Coca-Cola Goes To New Heights To Promote Friendship

I really like this campaign from a creative standpoint, but I'm a little concerned about what might have happened should someone have gotten hurt. Coca~Cola has always had great marketing but this one strikes me as an interesting one from a viral standpoint.

I'm all for anything that encourages team work, and the incentive here certainly seemed to do just that!

First GeoCaching, Now Latituding!

The Official Google Blog is hoping to start a new trend that I'm dubbing Latituding. The idea is to get your friends together and send them out with their smartphones equipped with Google's Latitiude ,and then have them maneuver into position to spell out words. Check out the video and you'll get the picture (grown) ...

Finalists Named In "Best Job In The World" Contest

Queensland Tourism Minister Desley Boyle received nearly 35,000 applications for what was described as the "best job in the world". Using a viral marketing campaign to get the word out and a contest that offered compensation of $150,000 and the use of an oceanfront home for six months, Queensland has narrowed the field to 50 applicants for the job that involves living in exclusive Hamilton Island for six months and blogging about your experiences their.

“The campaign has largely relied on public relations and social networking activity,” Boyle said after announcing the finalists. “It's captured the imagination of the world and to date it's generated more than $70-million in publicity value.

“Apart from brilliant television, radio and newspaper coverage, the campaign has been the catalyst for special online discussion groups, bulletin boards, blogs and websites, with applicants critiquing their competition, having detailed discussions and swapping ideas and tips,”

Applicants relied on Youtube to post their application videos and Facebook and Twitter to rally support making the experience a truly social campaign.

According to the Globe and Mail "Eleven finalists will be flown to Hamilton Island for interviews before a winner is selected this summer. Queensland tourism officials will select 10 finalists and public voting will determine the final candidate. Voting ends March 24. After the first days of voting, a finalist from Russia is in the lead, followed by Canadian Mitch Moffit, a contestant from Guelph, Ont."

Only The Internet Could Make This Possible

When I read the Bits Blog posting entitled "Torso for Rent, Year Round" I was surprised that nobody had thought of this sooner than now and that the scheme would actually work this well in the first place. Twenty six year old Jason Sadler is selling a days worth of advertising on his T-shirt to interested buyers and the price is dependent on the day of the year, for example January 1 sold for $1 and December 31 for $365. If you've bought into the plan Mr. Sadler wears your branded T-shirt or message on your day, making appearances on high profile sites such as Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and live-streaming site UStream.tv. Since launching in November Mr. Sadler has sold 239 days or about 65% of the calendar year and expects to sell out in March netting him a total $66,795.

As you can see in the video below the requests are varied...



Good on ya Jason!
I Wear Your Shirt

Levi Strauss Goes Viral On YouTube

Who says that Levi's aren't cool anymore? The company has struck quite an audience online with this viral YouTube video:


Ouch! Let's just say better these guys than me... I think I'll stick to one leg at a time the rest of the sane people.

Online Video Advertising To Grow... Cautiously!

The Globe and Mail has an interesting article about the raise of online video advertising and the unique experiences being offered to online video consumers as opposed to television viewers. According to research firm eMarketer, projections say that spending on online video advertising will be tripling to $4.3 billion in 2011. This represents a big increase but still falls well short of television advertising. “It's emotive, rich. It grabs your heart,” said Suranga Chandratillake, founder of Blinkx PLC. “It combines all that is great about TV advertising with all that is great with online advertising” Google and Microsoft are both working hard to find ways to serve up ads in online video while not sending viewers running from what they hate about television. It's getting interesting and the simple fact that the Internet has interactivity on it's side will no doubt push creativity to new levels.

Give Yourself A Break!

Here is a great computer generated animated short promoting KitKat chocolate bars in France... it's like they were peering over my shoulder and into my life! Not really, but it is quite humorous just the same , and it reminds me of the Tower of Terror ride at Disney World... with the whole elevator thing... never mind, you just have to watch it.

From the wtf department!!!

I really like this... but wtf Microsoft?


Thanks to TechCrunch for this one.

Viral marketing ploy, build audience and then create the tv show!

Hopeful producers of horror/sci-fi television series Alive chose to produce three short viral videos to promote their show rather than produce a costly pilot. The videos were put together in 2 days and, frankly, it shows! Then again, it's not necessarily my taste in television, but it will be interesting to see if the ploy works. According to this Wired article, the shorts have generated buzz amongst the whet genre fans, but will it be enough to convince the network execs?

Threadless - perfectly viral!

Call it viral marketing, social networking, or perhaps social marketing, but there is no doubt it's profitable. Business 2.0 has written a great article about Threadless, an internet success story if I've ever heard one. This online business started by two Chicago teens now has 26 employees and had sales of $16 million last year. The idea is to get people to contribute to your product line by submitting t-shirt designs, host a contest so that your customers can vote on their favourite design, offer a prize so that the designers are driven to get their friends to visit the site to vote, then produce the products that received the most votes. It's ingenious and takes full advantage of the viral nature of the internet, I only wish I had thought of it!