Old Navy And 'Cry Wolf' Do Horror Viral Thing

OK, there's just way too many things to do during our day to play check out every little viral campaign that comes our way so we're leaving it to you, Adrants readers, to tell us whether this new make-your-own-horror-movie viral for Old Navy is any good. In a similar vein, the upcoming movie, Cry Wolf, a horror flick, is also doing the viral thing. Treat it as a contest. Which one is better?

Microsoft Launches Cryptic Xbox 360 Promotional Site

John Keehler over at Random Culture informs us Microsoft has launched another cryptic promotional site for what some say is tied to the upcoming Xbox 360 release. The site contains no live links and only the image of a tree, a rabbit and a very faint countdown clock which will reach zero at noon EST on September 27. Microsoft has done this sort of thing before with the OurColony website which was tied to Xbox2. As always, geeks will freak and time will tell.

Ad Shot On Cell Phone Cam Dramatizes Teen Traffic Death

We received this last week and thought it was a joke (there was no tagline). Apparently, our viral radar was out of service. Turns out, it's an ad campaign in the UK for the Department of Transport bringing to light the fact traffic accidents are the biggest cause of accidental death for 12-16 year olds. The ad was created by Leo Burnett's Paul Hordan and Angus Macadam and shot by kids on cell phone cameras. After circulating last week online, it aired on television over the weekend. Dramatic stuff.

Clothes Blown Off Model For Nike AirMax Shoes

To promote a special line of Nike AirMax shoes for French footwear retailer Courir, several videos illustrate the power of air mostly by blowing a lot of Styrofoam packing material around and blowing the clothes off a model the campaign lovingly refers to as "La Bimbo." Yes, it's all in French but the videos make their point.

Regurgitated News Scooped by Scoop

Rather than asking people to swallow the same old news regurgitated over and over again from one news outlet to another, New Zealand's recently launched Scoop, an independent news website, promises raw, unfiltered news. To promote such a lofty venture, New Zealand's Frank Advertising took the regurgitation aspect of news delivery to heart in its creation of an ad campaign for Scoop.

Kick Boxing, Office Antics, Photocopied Butt Promotes 'Ultimate Fighter'

To promote the Spike TV's Ultimate Fighter 2, Ignited Minds has created an online game called The Office Octagon which pits colleagues against one another and tests their toughness in three rounds. Players can invite others to join the game via email or IM. The rounds include a flashing barrage of uncomfortable text, a slew of awkward pictures and a bombardment of embarrassing office insults. The first one to tap out loses.

Being a male focused show and a male focused game, the prized is, well, female related in the form of a photocopied, autographed image of a thong-clad butt. How original. Yet, sadly, how appropriate and on target.

Dog No Longer Man's Best Friend in Opal Viral

Adland points to another funny Opal viral from McCann Erikson and MRM Partners which brings back memories of the Ford EvilTwin and Ford SportKa cat decapitation virals. In this viral, no animal gets decapitated but a cute, fluffy dog does get pushed aside for man's new best friend: the Opal Astra GTC.

David Ogilvy Promotes Advertising Week

In an unsanctioned effort to promote New York's upcoming Advertising Week, Asa Bailey has created a film which posthumously features David Ogilvy riffing on the ad industry's changes and encouraging those in the industry to attend Advertising Week. Of course, the whole thing just leverages Advertising Week as a platform to promote Asa Bailey.

Search Site 118 118 Promoted With Viral Video Series

To promote the UK-based search engine 118 118, several viral videos were created over the last month which, in their own weird way, have something to do with driving viewers to a promotional site which then leads to the 118 118 search page. The page provides searches for businesses, people, addresses, films, train times and the Internet.

The videos, which are made up of odd situations - an old guy skateboarding, a homeless guy having a gourmet dinner out of a trash can and a guy your goes nuts on a traffic cop, all of whom don a 118 118 head bandanna and a black mustache - are just odd enough to create necessary curiosity to see what 118 118 is all about. At least it did for us.

Lee And Dan Return With Charitable Work

Lee and Dan of the famed Volkswagen Suicide Bomber ad have created, along with production company Quiet Storm, a Sixth Sense-like online video, called We Hear Scared People, to call attention to the UK charity Childline, a service children can call when they are faced with abuse. The work was done mostly for free to raise money for the organization.