To promote its new Motorola ROKR phone which adds 100 song 1Tunes capability, Cingular has launched a microsite, called Make Me Dance, which allows visitors to select a character, select a song, make it dance, then send it to a friend. It's a weak version of the Wedding Crasher's Trailer Crashers promotion which allowed visitors to place their their own image and images of their friends on the faces of characters in the movie trailer which could then be sent to friends. With Cingular's Make Me Dance, visitors can upload their own images but the resulting dance can not be sent to a friend. Odd. The whole thing's designed to convince people a cell phone that can hold a whopping 100 songs is somehow a viable option to the usual 3-5,000 song MP3 player. Hitachi, where are we when we need you?
In early August, we told you Coke had embarked on an "experiential" marketing concept that would, as Ad Age wrote, "interpret what the marketer calls the brand's 'optimism' through a series of short films and breakthrough bottle designs." The project, called M5, involved five design shops which each created "iconic" designs that would affect packaging and other branding elements and were designed to increase appeal to younger generations. Well, the marketing masturbation is complete and the "experiential" designs have launched. Without dispute, the work is great but we're not much for phoofy, frilly, flashy fluff. When we're thirsty and want a Coke, we don't really care what container it comes in. That's just us though. The hipster crowd...that's another story.
Especially enjoyable is the sultry blather that, upon clicking the bottle in the lower right corner of the site, coos gushingly from within and explains the genesis behind the endeavor, oozing, "An icon is transformed..." Oh don't listen to us. The whole thing's pretty cool. The project was created by The Ebeling Group, Hybrid, and the Rock and Roll Agency. Armchair Media created the Website.
While trawling for his daily feed tube of crucial gossip, Bucky Turco spotted a banner for HBO which promotes comedian Ali G's show. The banner, which only expands if you have Internet Explorer (what's up with you designers" Have you heard half the world uses Firefox now?), allows you to begin a live chat. Unfortunately, there seems to be no responses from Ali G. Perhaps he's too busy making foreign politicians look dumb but you'd think there'd at least be some sort of automated response. Bucky points out Ali G's vocabulary is like no others and the designers, at least, could programmed in some automated verbal gems for our amusement. Let's hope the banner's just broken, will be fixed soon and the agency doesn't get fired.
UPDATE: Apparently, it's been fixed.
FOX has acquired IGN Network for $650 million. IGN will be placed within the FOX Interactive Media segment of the company and will bolster the company's growth into the Internet medium.
Random Culture points out Lee Jeans has given Buddy Lee more to do with the launch of Buddy Lee Guidance Counselor, a microsite where the little guy dispenses career advice, calculates your future salary, give career tests and challenges visitors to explore four potential careers - Judo Instructor, Helicopter Rescue Pilot, Matador and Alaskan Fisherman - via online games. We never got to the part where Lee Jeans are actually promoted but that's the whole point, isn't it?
Adverblog points to a French promotion for the debut of Desperate Housewives in France. Called HusbandsForSale, the site lets women buy and sell a husband online choosing them by region, age and an odd metric, perfection level. It's all in French so we'll have to take Adverblog's word it's well done.
As part of its flavored chicken Flavor Station promotion, KFC has launched ChooseYourSauce, a site that let's people choose there own adventure, After watching a clip of a couple guys in an office cubicle, three choices are presented at the end of the clip that lead to different story lines. The choices, of course, relate to KFC's new offering which lets customers choose from three lunch items - chicken strips, popcorn chicken and chicken wings - then choose one of three sauces - fiery buffalo, honey barbecue and sweet and spicy. The chicken is then served slathered with the chosen sauce. Foote Cone & Belding created the site and handles the rest of the $35 million campaign.
Fabric softener Bounce has launched Bounce Fresh Ideas Message Board, a place where people can come and read about different uses for the product and post their own uses. We're not talking about throwing a sheet in the dryer to make your clothes smell nice. That's just boring. We're talking about using them to make trash cans smell better, placing them in an open window to keep bugs out, slapping it on an air conditioner filter to sweeten up the room, hanging them around the house after a flood to get the smell out, using it to clean sticky pans and using it as mouse repellent. Talk about extending a products usage. Hass MS&L is promoting the site.
A weblog, called Displaced Designers, has been launched to aid creative industry individuals in the New Orleans area who have been displaced by hurricane Katrine and are in need of assistance. The blog appeals to those individuals and companies that can provide office space, living space, computers, other business resources and jobs to those who have been affected by Katrina. A valiant effort, indeed.
Following its video explaining how, someday, it will make hard drives with bits that stand up versus laying down that can enable a typical 6GB MP3 player hard drive to hold 30,000 songs, Hitachi has launched another video, called "The Hard Drive is the New Bling." which announces it has accomplished the task. The video, which is done up in a kooky, beatnick, hip-hop, spoof style, explains why its tiny hard dives will bring life to cell phones and MP3 players. The companies new hard drives are smaller than a domino in physical size and up to 60GB in capacity. No doubt, 30,000 song MP3 players won't be far behind.
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