It's a fair statement for us to say, for the most part, we've never found an online game we've really liked. In an odd and twisty bit of word play for us, a game called I Never has become an online game we really do like. Created by Kansas City-based Sullivan Higdon & Sink for Houlihan Restaurants, I Never is a drinking game (well, a virtual one in this case) where one person asks another ten questions and it spirals from there.
SHS's John January explains, saying, "Players can invite their friends to play I Never and can choose from questions we wrote or questions they make up themselves. Following on the heels of this email will be an invitation to play the game. Each time one of us chooses to submit answers the rest of us will be notified. You can wait for a couple of people to answer or you can watch as each person answers. Whatever floats your boat. The stories are optional but they make the game better."
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The moment we heard somebody actually made money on Second Life, we knew it was only a matter of time before the smut trades came barging in, followed by regulations galore.
Linden Lab cracks down on casinos, and a source tells us their stock market's pretty much gone to bust.
Second Life is starting to sound a lot like first life. Nix the laggage and cool costumes, of course. The debate over which is actually worth living remains a personal preference.
MS&L Digital helped launch this weird new site called Get Your Game Feet On, a perhaps dead-on attempt at making Novartis' Lamisil AT Gel more jock friendly.
We weren't deeply moved by hosts Mike and Mike's feel-good product pushing (it's really hard to take feet seriously) but we kind of liked the hoop shot game and thought the talking socks were sort of funny. That is, until we remembered Lamb Chop and got really bummed out. It's not every day that your favourite talking sock dies.
Inspired by the menagerie of ad-smothered games, someone took it upon himself to go, "By gad - we should make ad games for advertisers!" This dangerous stream of thought yielded the PROMO Marketer's Challenge, a drably-coloured trivia challenge on the ad industry -- complete, of course, with ads.
The purpose of the game is to get talk out about PROMO magazine, which covers promotions and integrated marketing and is prepping for a relaunch. Redesign teasers are interspersed not-so-subtly throughout; in fact, we've played enough times to merit a free subscription CPM-wise. Are you listening, PROMO? Your SPREADS are engraved behind our EYELIDS.
We dig this new effort by Xerox to get relevant again. Leaping headfirst into Web 2.0, they launch Frugal Color, which encourages "[putting] the fun back into fundamental fiscal responsibility!" It also lends some wise advice -- you don't need to spend money to make money, you just need to look like you do.
To somehow illustrate that, Frugal Color includes a virtual goat, a diversion maker and an acronymator. Weird viral would-be's a la Office Space and The Office are also located at Extreme Offices. The video is so damn funny we watched it three times to get the full effect. (It is one of those nights.)
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We were lollygagging on MySpace because apparently we never have anything better to do (this is our second mention this evening) when a funny Citibank ad caught our eye.
To promote its student-targeted credit cards Citi's got this weird campaign with haphazardly drawn college students. In the one we saw, the head of an oft-complimented girl expands until she floats away like a balloon.
The co-ed courting credit cards include Citi Bronze (for Jet Setters), Citi Dividend Platinum (for the Cash Fan) and the Citi MTVU card (for the Rewards Junkie).
We love little characterizations like that. What better way to sniggle us into a frightening APR than to give each one a personality? If we weren't debating Jet Setters or Rewards Junkies we'd probably still be on Rachel or Monica.
Nothing brings people together like the promise of intoxication. Leveraging its ongoing love affair with Anheuser-Busch, MingleNow launches Clink, an "innovative new social networking promotion" where trend-setting adults can upload pictures of themselves enjoying beer.
"Supporting this niche social media outlet where people actively engage in sharing stories and images reinforces the honesty and authenticity of socializing over a beer," says EVP Bob Lachky for the global industry development sector of Anheuser-Busch.
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Vancouver agency smashLAB has launched Design Can Change, an initiative that urges designers to become aware of the affect they have on the environment. On his blog, Eric Karjaluoto offers some stunning numbers, writing, "...if you are a member of the AIGA, you take part in purchasing or specifying over $9 billion of printing and paper per year. At the risk of sounding obtuse, I have to say, 'That's a lot.' Let me give you another number: 81 million tons. That's the amount of paper waste you and I helped generate over the past year. How about this one? More than a million. That's how many species are expected to be at risk of extinction by 2,050 as a result of global warming. Another? $11 billion. That's the average cost of climate-related disasters in Europe during the 80s and 90s."
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The cool thing about True.com is that their campaigns are racy, generally consistent and immediately recognizable. Those three components are kind of a big deal when you're trying to brand build.
There once was a time when Match.com was cool, but they've since run in a thousand confusing directions. We were surfing around this afternoon when we came across their latest shot in the dark.
This guy invites you to stare. Then he turns around and starts talking to you. Like, out of the ad, to you. Then he goes, "What are you waiting for?"
We looked around. It wasn't 2 AM. We weren't between scenes in a Lifetime movie. There was no local-singles 800 number to dial. And we were confused.
You've got to wonder about a person who would accept money to sleep on a desk...in public..all day long. On second thought, what's to wonder? It's a perfect gig. Get paid to sleep. That's what FedEx Kinko's did as part of its No More Allnighters promotion which promotes the company's Print Online service. There's also an "explore the cubicle" website and a video in which a guy consumes the necessary liquid to perform an allnighter. Good stuff.
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