Bob Dylan Advertainment Messaging Site

How exactly this Web site, which started in late September, slipped past me is beyond me, because it’s great. I suppose it is rather inconsequential at this point anyways, though; the nice thing is that I found it. Created by Ten4, this highly interactive site, Dylanmessaging.com, was created to promote “Dylan,” which is a greatest hits compendium available in a 1 CD Edition, or a 3 CD “Deluxe Digipack” Edition, both of which you can buy directly from the Web site (always a good idea from a production standpoint). The entire site is designed to look like an album cover of sorts, though it also comes off slightly resembling an old newspaper.

In addition to being able to buy the actual album, and being able to find out relevant information about it, the site also links to other Dylan works such as “No Direction Home,” directed by Scorsese, and several other DVD’s. But the site is designed and engineered around the Messaging concept. If you click on “Send Someone a Message,” the truly interactive part of the site becomes visible. Here you can create your own message, which can say anything, on 10 different sheets of paper, which Mr. Dylan himself (from 40 years ago) will hold up…you can then send this message to your friends via email. Of course, at the end of your message there is a quick plug for the new Dylan album.

Check out the neat little video that I made Here. After you create your own message, you can click on “The Video,” where you can view the entire music video for Dylan’s song “Subterranean Homesick Blues”, which is the background (and the canvas) for the message that you, yourself create. According to the site, which actually took its synopsis of the video from Wikipedia, “The video takes place in an alley behind the Savoy Hotel in London where poet Ginsberg and Neuwirth make a cameo in the background.”

This site is certainly a must-visit for any big Dylan fan, and it is well worth the visit for anyone who has even a slight interest in him and his music. And for those who have no interest in Dylan at all (though I would find this somewhat hard to believe), the site is great for its viral marketing and advertainment value, at the very least.

Nikon D40 Camera- Picturetown Advertainment

So, the new campaign concept for the Nikon D40 Camera may not exactly fall within the confines of what is traditionally defined as advertainment, but advertainment itself is untraditional, so I think it is ok to post about this neat new campaign. I found out about this new ad campaign through a wonderfully well-placed (and probably pretty expensive) hard-stock insert of a picture of the D40 camera itself, in its actual size. I found this ad in the December issue of People Magazine (it was my girlfriend’s copy of the mag., I don’t usually read it, I swear). Next to the insert is a traditional, full-bleed ad that describes the overall campaign concept where it says “Go to stunningnikon.com/picturetown for proof that people start taking amazing digital pictures the minute you hand them a Nikon D40. Recently, we gave 200 D40’s to the people of Georgetown, SC. Check out their pictures and learn more about the Nikon D40.”




I instantly took a liking to this ad due to the fact that the insert catches the reader’s attention immediately (also, the pages automatically open to the insert if the mag. is set down, due to its hard-stock, which is always a good idea), and the ad provides more information. Plus, the camera insert itself opens up, with a similar description of the “Picturetown” idea, and also an added incentive for people to check out the Web site: a sweepstakes that automatically enters you in to win a trip for two to Tuscany, Italy if you visit the site. Now that is good stuff…the insert catches attention and breaks through the clutter, the ad further explains the concept, and the inside of the insert gives added incentive to learn more, all the while, every piece of advertising has the Web site in bold yellow letters on a black background, now that’s excellent brand spiraling.

The site itself is where the advertainment comes into the picture (corny, I know…) a bit more clearly. You can select from a number of options on the site, which is simply yet sleekly designed, including “The Story, The People, The Pictures, The Nikon D 40, and Enter To Win.” Before you get to the homepage, however, the site loads and the message displayed sets up the premise for the entire campaign, it says “Anyone can take a great picture with the Nikon D40. To prove it, we gave 200 to the people of Georgetown, South Carolina.” I find this message to be well-thought, and well-directed…I like the idea.

Once the site loads, if you click on “The Story,” an informative video shows the whole process of the cameras being handed out, and it re-emphasizes the average Joe factor here, showing that these people are just like you and I, and by no means photography experts. “The People” further proves this fact, and then “The Pictures” section really drives home the point that the camera is capable of taking good pictures, even when in the hands of average Joes. This section is set up as a large, interactive gallery, where you can see a bunch of thumbnails of photos at once, scroll over them to get more info., and then click on them to see a bigger copy. Overall, Nikon shows a good melding of traditional methods of advertising (magazine, etc.) in an untraditional format (unusual insert), and good use of interactivity on the Web site itself; all of this adds up to good advertainment.

National Geographic Channel Dinosaur Advertainment & Advergame

Interesting news for fans of advergames/closet archaeology and paleontology enthusiasts such as myself: The National Geographic Channel has created a new advergame to promote two of their new specials, Dino Death Trap and Dino Autopsy, which aired on December 9th.



This advergame, called “Fossil Hunt,” is part of a full-fledged microsite for the two aforementioned shows. The site itself (which you can check out Here) is pretty well-rounded. It offers a lot of video and other interactive content. You can preview the shows themselves, check out photos of actual dinosaur fossils, and even try the “3D Dino Explore” feature on the site, which is a relatively-rudimentary click-and-drag view of virtual dinosaur likenesses buried under the earth; you can “Revisit their last moments and see these dinosaurs in full 3D.”

The Fossil Hunt advergame itself is a 3-D tile board akin to mahjong, but where you attempt to match two of the same dinosaur bones in order to make them disappear from the dig site. As an archaeologist-gamer, your goal is to assemble the full dinosaur in order to advance to the next level. The game is very simple, suggesting that it may be an attempt at marketing to a younger demographic audience, or maybe just a quick way to throw together an advergame. The site was, in fact, first made available on Dec. 3rd, only a week before the shows aired.



I think that it’s safe to say that nearly everyone had a pretty decent interest in dinosaurs when they were kids; and why not, what is more enigmatic than a giant creature that lived on earth millions of years before you were born? So, go ahead and indulge in your childhood fascinations, check out the National Geographic Channel Dinosaurs Microsite.

To read a bit more about this site, and the two shows it was created to promote, take a look at This Article by Shahnaz Mahmud over at Adweek.

Milk Gets an Advergame

While the campaign started quite a while ago, and so is anything but new on the rapidly changing Internet landscape, I just barely found out about it, so it is new to me. The Get The Glass advertainment site and advergame was created by North Kingdom and Goodby, Silverstein & Partners for the California Milk Processor Board (creator of Got Milk? fame, etc…). This site is truly a work of art, and evidence of the boundless capabilities that increasing virtual design technologies are allowing. Put plainly, it is web-based advertainment done right.



The site follows the chronicles of the Adachi family, which the introduction describes as “A family struggling to overcome a staggering predicament: Life without milk…Only one thing may help them: The power of the glass.” So, your goal as the player of the advergame is to help them get to the glass on the massive 3-D island that includes various types of terrain and precarious places to pass through on the way to “The Glass” which rests on the top of a large fortress. Before actually playing the game, the site user can take a look at the entire island through a 360 degree tour of this graphic extraordinaire. The island’s design has a very dark, gothic, Tim Burton-like feel to it, which works as a stark contrast to the giant illuminated glass of milk that you are supposed to reach. When you play the game itself, it is set up as a giant monopoly type of game board which prompts the user to roll a die in order to determine the Adachi family’s next steps on the island, ultimately determining whether or not they reach “The Glass.” There are numerous small-scale games embedded within the main game; these are mini-missions that aid the family in their plight, one such mission is driving a truck to escape island security.



Perhaps the sites only immediately visible flaw is its large loading time upon entrance to its main page. However, the slow loading at the beginning is the only large load time on the site, and it is well worth the wait to enter. The load time is a small price to pay for the enormous amount of visual detail and excellent overall design that the advergame offers. Get the Glass proves to be yet another excellent promotional tool for the California Milk Processor Board.

Thanks to Rob Ford for bringing this site to my attention through posting about it on Adverblog (through Martina). Check out this post Here.

Dr. Pepper iPhone Advergame

Yet another company is riding the popularity-wave of the apple iPhone, and creating a specialized program for the product (check out my old post about Warner Bro.s’ I am Legend). Dr. Pepper is reaching out to its sugar-craving consumer base with an advergame that is to be distributed solely to iPhone users. This soon-to-be released game is, in fact, the first branded game ever to be made available on the iPhone, and, should it succeed in its objectives, it will likely be the first of many.

This game, called “Matchcaps,” was created specially for the iPhone’s safari internet browser. This game, created by Imaginuity New Media, will be free, and it will not even need to be downloaded to the phone. It will be accessible through the site: www.drpepper.com/matchcaps. If you already have safari as your internet browser on your home computer, you can actually access and play the game on your home computer, should you not own the $500 iPhone.



This game marks a relatively large milestone for Dr. Pepper, as it is clever of them to once again be at the cusp of what is new and exciting in the world of untraditional, unconventional marketing in the form of advertainment and advergaming. Being first-to-market with this advergame for the iPhone marks yet another good move for Dr. Pepper’s parent company,Cadbury Schweppes Americas Beverages. They are still riding the coattails of the increasingly popular “Phil Collins Gorilla Drummer Cadbury Ad” which has nearly 1.5 million hits on its most popular upload link on YouTube (check it out below). As unrelated as this ad may be to any of Cadbury’s products, it is still tremendously captivating, and pretty funny to boot.

Phil Collins Gorilla Ad Cadburys Dairy Milk

If you want to find out a bit more about Dr. Pepper’s Matchcaps game, check out this CNN Money Article.

Subway Family Guy Advergame

Subway, king of mass produced meats and cheeses loaded onto six-inch rolls, has created a pretty decent advergame in affiliation with the TV show Family Guy. Available Here, “The Quahog Triangle” is a sweepstakes giveaway type of game, seemingly modeled off of McDonald’s success with their annual Monopoly giveaway efforts.

When you enter The Quahog Triangle, you are immediately prompted to give your email address in order to participate, which is pretty clever in itself, as this is an excellent way to track the campaign’s success, as well as to add names to the surely ever-expanding Subway customer database. You also have to submit your physical mailing address, as well as your birth date. Also, surprise, surprise, the text that allows you to opt out of future mailings through Subway is rather small and discretely located on the sign-in page. This is by no means a bad idea for Subway, however, as increasing their physical mailing list will be nothing other than beneficial for them.

Through the game, you can “Test your trivia smarts, send an e-card, play for a chance to instantly win over $100,000 in cash and prizes…and more!” The entire game, obviously, is designed and executed with a Family Guy theme and format. This is a rather clever affiliation, as long as Subway is hoping to target a younger demographic with their marketing efforts here. I suppose that any high school kid with some lunch money in suburbia may become somewhat more predisposed to select Subway as their luncheon destination of choice after playing this game. Then again, maybe not. However, either way, they have covered all of their bases with this campaign, and done as much as possible to promote it (so it seems).

Making the game incentive-based will likely greatly increase the participation rates, making it based around Family Guy may even further increase those rates. In addition, they have solicited some pretty decent affiliate promotion for the game; maxim magazine is one example of this. They have increased their visibility through Maxim’s Online Contests, where there is an animated link to the game. This audience is likely on-point, but it may be a stark contrast to Subways usual, wholesome, family-oriented brand image that they try to display. Integrating their marketing communications in order to deliver a consistent brand image may not be Subway’s strong suit. However, the odds that this game’s promotion on maxim.com would be brought to the attention of conservative Subway regular patrons are rather slim, so this will not likely hurt them in any way.

The Quahog Triangle game itself is as simple as clicking a button to start the triangle, and clicking a button to stop it. It is essentially a free, virtual slot machine. However, as always, luck doesn’t exactly prevail for me…I lost. If anybody plays it and actually wins anything, please let me know through a comment below. Upon losing, you are prompted to “Tell your friends” about the game by way of an E-Card to their email address…this is a good way to increase word-of-mouth about the campaign, and a way that makes it easy for the user on the site to do so.

The game itself lacks any true Family Guy humor; in fact, it is basically devoid of humor of any kind, which is a bit strange. However, overall, it is a good co-sponsorship tool for Subway to promote its products, and for Family Guy to promote its show, and the Family Guy Season 5 DVD Boxed Set, which is now available for purchase.

Facebook to Offer Advertising Space: Marketers Rejoice

Facebook just announced that it will begin to sell ad space, and will offer several packaged advertising initiatives. This social-networking giant has over 50 million users, the majority of whom are Gen-Y’ers that are usually unreceptive to traditional advertising means and methods, due to the fact that they have been inundated with them since they were old enough to recognize the shape of a man on a pony, or a fabric alligator. Needless to say, marketers have been chomping at the bit for the opportunity to be able to get to this elusive group of people. They may just have this opportunity with Facebook.

Facebook is now going to offer several different prepackaged services. The first is “Brand Profile Pages,” which are essentially profiles similar to individual users’ profiles, but that serve the purpose of soliciting and promoting a brand name, and its products. They are not really re-inventing the wheel with this one, as Facebooks’ main competitior, MySpace, has been doing this for ages. However, it will be interesting to see how the Facebook corporate profiles compare to those on MySpace.

The second spice that Facebook offers is “Tailored Ads,” which essentially just allows individual Facebook users to sign up as a “fan” of a brand, which is basically akin to “poking” a “friend” in the usual community. If someone cites themselves as a “fan” of a certain brand, and its profile (which will likely offer some kind of incentive for the person to do so, such as free downloads, etc.) then the brand has the ability to notify that person’s Facebook friends about this new relationship, and an ad, of course, accompanies this notification.

The third Facebook offering is “Partnerships with Retailers,” which is another Friend notification system that will enable the company that is partnered with Facebook (there are currently 44 retail sites that could afford the, surely, massive bid to become affiliates) to make all of a Facebook users’ Friends savvy to any transaction that particular individual makes with said company. If that makes no sense, here’s an example: If you rent a certain movie from a Blockbuster (on of the lucky 44 affiliates), then your friends on Facebook will know about it.



However, Facebook has, until now, been an advertising-free haven where people can communicate and collaborate without having to see countless ads. The two big questions on the top of my mind are: 1) Will Zuckerberg and his crew of flunkies be able to display ads in a way that is tactful and clever enough not to perturb the loyal Facebook users too much?... and 2) If the advertising and marketing tactics become too invasive, will the users slow or cease their site visits, or protest in some way? Only time will tell, I suppose. From a business perspective, you can’t blame Zuckerberg for finally taking the advertising bait that has been dangling in front of him since Facebook began. It is about time that this super-hyped, amazingly-highly appraised social networking site begins to live up to its monetary worth, and build some tangible revenues for its owner(s).

To read more about all of this, and to take a look at some staggering financial figures, check out This Article, written by Laura Petrecca and Jon Swartz of USA Today.

Norelco’s Shave Everywhere Advertainment Site

So, one of Philip’s subsidiary companies, Norelco, has created a funny new buzz marketing (get the double entendre?) site to promote their men’s electric razors. The brand of humor that they use is pretty over-the-top, but it caters appropriately to the demographic that they are trying to reach. The age demographic would likely be between 18-28, and the gender would certainly be men.

The site is called Shave Everywhere, and it is made specifically for the Philips Norelco Bodygroom, which is an attempt to re-market the traditional electric shaver in order to specialize it to shave extremities that are far from the face. The spokesperson for the site is a young, 10 o’clock local evening news type of personality with flawlessly parted hair, wearing a white bathrobe. The Bodygroomer’s possible applications are, thankfully, not demonstrated on a person, but, rather, by the humorous juxtaposition of several different kinds of fruit next to the guy…at least on the introduction to the site. If you select “Where to Shave” from the main menu, however, things get a bit more graphic. Blue circles point out the various areas that the Bodygroom will supposedly shave with ease…and this is done on the actual guy…such as the “Groin and Posterior,” and the “Underarms,” fortunately, the guy’s robe stays on all the while.

The “History” section is also pretty hilarious. An old guy, named “Follicle Phil Fontana” prefaces this little doozy saying “Things were different then…we didn’t have no calculators or internets…no…Bodygrooms. Back then, If the hair on ya back or ya co** or your ***** got too long…well, ya might just have ta live wid' it, ya know?” Then, the spokesperson of this site gives us a lovely anecdotal history of the Bodygroom, and the way it has benefited society since its inception. He speaks of unfortunate souls such as “Harry Hair Vest Houllihan,” and “Checky Mansweater Reubenstein,” and the terrible times that they had to go through on the beach back on Coney Island. The History goes on in much greater depth, but it is best that you venture on to this section of the site and learn this horrific history yourself.

Another point of possible interest on the site is the “Music Video,” which features the spokesperson himself talking about the hard times that he went through before finding the Bodygroom. “It’s so hard to be a Don Juan when you’ve got a Chinchilla wrapped around your Don*.” It gets worse from there…again, I’ll let you decide whether you want to hear more or not. This section, much like the rest of the site, has censored profanity…but it is still pretty easy to distinguish.

Maybe my favorite part of the site, for its subtle and yet excellent comical value, is “The Optical Inch,” which is an eye exam with the message “I love my extra inch” hidden, though not very well hidden, in the text.

In summation, not much of this site is made for the ultra-conservative or the Parents Television Council. It is not exactly family-friendly, but, to some people it is pretty funny. You be the judge. At any rate, it is pretty brave of Philips to take this step and put something this controversial out there. My hat’s off to them for being so daring.

Many thanks to Anya over at SHiFT agency in Boulder, Colorado, for showing an active interest in my blog, and for notifying me about this hilarious new Norelco site.

Volkswagen Golf Auditions Advertainment

Yet I again I find myself blogging on an auto manufacturer that is on top of its game in terms of its marketing efforts. This time, Volkswagen is the company of the hour. They have recently created a Web site that definitely falls within the scope of effective advertainment. Golf Auditions is a clever little flash site that successfully combines humor and perhaps the oldest sales technique of all time: product demonstration.

The site opens to 7 people sitting in chairs, under the premise that they are waiting for auditions to see if they might be selected as the new salesperson/spokesperson for the Volkswagen Golf. Each individual represents a different car model, or a specific feature that adheres to all of the Golf models, and the talent on the site is hired to sarcastically, and blatantly represent their own Golf model, based on the people’s physical characteristics, as well as their overall mannerisms and idiosyncrasies.



Volkswagen makes some pretty bold moves with this campaign, namely through some of the more obvious physical traits of several of the characters that are supposed to represent a few different models. Perhaps the two most attention-grabbing characters are the naked hippie and the cross-dresser, who represent the environmental features of all of the Golfs, and the Cross-Golf, respectively.

On the site, the idea is to click on each of the different people who are auditioning, and they will then give you a run-through of their sales pitches / product overviews for their Golf models. Each video is short enough, and funny enough to retain the viewers’ attention, and they are all worth watching if you want to get a chuckle or two. The short videos vary in terms of the amount of actual product demonstration that they go into, but at the very least, each one demonstrates the unique features of the different models, and highlights several major key product features that are (obviously) shown in a positive light.

Will the site itself, by virtue of its content, get people to want to buy the cars? Probably not, but that is not what it is trying to do, nor is that usually the main goal of advertainment in general. Instead, the site will certainly leave the viewer with a lasting impression of Volkswagen, at the very least, which is an effective promotional tactic in itself.

Kudos to Martina at Adverblog (again!) for bringing this site to my attention through her post Here.

Nissan Rogue Cell Phone Advergame

It seems as though the automotive industry is one of those the most in-tuned (get the double entendre?) to the latest marketing and advertising techniques. Again and again, I find myself posting on car companies that are making advergames (see my Scion post Here, and my Toyota Yaris post Here). It seems as though Nissan has decided to follow the recurring trend of a car company creating an advergame in order to market to a younger, extremely tech-savvy generation of car buyers.

Nissan is supposedly doing this in an entirely new way in the auto industry (though this is a self-stated claim); they have designed an advergame for their new Nissan Rogue vehicle which is to be used on mobile cell phones, but downloaded online. This game is to be one of several online “ad units” centered around the branding of the Rogue that people will be able to download onto their phones. The game is slated to be rather advanced, as far as cell phone games go, with accelerating levels of difficulty for the player. According to This Article from CNNMoney.com, “Additionally, the Rogue Mobile game breaks new ground with respect to performance tracking and measurability, delivering an unprecedented level of data and consumer insights back to Nissan.”

The game itself, and the rest of the digitized online content that accompanies it, was developed and produced by MangoMOBILE, of Omnicom, in affiliation with TEQUILA\, which is a subsidiary of TBWA Worldwide. Jamie Wells, VP of Strategy & Client Services at MangoMOBILE had this to say about the advergame and the online campaign in general: “While many are content with entering the mobile marketing space via simple text campaign, it's always great when a client like Nissan comes along and shows real initiative ... encouraging our strategists and developers to really push the envelope and launch a breakout mobile campaign that spans mobile gaming, online advertising, text distribution and even downloadable wallpapers. We are thrilled to be working with TEQUILA\ and Nissan on the Rogue launch, and look forward to working with them on even more innovative, more forward-leaning mobile marketing campaigns in the months and years to come.”

Nissan’s ultimate goal of this campaign sounds strikingly similar to that of Scion’s goal for its Little Deviants advergame. Robert Brown, Senior Manager of Interactive Marketing for Nissan in North America, explains “While the mobile medium is a perfect fit for the Nissan Rogue brand, we knew that we had to make it easy for consumers to discover and ultimately acquire the Rogue mobile content.” While Brown refers to the ease with which people can download this game online, he also subtly hints at one of Nissan’s goals for this campaign: increasing word-of-mouth. Nissan seems to be trying out the very same process of consumer self-discovery of the brand that has worked so effectively for Scion (yet again, check out my old post Here). Long story short, if something works the first time, use it again…and if something worked for someone else, emulate it to the best of your abilities and use it yourself.

EU Anti-Smoking Advertainment Campaign

Yet again I will be deviating from the main focus of this blog (advertainment solely in the US), with a post about a form of European advertainment. Sometimes I can’t help but post about European marketing and advertising efforts, because quite often they are truly at the cusp of innovation, incubating some of the best advertainment ideas around…before the same ideas finally ebb over to America across the Atlantic.

However, this time, it seems as though Europe may have taken a cue from America for one of their campaigns. A few weeks ago, the State Tobacco Education Prevention & Partnership in Colorado created a PSA of sorts in the vehicle of a Web site (Check out my old post on this Here). The primary target audience for this site is young adults between the ages of 18-24. Its main objective is to get them to stop smoking, or, better yet, to never start, if they haven’t already. Well, the European Union has come up with a clever campaign that seems to be oriented towards the same age demographic, and certainly for the same purposes.



The site is called Nicomarket, and it takes a slapstick, slap-in-the-face kind of approach to getting people to quit smoking. It is designed in a manner reminiscent of a 1980’s used car dealership…where large plaid jackets, oversized ties, and the hard sell sales tactic are king. It is actually a pretty funny Web site…it is not too over-the-top, which is good, because it needs to appeal to quite a few different countries (the EU is now up to 27 Countries, with three more candidates awaiting approval), but it is still pretty bold humor.

The general premise of the site is that Nicomarket is part of the company NICO ltd., a company that manufactures several different products, namely a face cream, toothpaste, a mouth spray, and an air freshener. All of the products have little videos that accompany them, which describe their features and uses. Each product is designed as a funny little way to point out the negatives of smoking. Check out a few of the better videos; go to the cream video Here, and the spray video Here

Thanks to Rocco Stallvord at Adverblog for bringing this campaign to my attention. Check out his post on this subject Here.

I am Legend Advertainment – iPhone, Second Life

Warner Brothers is jumping on the unconventional media bandwagon with the marketing of their new movie, I am Legend. Will Smith stars in what proves to be the umpteenth zombie horror adventure movie to take place in the last few years. In the movie, Smith apparently spends most of his time doing what any reasonable person would do in the same situation…running away from the people/things that want to eat him. Clichéd plot lines aside, Warner Brothers is doing things that are anything but trite with their actual marketing efforts.

First, they created a Section of their Web site dedicated solely to Apple iPhone users. This interactive mini site is actually pretty advanced, as I suppose it should be, seeing as how it is designed for one of the most advanced phones on the market right now. It comes complete with wallpaper and photos tailored to work for the iPhone, recent news about the movie, a full-length trailer, a brief synopsis of the movie, and a “Daylight Meter.” This little widget allows you to enter your zip code, and it then gives your geographic coordinates (based on latitude and longitude), and the amount of time left until daylight...because Will Smith has to hide from the zombies at night, get it? Does this little site serve a purpose? Not really, unless you are a special ops soldier (coordinates), or a vampire (daylight meter). Is it a clever way to use a new media? Yes. It is basically the new generation of a .mobi mobile Web site. As for whether or not setting up a mobile Web site for a specific brand of phone will catch on, this is a bit hard to predict. However, in my opinion, it seems as though this may be a bit limiting, due to the fact that it can only be reached by those with an iPhone; it makes more sense to me to simply set up a mobile Web site compatible with any internet-ready phone.

The second part of Warner Bros. outside-of-the-box thinking for marketing I am Legend is through yet another remotely untapped medium- Second Life. This part of their untraditional marketing efforts is truly the brain child of their operations. Warner Bros. has set up the “I am Legend Second Life Survival Game,” in which residents of the virtual world can play as a human or as one of the zombies. Either way, the main object of the game is to find the cure to the virus that spurred this crazy zombie outbreak. Now, if you ask me, this is good marketing. And it is so clever on Warner Brothers’ part, especially from a strategic management perspective. Instead of creating their own high-tech advergame to market this movie, they used a platform (or medium, what have you) that already exists…thus cutting back significantly on their costs of development and production…and also tapping into an already enormous consumer-base. In fact, as of this post, there at 10,255,064 users on Second Life, check out how many there are right now (as you are reading this post) Here. They have essentially created an advergame within a game. Well played, Warner Brothers.



So, the post-blog post kudos for this entry goes first to Angela Natividad over at Adrants, for posting This Article, which brought the I am Legend advertainment news to my attention, and second to MarketingVox for posting This Article, which supplemented the other things that I found elsewhere.

Tea Partay Advertainment Videos

I have decided that it is time to revisit (see previous post Here)the Smirnoff Tea Partay video due to its brilliance, its success at generating word of mouth, and its relatively new, but yet equally successful counterpart, the Smirnoff Green Tea Partay video. These two short clips are a great example of how effective well executed advertainment can be.

The original Smirnoff Tea Partay video was released about a year ago, and, to date, it has been viewed over 3.7 million times on YouTube. Not too shabby. And let’s not forget that people viewing this pseudo-ad are doing so willingly. They are not a passive audience sitting back and ignoring this advertainmnet, rather, they sought out the video, and they actually want to see it. Also, they seem to like it, as the video has a 4 out of 5 star rating on YouTube.

Tea Partay - Smirnoff

Also, disregarding production costs for the video, which likely didn’t exceed that of any standard 30 second TV spot, what is the cost of airing this video? Nothing…so, what is the CPM for reaching 3.7 million people? Nothing.

Smirnoff recognized this, and due to the unprecedented success that they had with the video, they went ahead and released the Smirnoff Green Tea Partay video about two months ago. And, guess what, lightning does strike the same place twice. They have already had over 3.3 million hits on this video. My suspicion is that many of the people who saw the original video (such as myself) jumped at the thought of seeing another, similar video. So, what have we got here? Repeat viewing that (likely subconsciously) further substantiates the brand equity of Smirnoff in the viewer’s heads.

Smirnoff Green Tea: Green Tea Partay

As for the videos themselves, I don’t want to describe them at all in this post, rather, I think it is best if you watch them yourself. In my opinion, they are remarkably funny. Check ‘em out.

The IAB Recognizes Advergames

The Interactive Advertising Bureau has recently added a bit more legitimacy to the field of advergaming with the addition of the “Games Advertising” link under the “Resources and Research” section on their global navigation bar. It is about time that this topic gains more coverage by the internet’s main pseudo-regulatory body.

Within the aforementioned links, you are able to download a full PDF file written by the IAB, in affiliation with the Games Committee, that has an abstract describing it as “The first in a series of papers that will lead the way to a vigorous and healthy industry with commonly adopted terminology, practices and standards.” Basically, the IAB has realized that it is high time to begin to, at least attempt, to legitimize the field of advergaming.

The PDF file is a relatively in-depth analysis of the definition of Advergaming, its most common practices, and an analysis of its future potential. It also details the different mediums used for advergaming, namely gaming consoles and the internet. In addition, it includes some pretty staggering research-based statistics that are true eye-openers to the significance of this manner of advertising for future marketing efforts. A few particularly amazing facts are as follows:

“Video Games [all-encompassing, not just Advergames] have emerged as a main-stream entertainment medium that generates worldwide revenues of about $25 billion in hardware and software sales. Surpassing box office revenues, movie rentals, book and music sales, Video Game revenues reached $12 billion in the US in 2006.”



“The integration of online games across all hardware platforms has resulted in the emergence of advertising as a significant revenue driver for the games industry. Analyst predictions vary, but they all point to big numbers. Parks Associates believes overall game-related ad spending will grow from $370 million in 2006 to more than $2 billion by 2012.”

And there’s plenty more good facts where those came from. Check out the PDF I am talking about Here. It provides even more evidence that advergaming is not a fleeting fad…it is here to stay, and its significance to the advertising industry will grow exponentially in years to come.

Bravia Advertainment TVC

Ok...even though this blog is called “Advertainment in America,” and thus is supposed to have content strictly devoted to American Advertainment and Advergames…I have decided to stretch the limits of what is allowed a little bit here…because I really love what Sony is doing for their (relatively) new Bravia campaign. The ads have been airing in the EU, primarily in FR, BE, and PT, and I haven’t seen them around here yet, but I hope that they hit the US ASAP…had enough acronyms yet?

I am also stretching the definition of Advertainment a bit, I suppose…but these ads, while they are traditional in the sense that they are television spots, are truly entertaining, and they have the strange quality of feeling more like a miniature (1- 1 ½ minute) movie than a commercial. There is no doubt that an absurd amount of production time, and money, went into making these bad boys. The most recent is the Sony Bravia Play-Doh ad. Check it out:

Sony Bravia Play-Doh

As you can see…it consists of some pretty ridiculous stop-motion photography of different-colored bunnies made of play-doh…which then turn into a wave…which breaks…and a whale goes through it…which then turns into a giant bunny...et al. The nature of the filming makes it all seem pretty chaotic and tumultuous. The question that lingers towards the end of the spot is: what does this have to do with Sony, or the Bravia, at all? Well, the spot culminates with a bunch of multi-colored cubes spinning about to create different kaliediscope-like patterns, and the words “Color…Like No Other” come onto the screen, then the spot fades out to a quick shot of a Bravia LCD TV. In my opinion, the ad is, in fact, effective, as it certainly retains attention, and the closing sequence ties the entire (seemingly unrelated) ad back into the product and the brand, giving the viewer a brand message to remember, and take away from the ad.

Also, these ads have been gaining some pretty siginificant unpaid exposure via Youtube, Dailymotion, and other video, user-generated sites. The one with the most hits, the Sony Bravia Bouncy Balls ad, which debuted about a year ago, has about a half a million hits on Youtube. Check it out Here.

Thanks again to Marka at Adverblog for bringing the Bravia bunnies to my attention.

Toyota Yaris Advergame Hits Xbox 360 Live

It seems as though everybody is finally catching on to the difference between a passive and a captive, participant audience. And it also seems as though Toyota is taking a hint from its little brother branch-off, Scion (See what I mean by checking out my old Scion Post). The Yaris, Toyota’s bottom-rung, most modestly-priced model, seems to be Toyota’s attempt at reaching generation Y, something that Scion has been doing better than most companies ever have. You can even see this in the car’s description on Toyota’s Web site, which sounds extremely youth-oriented; it speaks about the different kinds of Yaris’s…or Yari, however you want to pluralize it, when it says:

“Both flavors come complete with available MP3/WMA playback capability. They boast a bottomless pit of center pockets, cup holders, console trays, map pockets to satisfy just about any multitasker. And the all-new Yaris Liftback S screams style from the get-go, thanks to its sport seats, amber-illuminated Optitron gauges, and leather-trimmed steering wheel and shift knobs. Regardless of which model you roll with, you’ll appreciate exceptional gas mileage ratings, up to 36 mpg highway, so there’ll always be enough dough left over to extend that much-needed road trip. The 2008 Yaris. May the fun begin.”

So, it makes sense that they continue to push this model to the youth, and they are using unconventional methods to do so. Most recently, they have spent a couple mil’ having their agency, Saatchi & Saatchi L.A. work with production company Backbone Entertainment (which created the Sonic the Hedgehog concept and games) to create the first-ever advergame to be distributed through Microsoft’s online gaming service. In fact, you can download the new game for free. Not too shabby. And also, they have been gaining some pretty tremendous publicity based on this game (well played Toyota PR department), making it into the NY Times in This Article.

Kim McCullough, corporate manager for marketing communications at Toyota, drives home a message that I completely endorse when she says: “People can time shift, they can do all sorts of different things to avoid advertising. That’s why we have to move beyond traditional advertising to do things that are really engaging for people.” Nice. Toyota is making some good moves these days.

To learn a bit more about this advergame, you can find tons of articles released in the past few days by going to Google and searching for “Yaris Advergame” in the news section, or This Article, or click on the link to the NY Times article mentioned above.

PSA meets Advertainment

The fine people at the State Tobacco Education Prevention & Partnership in Colorado have come up with a great way to get a PSA (public service announcement) out to their target demographic, which in this case happens to be young adults. They are reaching out to people between the ages of 18-24 who are cigarette smokers. They have come up with a new media campaign that revolves around the Web site (and phrase) Quit Doing It. One cool fact is that they paid for the entire site, which was designed by AgencyNet and Cactus, with funds from a tobacco tax that they collected all the way back in 2004.



This snazzy, futuristic, sci-fi oriented Web site gives you the option, upon entrance to its Home Page, of choosing either a macro-Flash format, or a micro-HTML format. If your computer and browser-speed allows you to, then I would suggest checking out the Macro format, as it is a great, high-speed, fluid, and by and large well-designed flash presentation.

It starts out with a woman in a lab coat, who isn’t exactly difficult to look at, with a sexy, Elizabeth Hurly-like English accent. She comes out and explains that she has been selected to give you a tour of the “lab,” and then she basically tells you how to use the site, focusing on the “research” and “development” parts of the Web site, which each take a humorous, but informative approach to teaching the Web site viewer/participant about the negative effects of smoking. Another clever approach that is used is also voiced through the narrator. She says “At the Quit Doing It.com Labs, we are quite busy creating the most innovative tools that you can use to quit smoking. One tool we haven’t perfected yet, though, is mind reading. So, the question you have to ask yourself is: why am I here? If you’re ready to quit, check out our custom tools over in the Results department, if you’re not ready to quit yet, might I suggest checking out our research or development departments?” The “Results” section of the Web site helps the viewer/participant out by providing them with a panoply of smoking cessation tools, including another clever, relatively innovative and target-marketed media tool created by the State Tobacco Education Prevention & Partnership in Colorado: Fixnixer, a Web 2.0 program that supposedly can help you quit smoking in 21 days. But that is another story.

For me, the site was very cool. It was a fun, interactive experience. Would it actually help me quit? I dunno…but then again, I used to smoke a pack a day for five years, and then I quit last December using the patch…so…my advice, if you are seriously considering quitting smoking, would be to go to the Web site to learn a bit about the adverse effects of smoking…and have a bit of interactive fun, and then use the patch to actually quit.

Big ups to Martina over at Adverblog for making me aware of this cool new way to get kids off the ciggys.

Comedy Central’s South Park Advergames

So, the new season of South Park starts October 3rd (this coming Wednesday), and I am not going to lie, I am pretty excited. I am a pretty big fan of the show. It never ceases to amaze me the amount of wit, cynicism, and overall right-on satirical humor that pours out of those four little fourth grader’s mouths. And also, for whatever reason, I usually find myself agreeing with the views (although they usually aren’t really views…they are usually more in the form of harsh criticisms) that the shows creators (Trey Parker and Matt Stone) voice through the characters of the show. Comedy Central really hit it big when they signed this show on 10 years ago. And it is still hilarious today. But I digress; the point here is that the show is starting this Wednesday, so Comedy Central has been airing a ton of late-night rerun episodes of South Park to promote the beginning of season 12. And another one of the things that they have been airing between shows is a commercial urging the viewers to go to Comedycentral.com (attempting to brand spiral in order to promote the show) and check out the South Park page, in order to play the “South Park Big Wheel Death Rally,” among other South Park-branded games.



Big Wheel Death Rally is basically a rip-off of a game like Nintendo’s Mario Kart, and it is equally, if not more entertaining, as you can be any of 16 characters (some of which are locked), and you see all of their mannerisms and character traits come through in the game. Also, guess who bought a bit of ad space before the game even begins? Sierra Mist has a 30 second-or-so interstitial ad that takes place while the game is loading...which likely helps Comedy Central bring in a bit more revenue, or at least recoup some of the costs of creating the game (s). On the Games section of the Web site, you can play not only Big Wheel Death Rally, but also 11 other games in the following categories: Action and Arcade, Brainteasers, Card and Board, and even Wireless Games, which you can download and play on your phone. Who could resist downloading a game for their phone that has a description that begins with “Capture hippies [and] kill ninjas..."



So, yet another reason to love Comedy Central’s South Park: advergames. Comedy Central is pretty clever, as they have kept the show around for a long time, and thus they continue to profit off of it hand-over-fist…and now, they, like many other companies out there, have realized the importance of gaming for Americans in general, and, specifically, the target audience of the group that would most likely be watching South Park.

Advertainment, The American Way

American Eagle is getting pretty sly with their marketing tactics, as of late. Their newest television advertainment idea has been creating quite a buzz. Entitled “It’s a mall world,” these are 3 and 4 minute-long episodes, or vignettes, or what have you, which basically show a bunch of good looking people walking around a mall wearing all the new fashions…which just happen to be American Eagle.

Naturally, there is some heavy brand spiraling going on here too, but it is very clever brand spiraling. The video shorts refer you back to the website, www.ae.com, where you can click on the "Get the looks" page and buy the same clothes that the people in the videos wear. See, you can be just like the people on TV, neat, huh?

Is this really going to get some high school or college kid to check out the web site and buy some clothes? I would say that it will do so much more than any traditional advertising, especially traditional TV commercials. A&E is definitely on to something here. What a clever way to reach an advertising-averse group of people…make ‘em think it isn’t an ad…but, rather, a decent show to watch. It works a hell of a lot better than their competitor’s advertising, some of which depicts people in extremely bright clothes dancing around aimlessly singing about slacks or Capri pants or whatever other style is in season…cough…old navy and the gap.

And also, the videos are actually pretty clever. They mainly follow the exploits of “Dean,” a shy kid (who is awkward, and lacking in the self-confidence department) who works at a record shop, and is interested in a good-looking girl who works at, you got it, American Eagle, across the way in the mall. The videos are rather done rather well overall, they are pretty funny, and quite captivating. They even begin with a small intro. and cast list…which makes it seem as though it is an actual program on TV. Oh, and I neglected to mention the good placement by AE, or their firm, or what have you; they run during a break in MTV’s “Real World: Sydney.” Though this is probably pretty pricy placement for A&E, I think that they are likely hitting the nail right on the head in terms of reaching out to their demographic here.

You can check out the videos at www.ae.com, where they have some other nice interactive “It’s a Mall World” stuff going on too; on YouTube at This Link, or Wednesdays on MTV during the Real World, if you are in to that kind of thing.



Some of the info. on this post came from Mike Antonucci over at the Mercury Post. Check out his article on this subject Here.

Skyworks: Father of Advergaming?

Ever been curious about why to use advergames to sell your products? Or, do you know that you want to use advergames, but you just need some statistical evidence that it actually works in order to coax management, or a higher-up into seeing things your way? Or, are you just curious about using a videogame for an advertising purpose, and you want to learn a bit more about it? Well, then check out www.advergame.com.

This website is home to Skyworks, the company that (self-reportedly) pioneered the concept of advergaming. If they didn’t start it, they sure fooled me, because their initial advergaming concept suite, lifesavers’ candystand.com, which was (and, still is…I suppose) a highly-interactive site with numerous games available, all of which tote different lifesavers brand product names. This site was initially launched back in 1996. Today, according to the "Why Skyworks" section of their web site, “Over 40 Million client-branded games developed by Skyworks are played on our clients' websites each month. That's over 800 per minute and over 1 billion to date!” Pretty impressive, eh? If that is the kind of number attached to one company, imagine what the overall statistic would be for the total amount of people playing branded games…nearly unfathomable.



Here are some more handy-dandy stats provided by the fine people at Skyworks that you can use to wow anyone who wants to listen to you:


What’s more…Skyworks goes ahead and breaks down some of the individual demographics for you, giving statistical evidence to back up their claims, and citing sources for the stats. Not bad at all. Advergames are truly part of the future of advertising. As the customer becomes more and more of a king, and the audience decides when and where they will listen to brand messages, maybe it would be wise to jump on the band wagon and promote your brand in a way that people will pursue on their own, rather than throwing it at them whether they like it or not. Well, are you convinced yet?

Halo 3: Believe

The soon-to-be-released, highly anticipated X-Box game, Halo 3, was recently given an incredible promotion tool. This tool is a new web site called “Halo 3 Believe.” It is an amazing, interactive experience in which the user on the web site is basically able to fly around a massive, Halo-3 inspired environment. The environment itself is actually a real diorama that was hand-built, and is 12 ft. tall by (many) feet wide. The amount of detail and intricacy involved in the structures, characters, and scenes in the diorama is nothing short of fantastic. In addition to simply viewing the diorama, you can also view some of the recent Halo 3 TV commercials, the Making-of (the diorama) video, and read character’s stories and the general story of different parts of the scene itself. This is some great advertainment, folks.



I am a pretty big Halo buff. Back when I had X-Box live, which enables you to play online with people around the world, my girlfriend found herself in a constant struggle with a tiny black box and a controller for my free time. And that was with Halo 2…Halo 3 stands to be much better, with far better graphics, a great storyline, and an overall improved experience. However, I believe that even someone who isn’t a big Halo fanatic would still love the Believe web site. It is definitely worth checking out, mainly because it is unlike anything you have seen before. It is taking the old, seemingly outmoded craft of diorama building, and bringing it to a new medium on the ‘Net. This is worth checking out if you have the time to roam around and really get a feel for it.



Kudos to Marka at Adverblog, who brought the new Halo 3 Believe web site to my attention. And even more kudos to Dustin Burg, who wrote a Blog Article about it that had the correct link to the web site, and gave some valuable insight as to what the site is all about.

Scion's "Little Deviants" Advergame

In 2005, Scion set a sales target of 125,000 units, and ended up selling 156,485 units. In 2006, Scion set a sales barrier, rather than a target, of 160,000. They set the barrier so that they wouldn’t become too mainstream, in order to remain cool, hip, and trendy in the eyes of the fast-paced, traditional advertising-averse generation Y (Find stats Here)While Scion did spend $42.8 million in traditional, mass marketing efforts ($29.5 million on TV, $5.9 on print, $2.9 on the radio, $2.5 on the internet, and $2 million on outdoor advertising), they have made it a point to target Generation Y through unconventional methods (Stats are Here). Innovative campaigns and advertising messages, guerilla marketing, viral marketing, event sponsorship, and staying on top of technology and consumer trends in general have made Scion a success. Also, what hasn’t hurt: an Advergame that they set up called “Little Deviants.”

Scion’s Little Deviants campaign was created by an ad firm called “The Attik.” The campaign, so far, has generated quite a bit of word-of-mouth due to viral marketing, but it has also been promoted through traditional advertising including TV ads, print ads in magazines, internet banner ads, and outdoor advertising via billboards. The ads feature little, large-clawed, hellish, demon-looking creatures. Sometimes the ads show the creatures, the “deviants,” slaughtering little defenseless-looking sheep-people, called “sheeple.” All of the ads brand spiral the audience back to the hub of the Little Deviants campaign: www.littledeviant.com. Simon Needham, group creative director of The Attik, best explains this campaign’s concept:

“What we’re doing here is presenting the car as a little deviant, a little bad-ass. The brief was essentially, ‘Here is our new xD, how are we going to sell it?’ We reviewed the car, and we felt that the model was very aggressive-looking. We’re very familiar with our target audience, where they hang out, what they do and what they see. So the marketing campaign was based around a young trendleader and what they tend to be doing. The whole principle is telling a story. And we figured that presenting a book of the Fable of the Deviants was a really nice way of delivering our message (Digital Arts Online).”



On the website that all of the ads lead to, the user is cast into a first-person interactive advergame, where they are placed in this virtual world of deviants and sheeple, and they live out a fable, or a storybook, with nine chapters. The general premise is that the sheeple have been painting the city gray (literally); they have made the city gray and brown, boring and predictable, and the game’s player must kick them out of the city to save it. In each of these chapters, the player has a series of tasks that they must accomplish, most of which usually involve hitting, kicking, decapitating, dismembering, or otherwise killing the sheeple, all-the-while making little hidden references to the featured car, the Scion xD. It is definitely a violent game. However, the Little Deviants ads, and the Little Deviants game’s messages are clear, they are telling the audience to be different, to be cool, and to rebel against the ordinary. This is a great message to market to Generation Y, which has the highest generational trait of having high self-esteem; the majority of the members of Gen Y think that they are special, unique, and cool, and they strive for ways to show their peers this fact. Scion wants their cars to be one of those ways.

Disney, High School Musical 2, Advergames

So, I must confess, I don't know much of anything about the increasingly-popular "High School Musical 2" beyond what I have heard about it shattering some Nielsen records, and beyond what I see on the teenie-bopper celebrity magazine covers at the check-out aisle in the grocery store. It is obvious, however, that many people out there are much more into it then I am. In fact, according to the article that I read in MediaPost, interest in the show brought more than 23 million 'unique visitors' to Disney.com in August, breaking its all-time traffic record.

But how do you retain interest once people are on the website? Games. Disney has perhaps the largest arsenal of comic characters out there availble to them to use in their online gaming. For Disney, online gaming is a win-win situation, as they are not only generating interest in the web site, but they are also simultaneously promoting their brand. Due to Disney's media giant status, the entire website is all about promotions, cross-promotions, and more...the entire web site recently went under a full revamp, and now, with the help of the teen music kids there, it is getting more hits than ever, which is great for Disney, and also for their other corporate content sponsors, such as HP and General Mills. Disney, and its mass of subsidiary companies, is so vertically integrated now that it has begun to sell integrated advertising packages that span across their enormous media offerings, including network and cable TV, the internet, and radio and print, to partners such as Visa. These multi-platform buys take a lot of the guesswork out of media placement.

All in all, Disney is making some smart moves.

The majority of the information in this post came from The MediaPost Publication article entitled "Disney.com Sets Record Propelled By 'High School Musical 2,' by Tameka Kee, dated Thursday, 13 September, 2007.
Link to it here: http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.showArticleHomePage&art_aid=67350