Archive for the ‘Viral’ Category
Gingerbread Ed Viral - New Zealand Bakery of the Year
The New Zealand Bakery of the Year challenge is one bit of online marketing that I look forward to each year now. The reason why I like it is simple - whats not to like about those cute little animated gingerbread men. Each years viral video is as entertaining as the last and this years Gingerbread Ed video is (as they put it on the Bakery of the Year site) an edible homage to one of New Zealand’s greatest, Sir Edmund Hilary.
As per usual each bakery is assigned a unique number to identify them for judging and voting purposes. Then people can vote for their favourite bakeries by texting. This public text voting and expert bakery judges determine the winners. A special People’s Choice Award is determined through online voting.
Gingerbread Ed is right up there with their previous years campaigns of the Gingerbread Gangsters and the Gingerbread Haka.
Anzacpoppy.com - RSA
For ANZAC Day this year the Returned Services’ Association were letting people make an online donation at www.anzacpoppy.com. In return for making the donation, they would plant a poppy on your behalf in the online Field of Remembrance.
When donating you could choose from some ANZAC memorabilia for your phone. You could choose either rings tones, including the “Last Post” Ringtone or wallpaper images for your phone.
You could also leave messages on the Wall of Remembrance. I am of the opinion that they could of represented the Wall of Remembrance in a way more visually engaging way.
There were also badges available to help spread the word about the campaign.
SaverJet - Air New Zealand’s Spoof Web Site Viral
I’ve been meaning to Blog about this sooner, but just over a month ago Air New Zealand launched a viral campaign consisting of a spoof web site for fictitious budget airline SaverJet.com. Air New Zealand’s marketing manager, Jules Lloyd, said the “tongue-in-cheek campaign” was designed to raise awareness of the hidden fees that low-cost carriers charge.
The humourous approach of taking the piss out of budget airlines and their hidden fees and silly clauses hidden under the asterisk symbol * in the small print, I think works as it’s something we can all relate to.
There is no mention on the SaverJet site as to who is behind the fictitious site. I wonder what was the reasoning behind Air New Zealand not acknowledging themselves. Maybe they could of quietly stated in the small print under the asterisk that they were responsible for this site. I learnt the other day that this could be termed as a ‘dark viral’ meaning the brand isn’t actually acknowledged.
Apparently viral marketing campaigns should entertain, inform and incentivise us enough to pass the viral on. I think the SaverJet viral is fairly entertaining, but I don’t think I’ve been informed. There doesn’t appear to be any incentive to pass the viral on either. Despite this, if I’d known about the viral at the time, I think I would of let other people know about the fake SaverJet site.
Internet Blackout Protest Against Harsh Copyright Law Turns Into Global Viral
This is a follow-up on my post about the Creative Freedom Foundation’s Campaign against Guilt Upon Accusation Laws in New Zealand. To try and fill you in quickly, the Creative Freedom Foundation are protesting against Section 92A of the Copyright Amendment Act that is due to come into law in New Zealand on February 28th. This ammendment to the law would mean that ISPs would be able to cut off internet access and web sites of anyone who is repeatedly accused of copyright infringment, based purely on accusation alone, without evidence or proof of guilt. It will be a three strikes and you’re out system. On the third copyright infringement the ISP will automatically cut off your internet connection, without being proven guilty in a court of law. Completely outrageous indeed. The same kind of legislation has been rejected in other countries such as Germany and the UK.
The campaign started out with the Creative Freedom Foundation asking people to protest by signing an online petition called Not In My Name. They also wanted people to spread the word about the campaign by either joining them on Facebook and MySpace, writing to a member of parliament or displaying an animated banner on your site.
Now the campaign has taken on a new phase calling for people to join the INTERNET BLACKOUT N.Z PROTEST from the 16th - 23rd February. They want people to BLACK OUT their Facebook, MySpace and Bebo avatars, your Twitter account and web sites. It is proving to be a very powerful addition to the campaign as the protest has turned into a global viral, due mostly in part to celebrity actor, comedian and author Stephen Fry.
Day 1 of Campaign
- According to Mohawk Media, Juha Saarinen asks Stephen Fry to tweet about #blackout
- Stephen Fry shows support for the campaign by turning his avatar black, changing his Bio to: I’m blacked out: Stand up against “Guilt Upon Accusation” for New Zealand http://creativefreedom.org.nz/blackout.html and talks about the internet blackout campaign on Twitter. This helps push the campaign global.
- He also tells people to Digg this
By doing this Stephen Fry gains 15,000+ friends overnight and he comes in as No.3 on Twitterholic with just over 200,000 people following him. Twitterholic tells you who the most popular - Top 100 Twitter users are based on followers.
Day 2 of Campaign
- #blackout becomes the #1 search trend on Twitter, beating Heroes, 24 and Dollhouse
- The Internet Blackout campaign makes it into Wikipedia as a definition for Blackout
- People start blogging about the Internet Blackout protest including Richard McManus at ReadWriteWeb and Cory Dotorow at Boing Boing.
- A Guilt Upon Accusation anthem called the Copywrong Song is realeased under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 New Zealand License. A Copywrong Remix Challenge is issued calling for people to make the ultimate remix of the Copywrong song.
Day 3 of Campaign
- Chelfyn Baxter at Mohawk Media releases his ‘Kangaroo Court’ animation, a protest video for the campaign against Section 92 of the New Zealand Copyright Ammendment Act.
Day 4 of Campaign
- On Thursday 19th February, a public demonstration took place on the grounds of the New Zealand Parliament in Wellington with the ‘Not in my Name’ petition handed over. People were asked to come along in bright clothes and black placards.
- Stuff’s Blackout news story ‘Stephen Fry rails against NZ internet law‘ hits the front page of Digg.com
Day 5 of Campaign
- More web celebrities & supporters join the Blackout campaign including author Neil Gaimen, and Xeni from Boing Boing.
Day 6 of Campaign
- Cartoons start appearing about The Guilt Upon Accusation Law including Dylan Horrock’s and Mike Moreu’s.
Day 7 of Campaign
- Preparation and instructions go out on how to modify your web site for the final day of Internet Blackout protest.
Day 8 of Campaign
- New Zealand Political blogs and other web sites Blackout their sites including Public Address, Scoop, Kiwiblog, The Standard, No Right Turn, Frog Blog, Whale Oil, Not PC, No Minister, Just Left, The Hand Mirror, Roar Prawn, Policy Net, Kiwi Politico.
- Prime Minister John Key announces that Section 92A will be delayed until March 27th
Posted in Facebook, MySpace, Political, Social Media, Social Networking, Twitter, Viral Tagged: Internet Blackout, NZ Copyright Law, Protest
Ecofont Uses Up To 20% Less Ink
SPRANQ, a Dutch creative communications company have developed a new font called Ecofont. It has been designed to use up to 20% less ink when printed. This means that you will save ink, therefore Ink toner or Ink cartridges could last longer. What an awesome idea this is!
As you can see from the image above, the font has small round holes or circles in it. The concept was to see how much of a letter could be removed while maintaining readability. They found the best results were achieved using small circles, after extensively testing with all kinds of shapes.
The Ecofont is intended for business purposes and works best when using font size 9 or 10, but the results vary depending on your software and the quality of your screen. It works best for OpenOffice, AppleWorks and MS Office 2007 and is available for Windows, Mac OSX and Linux. Printing with a laser printer will give the best printing results.
Ecofont is based on the Vera Sans font and is free to download and use.
Creative Freedom Foundation’s Campaign against Guilt Upon Accusation Laws.
Do you illegally download music, movies or software over the internet? If yes then watch out, because New Zealand government is set to bring in rediculous new legislation regarding copyright infringment on the 28th of February.
Section 92 of the Copyright Amendment Act assumes Guilt Upon Accusation. This means that ISPs will be able to cut off internet access and web sites of anyone who is repeatedly accused of copyright infringment, based purely on accusation alone, without evidence or proof of guilt. There is no penalty or punishment for false accusation either and could be wide open to abuse.
So, if you download anything that is copyrighted without paying for it (which alot of people do) you could be affected. It will be a three strikes and you’re out system. On the third copyright infringement your ISP will automatically cut your internet connection off, without being proven guilty in a court of law.
On the 18th December 08, the Creative Freedom Foundation was launched. It was founded in response to Copyright law and it’s effect on creativity, the economy, and public rights. They advocate on behalf of artists whose creative freedom is affected by major Governmental decisions made in their name, and in the name of protecting creativity.
Even though the Creative Freedom Foundation represents the views of artists, they have launched a campaign against the Guilt Upon Accusation laws in New Zealand.
Part of the campaign has involved them setting up a petition called Not In My Name. Artists and non artists alike can sign it. Just over 4300 people have signed the petition at the time of writing this post.
They also want you to spread the word about the campaign by either:
- writing to a member of Parliament
- joining them on Facebook and MySpace
- using the below animated banner ad on your web site or emails
Please do take the time to have a read of the Creative Freedom Foundation site and sign the petition. It might just save your internet connection being cut off.
Greenpeace - YouTube Climate Change Message - Dear John Key
On the 12th November, I received an email newsletter update from Greenpeace. In this email they were urging people to record a message to John Key about climate change via web camera, video camera or mobile phone. Then upload the video as a response to John Keys victory speech on YouTube and add the tag ‘dearjohnkey’. The last step was to send the Greenpeace email message to friends and family.
Follow-up email
Two days later, I received a follow-up email from Greenpeace letting me know that there had been some video contributions uploaded to YouTube already. This email also said that if you can’t manage sending a video, then send an email to John Key: john.key@parliament.govt.nz.
YouTube video responses
Searching on YouTube for the ‘John Key victory speech’ turns up 2 listings under those keywords. The correct John Key victory speech listing to add your video response to has had 672 views. So far there have been 7 video responses uploaded and 17 text comments (at the time of writing).
So it’s been 2.5 weeks since I received that first email and only 7 videos have been uploaded. It’s not a huge response, but it’s good that they are trying to get people involved and participate through web 2.0 intiatives. A video response is getting people to commit to being responsive in real time. Plus you get to see the real people behind the messages, a private conversation being made public. And this is what social media is all about trying to engage people meaningfully through the use of social media.
Green Party Viral - Vote For Me
The Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand turned their ‘Vote for me’ political billboard advertisement into a viral for the recent election. You can create your own ‘Vote for me’ billboard on www.voteforus.co.nz. All you have to do is upload an image and then send it to your friends via email. What a good idea this is. Simple but highly effective. It’s nice to see a viral thats not video.
Gingerbread Gangster Viral - New Zealand Bakery of the Year 08
The New Zealand Bakery of the Year 2008 competition run by the Baking Industry Association of New Zealand (BIANZ) ended in August. Last year I wrote about the 2007 New Zealand Bakery of the Year campaign on onlinemarketer.co.nz. The viral video for last years campaign was of the animated Gingerbread men Haka. This video proved to be controversial, so enhanced the viral marketing aspect of the campaign. This year they have done another Gingerbread man video, but in a scene from The Godfather film.
YouTube reach
A search on YouTube using the keywords: gingerbread men gangsters turns up 2 listings of the video. It is now a couple of months since the competition finished and these 2 listings together have only had 534 views. At the time I was writing about the 2007 campaign, around a 100 people had uploaded the Gingerbread Haka on YouTube, with them getting an excess of 300,000 views. Okay, so the Gingerbread Gangster video is not as controversial as the Gingerbread Haka, so it was bound to not get as much attention as last years campaign.
The campaign was run in similar fashion to last year. Get the bakeries to register online, assign them a unique number to identify them for judging and voting purposes. Then get people to vote by texting, online voting or instore voting. Once again people were encouraged to send the Gingerbread viral video to their friends on the web site. I am not sure as to whether they did any TV advertising this year. I don’t watch much TV, so I don’t know.
Even though this years Gingerbread Gangsters Viral video does not appear as successful in terms of reach on YouTube compared to the Gingerbread Haka, I still think the concept of the Gingerbread Gangsters is just as good as the Gingerbread Haka.
Murder Burger Job Advert Goes Viral On Flickr
Murder Burger is a new Gourmet Burger joint that opened on Ponsonby Road in Auckland last month. A bit of healthy competition for Burger Fuel and the likes. So apparently they were looking for staff and placed a job ad on auction site Trade Me and had a less than satisfactory response. They placed a humorous “staff needed” ad in their shop window. Looks like a few people took photos of the job advert and put them up on the photo sharing site Flickr.
Photos on Flickr
Now, almost a month after their launch (and at the time of writing this post) this job ad photo under the title of:
- Staff Wanted has been viewed 129,128 times on Flickr.
Another job ad photo under the title:
- Want to work for Murder Burger had 24 views.
And this one:
- An honest job in Auckland had 65 views on Flickr.
Actually, now after closer inspection, all three photos appear to be the same photo?
Due to these photos being uploaded on Flickr they ended up getting over a thousand applicant emails from people all over the world. I guess that was a bit of an unexpected twist in their recruitment drive and online marketing strategy. It just goes to show the power of social media when a local offline job advertisement goes global online.
The Murder Burger site is up on WordPress and you can also find Murder Burger on Facebook, of which currently they have 60 members.