The U.K. has some pissed off hamburgers

Burger King in the U.K. has launched a new microsite called Angry Gram to promote their new spicy Angry Whopper. You create an Angry Gram by filling in six blanks on form letter and you much choose from available options for each blank. You get a lot more options for each blank than you would think and you can create some very funny combinations. When you are finished with the rant it is played out by a 3D animation of the Angry Whopper himself. I have seen this execution done for other products but this works for several reasons. The fact that you can really customize the message, that the product is kept as the center and hero of the concept and that the animation is entertaining and well done make it work. Plus isn't everything funnier with a British accent?

Manning's Mind

I was watching football this weekend and saw the seemingly Twin Peaks inspired new commercial with Payton Manning for Sprint. Maybe it is me but I just didn't see how something that high concept would play with the male dominated football crowd. The end was tagged with the URL ManningsMind.com so I cruised over to check out the site.
It is basically a simple trivia game wrapped in a football game. You answer multiple choice questions of varying difficultly with the difficulty equating to different amounts of yardage. Like any football game you have to keep getting first down and scoring points to win. It is engaging for a little while but does get repetitive quickly.

The design is pretty vanilla with simple video responses from Manning and a nice but quickly repetitive hologram style animation of the play after you answer each question. I did run into technical problem with the site though and played through the game four times and 2 of the times the game completely froze up on my around the 3rd quarter.

You would have thought that Sprint could have done more than create this disjointed campaign with Manning. It will be interesting to see if they stick with this campaign or creating something new.

Altoids Google Earth Game

Altoids has launched a new game called "Where's Cindy". The game is a straight rip off of Where's Waldo with the only unique twist is that it is done in Google Earth where you follow clues to Where's Cindy. So while this gets some credit for being the first attempt I have seen to use Google Earth in a game, the problem is that there is no explanation about why I should care about finding her.

The game play consists of you typing a location into your passport and correct answers will give you Google Earth kml file with the corresponding place mark of the answer on Google Earth. When you load the place mark all it does it link back to a new page on the website with a new clue. This constant back and forth creates a bad user dynamic because you have to keep switching between your web browser and Google Earth as each new clue comes in a new kml file. So while this is breaking new ground, the way it is executed keeps it from being anything more than a forgettable first attempt that will be lost to the hype that will surround concept that gets this channel right.

Doritos - Fight for the Flavor

Doritos has launched a new microsite site called Fight for the Flavor to promote two new flavors of Doritos. Only one of the flavors will get produced based on how the public votes so this forms the concept behind the site.

I find this concept very curious since I am being asked to vote on a food I have never tasted. It may be tied to my pet pieve of any dining experience where immediately after getting a salad or plate of food an over eager waiter appears with a comically oversized pepper grinder wanting to know if I would like some added to the food. I haven't tasted it yet so how the hell can I answer that question? It seems like the same thing here because I have no idea which one I like.

That core problem aside, the content is only made up of the ability to vote for a flavor or playing a game that will let you control one of the two bags in a boxing style fight. The fighting game is well done and a short diversion but it reminds me of the Burger King Chicken Fight game from over a year ago.

A link at the bottom says this is part of the new Snack Strong Production which I haven't seen before it is an elaborate production I will explore more in another post.

Makibishi Comic

I cam across a cool little Japanese site called Makibishi Comic. it is a stylized point and click adventure where you need to find 5 hidden Ninja. The site style is very cool with a variety of interesting and weird backdrops for you to explore.

MSNBC NewsBreaker

MSNBC has launched the beta of Newsbreaker which is a game like Breakout where breaking bricks reveal power-ups and other goodies but in this case the goodies are headlines of the day. It is an interesting online extension of SS+K's "A Fuller Spectrum of News" campaign.

The game was created by Fuel Industries wuth SS+K and it arranges the falling headlines revealed from breaking bricks along the right side of the screen so you can read the headlines after your last life is lost or you pause the game. It is an interesting twist on online gaming with a content integration twist.

SS+K also developed a very cool and unique multiplayer version of the game to be played inside movie theaters and relies on collective audience participation. Several theaters in LA, Philadelphia and New York City will be equipped with a camera that tracks the motion of the entire audience. Projected on the screen will be a modified version of the game and a faint mirror image of the audience in the background. When the audience leans their bodies to the left in their seats, the paddle on the bottom will react with their movement and move to the left. When the ball makes it way towards the right, they will all have to collectively lean to the right to keep the ball in play, and so on.

Little Big Planet

I have been into video games more than usual lately and I recently saw one that really got my attention call Little Big Planet for the PS3. The game starts with you learning about the character's powers as they interact with the game environment made up of obstacles to explore, things to collect and puzzles to solve. As you explore, your creative skills will grow and you will be ready to start creating and modifying your surroundings. That for me is the most intriguing part since creativity is huge part of the game play experience. Since you can alter the world you can make your world as open or as secretive as you want. When your world is ready, you can invite anyone within the LittleBigPlanet community to come and explore your design or can go and explore other level created by the community. It is this aspect of community and user-generated content in a new very accessible presentation that has me so interested. Plus the added bonus is that the whole thing looks like it is a real time PIXAR movie. A demo is due out later this year and full game release in early 2008.

Coca-Cola Zero

Coke has launched a new microsite to support Coke Zero and I have to say that it is surprisingly entertaining. The concept of the site is that Coke Zero has stolen the taste of original Coke and all of the content supports this idea. The most entertaining section is "Unlock the Secret" where you get to take various implements of destruction like a blow torch, saw and wrecking ball to open a safe containing the secret formula. It is very well produced and a lot more fun and interactive than I was expecting.

Wrigley's goes Wii

We all saw where Burger King created games exclusively for the Xbox 360 this past holiday season, but the Wrigley candy company has made an interesting play for users of Nintendo's new Wii console. They have launched wii.candystand.com which links its adver-gaming site candystand.com to the game console through the Wii browser. The most interesting things as that they did it without any contact with Nintendo. I haven't had the chance to experience a Wii yet (Chris I am look at you here buddy) so I would love to hear from anyone who been able to experience this site through the Wii browser to see if it is a compelling experience.

AXE Dirty Rolling

Firstborn Multimedia is at it again. They have launched a microsite to support the new AXE TV campaign featuring a couple rolling around the city picking up random stuff. The site lets you control the couple rolling around the city and more stuff you roll over the higher your score.

Dofus - Flash MMORPG

I saw this for the first time a little over a year ago at MAX but I throught I would post it in case you hadn't experience it yet. Dofus is a Adobe Flash based massively multiplayer online roll playing game (MMORPG) and was created by Akama Studios in France. You download the game and run it through your browser so the bulk of the assets run locally and it connects to the server to create the community. The art and amount of work is impressive and worth checking out.

Dark M&M's Movie Game

I love M&M's. Every time I am in Vegas I go to M&M World. I just can't help myself. I loved introduction of Dark M&M's with commercial where Red and Yellow meet Darth Vader. Last month Mars announced that the Dark M&M's would become a permanent part of the candy line. Now they have put another spin on the dark theme with the launch of the Dark M&M's Movie Game. The game challenges you to find 50 "dark movies" hidden in a Hieronymus Bosch-inspired painting. You scroll around the painting and click on an item in the painting and type in your guess. If it is correct the box turns green and if not then it turns red. It is addicting and I have only been able to get half of the answers so far.

Starwood in Second Life

So after all these months of blogging I have toot my own horn a little and say that I work for a really cool company. This coming week Starwood will become the first company in history to open a new hotel brand inside of a virtual world. The new hotel concept called Aloft will open inside the popular online world of Second Life. Starwood partnered with the Electric Sheep Company to build a virtual version of is new hotel which will not open in the real world until 2008. The cool part is that they can then take the feedback from the virtual hotel and use it to alter the plans for the real hotel before it is even build. The whole process can been seen on a blog called Virtual Aloft which documented the entire process.

After spending a few weeks working for Starwood I am not convinced that these kinds of ideas can be done large agencies anymore. The agency process has become so cumbersome that by the time the ideas are conceived, pitched, approved and built you have missed your window of opportunity and someone else has beat you to market.

Roddick vs Pong

Ogilvy has created a new American Express campaign with tennis phenom Andy Roddick to promote their brand and the Rogers Cup. The campaign has Andy playing a match against the white bar from the classic Pong arcade game. The TV spot is funny and one of the better ones I can remember in the AmEx celebrity series.

You can then go online at www.stoppong.ca where you can try and beat pong yourself. It is basically just a re-skin of the old pong you know and love but if you hit the "3" key you can play the game in 3D which is a nice twist. I did have some technical problems in Safari since I had to resize the window and reload the content before the vertical control kicked in.

This is one of the better integrated campaigns I have seen this year. Ogilvy let's customers watch the TV and then step in to that world with the interactive.