This page contains an archive of all entries with the category online. Oldest entries appear first.
Cheer Up
Australians may need to visit www.supporterscheerup.com after Australia lost to England during the rugby world cup quarter-finals this weekend.
This highly effective viral online campaign was created by DDB for Philips for the FIFA 2006 World Cup. It's a good example of how variable-data publishing campaigns don't always need to include print. It leverages streaming video in Flash to deliver a novel message for your 'mates' who may need cheering up if their team didn't win the world cup.
There doesn't really seem to be a call-to-action, but Philips are probably trying to publicise the fact that they're an official sponsor of the world cup and that they can relate to football supporters.
Posted on Sunday, 7 October 2007 at 10:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
The Neon Bible
I came across an interesting website today and while it doesn't really fit under the 'variable-data publishing' umbrella, I thought that I'd still share it as it delivers a highly interactive and personalised experience, leveraging the power of Flash.
The Canadian indie band, Arcade Fire, has created an online video for their 'Neon Bible' album. Their song 'Neon Bible' is the first song on the album to have a music video. This online version takes music videos to a completely new level — it features the face and hands of Arcade Fire's Frontman, Win Butler, which you can interact with during the song.
Continue reading "The Neon Bible" »
Posted on Monday, 15 October 2007 at 4:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Meet Dexter
Meet Dexter; America's favourite serial killer. I was shocked to learn that I'm next on Dexter's hit list. Take a look at this news report.
Fortunately this turned out to be a spoof; it's actually viral campaign promoting the US hit TV series, Dexter. This has to be the most effective use of video-based image personalisation that I've seen to-date. The personalisation also extends to the newsreader's voiceover for additional authenticity. Even the spoof website is convincing; a social media site complete with a report summary, folksonomy tags and a list of fictional comments.
You can go to www.sliceoflifetv.com and can give your friends 'The Dexter Treatment' by inputting dynamic elements such as your friend's name, gender, age, occupation and a personalised message.
The campaign was created, filmed, directed and edited by Digital advertising agency, Ralph. When the campaign was launched in London, it proved so effective and controversial that Ralph received calls of complaint from the public and London's Scotland Yard Police!
Posted on Thursday, 29 November 2007 at 3:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Seasons Greetings
Over the past few days I've been working on a Seasons Greetings card to send to our customers and business partners. This year, we decided to drop our traditional printed cards and try an alternative way of reaching customers using email and image personalisation. Yesterday we sent out the ecard by email to over 3,200 contacts.
We created the personalised image in this ecard using XMPie uImage. The background picture changes to reflect the sender's city and each sender could add his or her own personalised message to the photo. Staff flagged contacts in from our CRM database to recieve the card, and could add their own personalised message for each contact, which appeared on the ecard. I've decided to share the details of how we put this campaign together, to demonstrate how you can leverage Photoshop and uImage to create effective personalised images.
Continue reading "Seasons Greetings" »
Posted on Thursday, 13 December 2007 at 1:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Naughty or Nice?
Publicis Digital have created presentrun.com.au; a seasonal viral campaign for Hertz Australia. This humorous website is not for the faint hearted — but if you're ready for the ride, let Santa pick you up and see what he's got in store for you...
The campaign uses image personalisation and versioning to add relevance, and although it doesn't touch the Dexter campaign, it's still pretty effective.
Posted on Friday, 14 December 2007 at 5:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
The Meaning of Christmas
It appears that OfficeMax have missed the meaning of Christmas in their seasonal viral campaign at elfyourself.com, inviting anyone to elfamorphosise themselves into stripey stockings and green costume. All you need to do is pick a vaguely flattering photo of yourself, upload, edit and you're an elf, prancing around the screen in time to music.
This is one of the first campaigns that I've seen where you can upload a photo of yourself and edit it using an image editing tool to resize, position and crop to the outline of your face. They even let you record your own voice by calling a phone number, entering a passcode and say a few words.
Continue reading "The Meaning of Christmas" »
Posted on Monday, 17 December 2007 at 10:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
It Keeps Getting Better
Over the past couple of years I've seen an increasing number of video-based image personalisation applications used in online viral campaigns. These applications have either been stitch-based, where multiple pre-recorded clips are stitched together on the fly to create a composite movie sequence (like Supporters Cheer Up), or they incorporate a static personalised image and zoom or pan the image to give the effect that it's part of the movie (like Meet Dexter).
However, there's an new campaign getting a lot of attention, although I'm guessing the majority of site visitors don't understand what it's promoting. It appears to be for a Brazilian beer brand named 'Boa', but my Brazilian Portuguese is pretty non-existent, so I can't be sure. Once you've punched in a couple of names on a form, you see the names incorporated in tattoos within a video sequence.
Continue reading "It Keeps Getting Better" »
Posted on Sunday, 13 January 2008 at 9:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Ave a Word
I thought it's time to share another online viral campaign. Although this one's a couple of years old now, it still deserves a mention due to its viral effectiveness and numerous creative awards which include Silver, Cannes Lion 2006 and Best Interactive Campaign, Adobe Design Awards.
London-based agency, Glue, created an ambitious and unique viral ad for MINI to tie in with the launch of the new MINI Cooper S with JCW GP Kit. The agency used Flash-based interactive video stitching techniques to create highly effective, personalised experience.
Continue reading "Ave a Word" »
Posted on Wednesday, 20 February 2008 at 9:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Listen to This!
We've just finished exhibiting at ad:tech, an interactive marketing conference held in Sydney (and other cities worldwide). We went along to demonstrate to delegates how XMPie can be leveraged as an interactive content publishing platform, shifting it far outside the boundaries of cross-channel direct marketing.
We created a demo application of a fictional music online store, named 'earfull', where users can check out new releases for their favourite genre, shop for music and gifts, and essentially have a complete 'Amazon-style' tailored shopping experience—completely driven by XMPie's Interactive Content Port (ICP) technology.
Continue reading "Listen to This!" »
Posted on Friday, 14 March 2008 at 6:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
XMPie and Flex
Application Architect Tim Perrett has moved the VDP boundary once again, this time by building a demo application integrating into XMPie, purely written in Flex (his first Flex project). He's even writing to the database dircectly from Flex through XMPie ICP. Another testimony to the open, flexible architecture of XMPie PersonalEffect.
Continue reading "XMPie and Flex" »
Posted on Wednesday, 30 April 2008 at 8:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Your Message Goes Here
I stumbled across yourmessagegoeshere.com today; a new site developed by DME. It appears to be technology demonstration of their video personalisation services. You simply pick a theme, enter a personalised message for a friend or foe, then sit back and watch the result.
Some movie themes offer different stories and let you to pick a suitable ending. Also, some movies use pre-recorded popular names which are incorporated in the movie if a name matches the recipients' name.
Continue reading "Your Message Goes Here" »
Posted on Monday, 5 May 2008 at 4:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Personalised Online Ads
The New York Times Bits Blog recently published a story on personalised online advertisements that include your name. For example "Hi John, we think you'd like...". The NY Times asked AOL, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo a simple question: can they show you an advertisement with your name in it?
Continue reading "Personalised Online Ads" »
Posted on Sunday, 11 May 2008 at 1:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Simpsonize Yourself
Taking a brief break from my drupa theme, I went online in search for some light entertainment. A friend shared with me a great viral site where you can transform yourself into a Simpsons character. On simpsonizeme.com, you can upload your photo, enter some basic information about your gender and how you look, and the site will analyze your uploaded photo and transform you into a Simpsons character.
Continue reading "Simpsonize Yourself" »
Posted on Saturday, 31 May 2008 at 9:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Election Fever
Election-mania is sweeping news headlines across the world and a couple of organisations have decided to create election news stories of their own.
The Summit Group are hosting a spoof election coverage news site, where you can transform yourself or a friend into a presidential candidate simply by a entering your name. The site uses Flash video to incorporate a name as a variable element within the video. While it's obvious that significant effort has gone into making this fictional video, the personalisation effects are not too effective, however the campaign gets a good overall chuckle factor.
Another, but somewhat similar second spoof news coverage is available on a fictional news Web site hosted by the democratic policital organisation MoveOn.org. The personalisation effects in this video (which also use Flash variables) are a little more convincing and even more humorous.
Continue reading "Election Fever" »
Posted on Saturday, 25 October 2008 at 1:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Make Me Super
EVB, a digital agency in San Francisco, has put together a viral video campaign for Kodak where you can transform yourself (or someone else) into a "super" person. The site includes an image-editing tool where you can upload a photo of yourself and define the edge of your face. If you're fortunate enough to have a common name, you're name will even be featured as part of a pre-recorded soundtrack. The campaign is very impressive and a great deal of effort (and expense) has gone into the production of the campaign.
Continue reading "Make Me Super" »
Posted on Monday, 27 October 2008 at 6:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Experiencing Cross-Media
While many print service providers realise the value of cross-media marketing and some already offer cross-media services at varying levels, these providers often struggle with communicating what cross-media actually is and what it can mean for their customers. Print providers are not alone, you just need to review the numerous websites of cross-media software vendors, from MindFire, Bitstream and others, and you will find it's quite challenging to understand what cross-media is really about and what it can offer.
Continue reading "Experiencing Cross-Media" »
Posted on Tuesday, 14 April 2009 at 5:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)