravel the Secret" is bascially another BMW Films, but worth checking out. It's comprised of short films that tell the history of Tiger beer, and the secret to its success. According to the post, the campaign was created by Leo Burnett Singapore.

M&M'S + Hieronymus Bosch

Mars has created an advergame to promote dark chocolate M&M'S. Keeping in line with the "dark" theme, the Dark M&M'S Movie Challenge puts users on a mission to guess the titles of "dark movies" as illustrated in a Hieronymus Bosch-like "dark" painting.

Link via Three Minds @ Organic.

Starbucks "Salon"

The Starbucks "Salon" is, according to the site, a "nomadic interactive coffee house, gallery and performance venue rolled into one." It just wrapped up in New York, and will travel around the world to other cities. Check out the great website built to support the Salon here.

Link via Influx Insights. Check out their post for more details.

PopSecret Fan Site? Nope.

PopSecretMountain.com is just a fan site, right? I know so because in the "about" section of the site, it says the following:

Who made this stuff?
People who love Pop Secret popcorn that's who.

Pop Secret paid you to do this...
No, they didn't. We're not making a dime off of this.

I love a cat wearing a pirate suit just like anyone else, but in the first 2 seconds on this site, I could smell the "fake" user generated content from a mile away...

After the folks at AdLand received a strange email trying to spread the word about the site, someone pointed them to a little company called Your Media Coverage. If you check out their "projects" page, you can clearly see  "Pop Secret Mountain" right there. Way to go, guys!

When are marketers going to learn? You can't fake this stuff.

Update: It seems that one possible explanation is that these folks basically create everything as "spec" or as a part of contests and "user generated" submissions. The Toyota Yaris work they talk about on their site, for example, was created as a part of the "user generated" advertising that Current TV accepts. I could go on, but I'd rather not give publicity to a company that does bad spec work.

Patrón Spirits Company: Simply Perfect

The agency I work for, Click Here, recently launched a website for one of our clients, the Patrón Spirits Company. You can find the site at: SimplyPerfect.com. This site is part of a much larger integrated campaign that includes online, print and television. All media focuses on the idea of "debating" perfection, which means that online we could actually allow participation.

Read more about the campaign in this Clickz article from Pete Lerma, Click Here's principal and regular Clickz contributer.

Agency.com Finds A New Way to Pitch

Agency.com, in an attempt to win the Subway business, decided to do something a little different. They created a video of themselves preparing for the pitch and put it online. According to the video, they wanted to show the Subway how "immersed" they get in understanding the client's business.

So is this a "viral" video? Agency.com is hoping so.

Link via AdFreak.

Coca-Cola.com Redesign by AKQA

Coca-Cola has launched a redesign of their flagship website. One of the unique things about this site is that they've begun to integrate consumer generated media. The site was designed by AKQA. Read more about the initiative in this Clickz article.

Starbucks Summer Pursuit

Starbucks has launched a summer "scavenger hunt" promotion, the Starbucks Summer Pursuit. Participants are asked trivia questions via a series of text message clues.

Here's the interesting part... they can answer the questions simply by submitting a picture taken on their camera phone. The technology that makes this possible is "intelligent image recognition", developed by a company called Mobot.

As the folks at Influx Insights point out... there are a ton of applications for this type of technology.

Mentos Gets It

Mentos proves they "get it" by launching a consumer generated media effort called the "Mentos Geyser Video Contest." You may have seen some of the videos floating around that demonstrate what happens when you drop Mentos into soft drinks. This one is my favorite. The Mentos + soft drink phenomenon has spread like wildfire online, and it seems Mentos was paying attention. Better yet, they decided to embrace it.

Right on Mentos! Now why don't one of the soft drink companies throw their hat into the ring on this one? Coke has apparently already dismissed the videos, which have been viewed millions of times. Oh, that's right... they're too busy creating their own.

Link via B.L. Ochman.

Coke "Bottle FIlms" Are Not Viral

As a part of Coke's new ad campaign theme, "Happiness In a Bottle," Advertising Age reports the following:

"Coke and its agencies have teamed up with small production companies to create 15-second viral videos called "Bottle Films" to express love for the liquid, the experience and the brand."

That sounds cool, right? Well let's check out one of the "viral" videos:

Hold the phone... that's not a viral video, it's a commercial! And so are these other "Bottle Films." Let's just say Ad Age and Coke are using the term "viral" very loosely. So far, I've seen nothing "viral" about these "Bottle Films", other than the fact that you can't find them anywhere. Which means Coke and its agencies are doing a rotten job of promoting these as "viral" videos.

Ok, so here are some pointers for Coke and their agencies:

1. Launch a website at Bottlefilms.com that contains all these videos. Come on, this is a no-brainer.
   
2. Buy Google search ads for searches like bottle films, coke, coca-cola, etc... and drive them to the URL mentioned above. (Remember, "viral" is about visitor pass along AFTER they've experienced your content. Advertising and viral do not need to be mutually exclusive.)
   
3. Make videos, not commercials. The success of these "Bottle Films" will be very limited because they're commercials, and therefore, are not that interesting. If they were commercials but included something raunchy, funny or unbelievable, they'd have a chance. But these do not.

Making some "cool" videos and telling 3 people about them is not a recipe for "viral" success. And halfway interesting commercials certainly are not. If you want to see what's successfully spread "virally" in terms of video, go to YouTube and check out the most viewed videos.

There's one commercial in the top 20 today. Watching it should give you an idea about what makes a viral video really take off.

Link via AdFreak.

Orbit Gum: Get A Call From Snoop Dogg

Orbit Gum has teamed up with Snoop Dogg and created a great promotional website: Orbit Gum: Goodcleanfeeling.com. On the site, visitors can enter a phone number to receive a call from Snoop, or a number of other prerecorded voice message. The site's really well designed, with great use of flash and video. One of the neat aspects of the site is a password protected area that can only be accessed by people who get a password from the call. It's a nice touch.

I can testify for how engaging this type of phone feature is. We used it several years ago on a website in support of Home Depot's ESPN College Gameday sponsorship. Visitors to the site could receive or send a call from Lee Corso, one of the hosts. It was the most popular feature on the site. If you're interested in the technology, check out eStara, they provide it.

Thanks to Robert for the heads up!

Folgers Happy Mornings

This commercial for Folgers from Saatchi & Saatchi, New York is awesome. Even if you're a morning person, this will make you want to punch your computer screen.

New Burger King Site: Huckin' Chicken

The sites keep rolling out for Burger King. Huckin' Chicken Extreme Air is the latest site to launch. It features videos of someone in a chicken suit doing tricks on a motorcycle. As more people visit the site, more videos will be revealed.

Link via Clickz.

Snickers "Instant Def"

Snickers has launched Instant Def, a branded entertainment campaign featuring 5 short films about a fictional "hip-hop" crew called Instant Def. This crew is actually played by the Black Eyed Peas.

All in all, the site looks really good, and the short films aren't that bad. It's no BMW films, but it's much more than I would expect from a Snicker's branded entertainment effort.

Visit InstantDef.com to check it out.

Plug Into a Pepsi Poster

BBDO has created a subway poster for Pepsi that actually has a fully functional headphone jack in it. Subway riders in Toronto and Vancouver can plug their headphones into the poster and hear 12 different music tracks.

Link via Advertising/Design Goodness.

Wow. TacoBell.com Redesigns!

I never thought I would say this, but the Taco Bell site looks great! Redesigned by KNI.

Also, check out a new microsite for Taco Bell, Dress the Sauce.

New CP+B Campaign: Man Laws

You may have seen the new Miller Lite commercials featuring celebrities like Eddie Griffin and Burt Reynolds sitting around a square table discussing things like how soon you can take a friend's ex-girlfriend out on a date. I'd seen them on TV, but I had no idea the campaign was created by Crispin Porter + Bogusky.

The new campaign is entitled "Men of the Square Table"... and they've launched a website at: Manlaws.com. You can watch all the commercials at this site, as well as submit your own "man law." Over the next several weeks, posted "man laws" will be opened up for challenge and editing by all visitors to the site.

Link via AdLand.

New Peroni Site

Peroni has launched a great new website for the beer at: Peroniitaly.com. It's a flash site with some interesting 3D navigation. Part of the site is dedicated to their new advertising campaign as well, including a video and audio podcast. It's worth taking a look.

Altoids.com Redesigns!

Altoids has been doing web design right for a while now. Their sites have always been well designed, very interactive and most of all... entertaining. Get ready for more of the same. Altoids.com has been redesigned around a musical/carnival/freakshow kind of theme.

Visit www.altoids.com to see the new site.

The only thing I'm a little disappointed in is the quality of some of the video "characters" on the site. Some of them look pretty low resolution, and in comparison to the photography and design on the rest of the site, this doesn't come off very well.

Link via Adland.

Red Bull: Flugtag Game

Flugtag is defined as "an event in which competitors attempt to fly in homemade flying machines." And oh yeah, it's usually off a pier into the water. This is a real event that Red Bull puts on in various cities.

To promote the event, you can try your luck at Flugtag in a simple but well done flash game created by The Barbarian Group.

Link via Adverblog.

The Ultimate Under Construction Page

This is how you make an "under construction" page. Best one I've seen yet.

Funny thing is, not too many people pay much attention to the design of these pages. But they should. With the example above, I'll be revisiting the site to see when it launches... precisely because the "under construction" page is good.

New Coke Site: Relentless Energy

Coca-Cola has launched a site for their new energy drink, Relentless: RelentlessEnergy.com. The site looks great, and has a good amount of well done video content.

But Adverblog brings up a good point... they're promoting some videos as "viral", when they really aren't. The "viral" videos are little more than teaser clips, and there's nothing very viral about them in terms of content or a method to pass them along.

Milk Gets Sci-Fi Campaign

Wow... The California Milk Processor Board has launched a new site to support their "Sci-Fi" campaign. In the campaign, a fictional planet called "Brittleactica" is afflicted with hair loss, insomnia, pms and cavities. The only thing that can save them? Milk, of course. Visit planetinneed.com to check it out.

This site is REALLY nice. I'm not sure who's behind it, but I would love to give them props. It looks great, works great, sounds great... talk about offline and online integration.

Screensavers Can Still Be Cool

Seriously... Bombay Sapphire has launched a website solely for a kaleidoscopic screensaver. Visit bombaysapphiredreams.com to check it out and download.

Taco Bell Automated Ordering

Is it possible that Taco Bell/KFC might not require cashiers anymore? Check out this Flickr photoset of automated touch-screen ordering at a Taco Bell/KFC hybrid in Morrisville, North Carolina.

It even includes an animated Colonel and animated Taco to take your order.

Miller + Equifax = Consumer Wrath

Wow... this has to be one of the strangest examples I've seen of a company not understanding their customers.

According to BoingBoing, a reader used a junk email address in a contest to avoid further communications with Miller. Months after she dunped the junk account, she received an email from Miller in her main account. Here's a screenshot of the email she received.

How in the heck could this happen? IP address maybe? According to this post at Ad-Verse, Miller is using Equifax... that's right, the company that keeps credit data on you. The author of the O'Reilly "Spam Kings" book has some more details as well.

Link via Adrants.

Guinness Blogging in the UK

That's right, the folks at Guinness in the UK have started a blog at: guinnessblog.co.uk. They're doing a few things right with the blog, like allowing comments and linking out to external sites.

But there are a few things they're not doing so well. The posts are OK, but seem to center more around advertising and press than opening up a line of dialog with their customers.

In addition, they have RSS feeds, but no way to get to them unless you're smart enough to view the page source.

And my biggest gripe of all... This whole "age barrier" thing flat out does not work for a blog. I don't want to have to give you my birthday every time I visit the blog. In fact, I won't visit at all, I'll just use your RSS feeds to read the blog!

However, it's a good first start. Kudos to Guinness for at least getting a few things right!

Link via Blogebrity.

Altoids Valentine's Day Viral

Altoids has launched a viral "singing telegram" for Valentine's day. The talking guy on the site is pretty annoying, but the cool thing about the telegram is that the song is customized with the recipient's name.

Super Bowl Commercials: Whopperettes

I have to say that the Burger King Whopperettes Super Bowl commercial wasn't amazing in my opinion, but it definitely stood out. And like Diet Pepsi, the Whopperettes effort has a much stronger online component. Simply put, the website is great.

Burger King also did a great job building up buzz before the Super Bowl commercials aired, leaking video footage of the King and Brooke Burke online. All in all, a great integration of online and offline, as well as buzz before and after the Super Bowl.

Visit the Burger King Whopperettes site here.

Watch the Whopperettes commercial now:

Super Bowl Commercials: Diet Pepsi

It's time to talk about one of the ads I didn't like... the Diet Pepsi Super Bowl commercials.

View the Diet Pepsi Super Bowl commercial #1 here.

I'd have to say that these were my least favorite commercials in the 2006 Super Bowl. Why? Because clearly Pepsi thought it was producing something "cool", "hip" and "funny." In fact, they produced a campaign that's the equivalent of your Mom pretending she can break dance.

What they did right:

• The website, BrownandBubbly.com - it's great! The "video rejects" section is nice, as is the "face the music" feature.
• Running search engine ads to ride the buzz

What they did wrong:

• The commercials - they weren't funny or entertaining. They .

How they could have fixed it:

• In my opinion, the "video rejects" commercials on the website would have made far better Super Bowl commercials than the ones they used.

The biggest disappointment of the effort was that Diet Pepsi couldn't recognize that the website content was so much better than the commercials.

Super Bowl Commercials: Budweiser

First up on the list for the 2006 Super Bowl commercials discussion is Budweiser. They ran so many commercials this year, 8 in fact, if you count the Budweiser, Bud Light and Michelob Ultra Amber commercials. Overall, these Budweiser commercials looked pretty good. Most of the commercials were funny, although not REALLY funny.

There were two commercials in particular that I liked... the "Super Fan" commercial that featured a streaker sheep, and the Michelob Ultra Amber "Touch Football" commercial. I also thought the commercial with the young Clydesdale was touching, but it wasn't one of my favorites.

View the Budweiser "Super Fan" commercial here.
View the Michelob Ultra Amber commercial here.

Of course, all of the commercials are available to watch on the Budweiser.com site. Budweiser has also done something refreshing, allowing people to actually download the videos instead of just playing them on the site.

CP+B Superbowl Ad: Whopperettes

USA today has an article about Burger King's first super bowl ad in over a decade. Created by Crispin Porter + Bogusky, the ad will be an over the top "musical" production, featuring 92 "Whopperettes" dressed like buns, cheese, pickles and more.

The interesting part about the effort is the plan to distribute the ad in multiple formats. According to the article, Burger King has teamed up with Sprint to send the ad and "behind the scenes" footage to mobile phones right after it airs for the first time. In addition, it sounds like they're going to be releasing some type of podcast version of the ad. It will be interesting to see how this shakes out. I'm not convinced that people want to download ads as podcasts, but Burger King isn't the first to do it.

You can visit Whopperettes.com right now, but there's just a "coming soon" page.

Link via Adland

Red Stripe Needs a Spanking

Red Stripe has launched the "Hooray Commercial Bowl." It's a contest calling on people to create ads in a bid to win $5,000 and a trip to Jamaica.

Here's the kicker... YOU HAVE TO MAIL YOUR SUBMISSION! That's right, you can't submit it online. You must download and print out a PDF entry form and "snail mail" your entry to them, rendering the campaign almost completely ineffective.

This is a HUGE no-no. Who's creating these interactive campaigns for them? They need a spanking.

Ketchup can be Beautiful

The Heinz Sweden site is proof that you don't need a cool product to make a great looking site. Smooth flash and great photography make this site a must see. Created by the folks at Daddy.se.

Starbucks: What Makes Coffee Good

I just posted about Starbucks, I know... but I have to mention them again. This time, it isn't for holiday marketing, but for a great microsite they've launched. What Makes Coffee Good is great site that takes a behind the scenes look at exactly that. The site was created by the oh-so-wonderful Second Story Interactive, who are pretty much legendary for all the award winning work they've done for National Geographic and others.

Link via Adverblog.

Red Cup Redux

Almost exactly a year ago, I posted about the Starbucks "Red Cup" holiday campaign. At that time, I had some serious questions about whether it was nicely simple, or an incomplete attempt. It looks like Starbucks has revamped the campaign this year, updating the "Red Cup" site.

Although I believe they could do much more with this idea, the site is much better this year. There is much more content, and they've managed to keep it much more fresh, with something updated on the site every day.

Link via Adverblog.

Holiday Site for Coke Poland

Coca-Cola has launched a nice little holiday microsite in Poland. It features a number of interesting advergames... and you don't have to be fluent in Polish to figure them out.

Link via Adverblog.

Pillsbury Viral: Dancin' Doughboy

Pillsbury has launched the "Dancin' Doughboy." Users can created a dance sequence using the doughboy, add music, and send it to a friend. While it's not anything unique, it's hypnotizing to watch the doughboy do the Hustle.

Link via Screenhead.

Marketing with Web 2.0

The idea of Web 2.0 includes "mash-ups", using an open API to create something new. We saw this happening with the recent Jeep Commander site, We are the Mudds, where Jeep developed a custom scavenger hunt application using Google Maps. Heineken in the Netherlands has followed suit, launching a website that uses Google Images to create postcards. The site's in Dutch, but it's pretty easy to navigate around even if you don't know the language.

I think we'll be seeing more marketers embrace this. Although Web 2.0 is fairly abstract, it has a few guiding principles for marketers to follow. It seems at least a few are starting to make an impression.

Link via Adverblog.

Heineken UK Quits TV

Heineken UK is taking TV budgets elsewhere. According to the Times Online, Heineken UK managing director Rob Marijnen says TV is "very expensive and it’s questionable as to its effectiveness." So what is Heineken's solution? Sport sponsorship and point-of-sale marketing campaigns will the the focus of the budget, according to the Times.

Umm, wow... did anyone tell them about this whole Internet thing? Most people seem to be taking money away from TV and putting it online. This move by Heineken UK seems to be a move in the opposite direction.

Link via Adverblog.

Mountain Dew Energy Soda?

The idea of an "energy soda" seems kinda like an oxymoron to me. I thought Mountain Dew was already pretty juiced up in the caffeine department? Whatever the case, Mountain Dew has launched a new "energy soda" called Mountain Dew MDX.

The website, Benocturnal.com, could use some work... but the spots made me laugh out loud. The combination of singing animals and Lionel Ritchie is unstoppable.

Link via Adrants.

Heineken Greenspace

Heineken has launched the website for Heineken Greenspace, a series of events featuring art, music, film and more in temporary spaces. The first event will be in Valencia, held in warehouses that will host a week of activities.

Coors Viral Parody Site

Coors has launched a viral site that feels similar to The Onion. Beer Drinkers Against the Mistreatment of Beer is full of parody news stories, and is trying to look like something that wasn't created by a beer company. This explains the low quality video clips. I didn't see a Coors mention anywhere, although the age verification up front certainly gives a hint.

Link via AdPulp.

Absolut Metropolis

Wow... that's all I have to say about Absolut Metropolis, one of the latest online initiatives for Absolut Vodka. Absolut Metropolis is the result of Absolut of photographer Nadav Kandar capturing the original "style" of a bunch of folks in Tokyo. It's a must see...

Update: TheM5.com

I posted a few weeks ago about the upcoming Coca-Cola site, TheM5.com. Well, the site has launched. It looks great, and there's a ton of content to dig through. Overall, I'm impressed by this effort from Coke. The site's really built on good design and good music.

KFC: Viral Marketing

To support the launch of their new "Flavor Station," KFC has launched Chooseyoursauce.com. It's basically a "choose your own adventure" video series. It's really not that entertaining... In fact, I played this choose your own adventure game today that was much more entertaining.

Link via Adrants.

Diet Coke: Hotel You

Diet Coke has launched a website called "Hotel You." The site is supposed to offer content about food, travel and style... and it does, but the