Nokia Playland with Sooff

Nokia has launched a new branded virtual world campaign - Nokia Playland.


Quite exciting new site by Nokia in partnership with Sooff, the technology provider and virtual world operator. The website is in Chinese and targeting a local market with a handful of simple fun games. This campaign is focussed on raising interest in a line of mobile phone products including the N95 8GB, N78 and 6220.



Sooff, also known as Show Off is a flash-based 2D virtual world that is targeted at local youth audience. Think Habbo in Chinese with improved graphics very local Hong Kong flavour.

It's an interesting move by Nokia and has gathered some amount of buzz in the online world. It shows them willing to move beyond traditional advertising model online and engage even more with their audience in the avatar communities they enjoy to spend their time.

To get in to the Nokia Playland, users only need to fill in their simple personal details, like email and username, then they can create their 2D avatar based on preset face, hairstyle and fashion items. It is 100% free to register as “players”. Inside Nokia Playland, there are 4 main zones which line up with Nokia features – “Snap Zone”, “Chic Stage”, “Beat Area” and “Playland Notice Board”.

1. Playland Notice Board – an introduction area of the Playland.
2. Snap Zone – a mini game which players need to take a particular snapshot, the less time taken and the less flame needed, the higher score the player receives.
3. Chic Stage – a mini game where users need to use the “Nokia Maps” function to find out where the headphones have been hidden inside the Playland.
4. Beat Area – a mini game where users need to hit arrow keys on the keyboard in rhythm to line up with certain beats of the music

The site is simple and easy to understand. Users can get the selling point of different series Nokia mobile through the games inside. Additionally, it create an interesting brand experience to the targeted group – primarily teens, by an avatar community which is fun and relevant.

Whilst there are chat and PM functions, the rest of the community features found in all 2D avatar sites such as friends lists, profiles and albums are lacking. And user feedback from those who have tried the site is that it is fun for a certain time while doing the handful of mini-games, but becomes a lot less interesting after.

The key issue from the user point of view is that Nokia Playland is single brand environment.

Existing Sooff users cannot use their avatar in Playland, nor interact or chat with Playland users. For the long term though, it's unlikely a single brand virtual world is going to have compelling staying power as a destination beyond the initial buzz. As can be seen by the success of sites such as Stardoll and Meez, mix-n-match platforms which let users enjoy many brands as well as user generated content have far better success in retaining and rapidly growing their user base.

However if the main goal of the campaign is to be a short-term creative & engaging marketing campaign for youth, then Nokia has certainly done very well.

via VR Fashion

8-8-2008 by Gucci: a global brand going local

Gucci is launcing a special collection for the forthcoming olympics: "8-8-2008 Limited Edition”

Taking her cue from competitive sports, Creative Director Frida Giannini has conceived 8 exclusive accessories that epitomize sporty luxury.

A noteworthy product in this collection is the hot new I-Gucci watch, unique to the "8-8-2008 Limited Collection". It is Gucci's first ever digital timepiece, it will be offered worldwide and is a tantalizing option for cosmopolitan watch fans.

Its clean digital face (which features both numerical or clock hand formats), black dial and steel frame epitomize sporty elegance. The surface of its red monochrome rubber strap is engraved with the Gucci logo on the exterior, while the interior has been embossed with Gucci's iconic GG pattern.

The rear face commemorates the year 2008 with a chic red and green logo. All functions are easily executed using lateral push buttons embedded in the smooth circular frame of the 44mm case. Its high-tech capabilities even allow the wearer to select a dedicated Beijing time zone code on the display.

The "8-8-2008 Limited Edition" collection also includes a unique bicycle, with bold red double GG leather details and collectable items such as a luxurious Mah Jong set covered in red "La Pelle Guccissima" and, to pay homage to China, a panda in soft leather. Though intended for leisure, the products bear the hallmarks of Gucci's impeccable quality.

Frida also proposes the bold "La Pelle Guccissima" for two pieces of luggage. The first is a chic, sturdy leather duffel and the other a soft leather messenger bag with Gucci's iconic green-red-green web on the shoulder strap. Also included in the collection are sports shoes, for both men and women, articulated in a fresh patchwork of suede, patent leather and gold trim and a necklace nspired by military tags, in sterling silver and enamel making it the perfect accessory for casual looks.

"La Pelle Guccissima" is, as usual, buffed and finished by hand and the products feature a specially created metal plaque that combines the interlocking GG logo and the year 2008.

As for the bold red that permeates this standout collection, Frida comments: "Not only does red evoke "Happiness" and "Celebration" - two emotions that couldn't be more appropriate to describe the excitement in the world of sports - but it also happens to be a very fashionable color for 2008! I also designed just 8 products for this collection, which mirror the lucky number 8 in Chinese culture".

Though the I-Gucci watch will be offered worldwide, all other designs of this special collection will be sold exclusively in Hong Kong and mainland China.

via yatzer

The Volkswagen Drive In

From The Netherlands, a uber cool site to celebrate Volkswagen's 60th anniversary in the country and challenge your music knowledge. Everything it's in Dutch, but don't panic, just wait for the site to load, and then click on "speel het spel" to start playing... You have to match every song with the decade it belongs to... I did 11 at the first attempt, and you? As Dick explained me, the site it's the recognition of the typical songs that revitalises the rich Volkswagen history, but above all, it is much fun to play and guess whether Bill Haley was popular during the Fifties when the Volkswagen Beetle was introduced or during the Sixties when Volkswagen revealed its first mini Van. Congrats to Achtung! for the great work. My only doubt it's why they called the site Volkswagen Drive In and not Volkswagen Juke Box...

By: martina

via Adverblog

Behind the Scene: Seemingly Unlimited Effort for Unlimited Orange

via Creativity

Poke, London explores the endless possibilities (and massive effort) in creating the UK brand's site.

By: Kiran Aditham

While plenty of websites can feel infinite for all the wrong reasons, Poke London's colorful online creation for UK brand Orange is in fact designed as an authentic unlimited excursion, guiding visitors on a winding rainbow through a quirky, creature/activity-filled path that can absorb plenty of eyeball time.

Inspired by Orange's tagline that "good things should never end"—which is the foundation of the mobile brand's latest promotion—the site features mischievous-looking animals/ghosts/beings buzzing about along with a host of modules for people to play with and leave a mark forever. And with a constantly evolving landscape as its main ingredient, Poke, London obviously had its work cut out from the start. "It was massive, and [technically], it was managing all that stuff so that it doesn't crash, including the way the modules were loaded in and out," Poke creative director Nick Roope explains.

Orange: Good Things Should Never End | Full View »

"We brought in [visual designer] Marius Watz and guided him about how we wanted this rainbow to grow. We brought in an illustrator, Rex, who did the little black animations. We assembled all these different people, and we had all these different elements, and there was a massive management process to bring them all together. We had to load the [elements] in and out of memory as to when they were needed because if you've been scrolling down for 20 minutes and it's a whole 20 minutes worth of different things in memory, then it would at some point crash."

By installing user interaction outlets at virtually every twist and turn, the Poke design team covered a big loading process with little loading processes which contain fun challenges. "The user would have to interact with the modules to get them to load in the first place," says Roope. "But each module has its own creative mood that presents a challenge because you have to keep people engaged while loading so the fact that they feel like they're activating these things is a [feature] and they are reacting—but the [content] isn't fully integrated necessarily straight away. Then, obviously, in order to continue scrolling on the wall, people have to close those things down so that's one way we're managing it. Then, as you're scrolling down the pages, [the system] is obviously remembering where some things are, so it's randomly dropping things in and then unlearning them as you've passed."

Poke was also pulling double duty with the audio/sound design, first enlisting the services of BAFTA award-winning composer Nick Ryan to create the chirps, hyper-electro beats, revving motors and host of other noises. Next, the group had to insert and mix the sounds while considering the spatial aspects of the site. "We [needed] to know what's both directly on the screen and what's in proximity to it so we can start to play with the sound quality—usually it was 3D sound that's [ideal] for gaming—to create some of the audio effects so that you start hearing a sound before you see something. But then, obviously, the quality of the sound changes. It's creating the impression that it's an audio landscape as well as visual."

A landscape-styled creation is what Roope and company intended during the nearly three-month process to develop Orange's site, which the creative director understandably says is "...the most expensive one-page website I think I've ever worked on." Blending puzzle games, creature interaction, and other odds-and-sods time-killers with the slightest of branding (besides a few playful links scattered about), Roope emphasizes that the site concept is in line with Orange's mantra. "The whole idea of it is to communicate the notion of 'unlimited, ultimately.' That's why the client has financed it, because it's ultimately talking about the adventure of some of their products. We've very consciously tried to build that notion in to everything that we've done, but also in a very much more poetic way."

The CD counts among his personal favorite activities on the endless adventure to be the ice cream maker (pictured). "You're invited to create an ice cream, so you rapidly generate ice cream out of different [flavors] and toppings. You can control it to a certain extent, but it's random like a slot machine. Sometimes, you get random things like cheese, but every time you create something, you can decide whether to submit it or not. When you submit, you're asked to give your creation a name. It's very mildly creative, and it's user-generated content of the most senseless input. We're asking very little of people, but we're getting a very defined stimulus that attracts a lot of people."

With the plenty to be stimulated by and the potential for users to enjoy a long stay on the site, Poke found itself challenged by creating too much or too little. "The issue that [concerned] us most was just about repetition," Roope says. "We absolutely delivered on the idea of the unlimited because no page will ever look the same. As far as content is concerned, you're at some point coming past the same things you've seen before. Some of the elements, where you're adding your own things, they're different because they're obviously generated by people as they're interacting with them. In that situation, you're always going to come across fresh content."

"But the thing that we struggled with the most was just that what would be enough. How many things do you need to give most people to make them feel like it's gone on forever without having to go on forever? It's obviously going on forever in terms of generating actual fresh, different ideas each time, but otherwise, it would be unrealistic. That was the biggest struggle, collectively. But there's no point in creating more than what's necessary, and there was also a financial limitation in there as well. It's finding the balance between the elements."

Strategic Gaming

Nintendo grows further from fun and games, closer to the practical and utilitarian

by Ryan Block
via engadget

Nintendo's as cagey as tech companies come, but the WSJ is reporting on a recent and unusual high level, high impact strategy presentation where in top 'Tendo execs revealed what's described as a change in its current business model: using its foothold in the video game market to sell casual gamers and non-gamers products focused more on utilitarian functions. You know, boring stuff -- like, stuff that's not games. What they want to sell Nintendo wouldn't specifically say, but they're focusing first on the flagship portable, the DS, rolling out what the WSJ describes as "features [that] will be useful in places like train stations, amusement parks or museums and [that] could be accessed wirelessly," as well as a new "television-programming feature for the Japanese market... to check television listings, run searches by keyword and genre, and highlight each family member's favorite programs." Maybe this pseudo-DVR like functionality will somehow play into their forthcoming 1seg tuner, but precisely how the rest of this completely underwhelming and disappointing news will manifest itself is currently up to one's imagination -- something Nintendo's apparently lost. We have heard, though, they might be getting back into the playing card business, and possibly in keeping with that vertical integration, opening up a string of Nintendo themed casinos. Not a bad business to be in.

Guinness

Guinness Buries Ad in the Tubes; Will Someone Care Enough to Hunt Down and Launch It?

For Guinness, BBDO decided that instead of freely disseminating ads online or on TV, it would turn its media messages into prizes.

There's a Guinness ad hidden somewhere on the 'net and it is your job to find and launch it. ("Why us?" we wonder.) To do this, you have to unravel a mixed bag of clues, codes and puzzles.

The campaign involves a village of some sort. This is the mayor, Juan Ramon. (We like how you can hear sinister background laughter at the end.)

If the idea of hunting down a Guinness ad is irresistible and you're ready to jump on and go, you may also want to "peruse" (their words) this letter.

via AdRants

La Nuit des Clans

It's time for an new episode of Les Nuits Des Clans, a mysterious adventure game launched in France by Nouveau Jour (this is the post about last year's edition).

Tout en francais bien sur, but it's definitely worth giving it a try even if you don't speak the language... You find yourself on an island and you have to move around to play small (but challenging) advergames and collect words to complete a mysterious sentence that will unlock the doors of the castle.

Once the again the brand behind this complex advergaming experience it's not revealed. Last year it was Ricard, this time we don't know yet, but the mystery is part of the game so we are in no hurry to find out.

via Adverblog