Tomorrow, the nordic epic premieres. And if the website is an appetizer for the movie, then I’m already a fan.

A gothic atmosphere is sucessfuly achieved, with dense photography, a intense soundtrack, and simple but effective transitions between sections (specially the Grendel’s Mother Lair at the Special Features area). The whole interactive experience has several cinematic effects, a lot like the movie’s recently released video game.

The online strategy features the regular movie website gimmicks such as wallpapers, ringtones, and e-cards, and surprise, surprise, had also a Second Life presence. Screenwriter Neil Gaiman appeared last week (slurl) in the virtual world to talk about the new film and offering a free Beowulf avatar.

Other interesting additions include UGC, with a branded Machiminima video trailer contest, and a series of podcasts to download.

If you still haven’t, watch the latest trailer above, unfortunately without hot Angeline Jolie CG footage.

In Britain, they really push hard with their military marketing efforts. Earlier this year i wrote about GetTheMessage, and now it’s time for Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) to launch a new advergaming campaign.

©The Guardian

Massive Inc selected popular titles as Tom Clancy Splinter Cell, Need for Speed or Quake Wars for advert placement, trying to reach a younger audience that has fewer traditional media consumption and gamers with interest in IT, with the billboards placed within the Xbox 360 games. Or how a wannabe Master Chief might become the next security expert of the MI5.

On the website you can find all the major threats that Britain faces through a flash interface worthy of James Bond, with several challenging spy activities, a fun interactive way to describe the Graduated opportunities available at GQHQ.

As with the military recruitment, the advertising industry is facing their own battle. With the news of companies like Nike and IBM shifting their media placement, one of the challenges is how to find bright young minds that are keen on these new tools and disciplines, but still having a true passion for marketing and advertising.

P.S: Andre pointed out the coincidence that many of the popular military online marketing efforts usually come from the Commonwealth countries or the USA. Have you heard of any other ones without an English accent ?

Source: The Guardian, via Advertising Etc

After moaning about Nike not providing a way to embed the videos in one of my latests posts, i see they’re doing it right at the recently launched online campaign “Nothing But The Truth“, for their Skateboard line (Nike SB). With a MySpace profile, and lots of clips (with Flash permalinks) that could have been part of Reservoir Dogs, the campaign is on the right track for this Fall full movie premiere.

P.S. then again, maybe not, as the video isn’t streaming in Firefox !!! Is somebody listening at NIKE ?!?!?!?!? Maybe is time to take the jobs from the interactive interns and forward it to the senior guys until it’s done right !

Update (12.09.07): they got the embed streaming, but now it’s autostarting by default. That does it, i’m removing the video.

Look Ma, now with ads:

Do you digg or bury it?

Source: FutureLab

The real deal in first person (that being Alex Kinnier, Google’s Group Product Manager). Or the MUST READ article if you don’t have a clue about the online advertising industry.

“Why we’re buying DoubleClick” (Official Google Blog)

Some favorite quotes:

By enabling our AdSense network to work with DoubleClick’s delivery mechanisms, for example, advertisers can obtain more precise metrics in order to judge the effectiveness of their campaigns.

The value to the advertiser-agency of an ad-serving company such as DoubleClick is having a single place to measure and report on all online campaigns for ads that run on different sites across the web.

Why we’re buying DoubleClick
In summary, we’re buying DoubleClick because:

1. DoubleClick’s products and technology are complementary to our search and and content-based text advertising business, and give us new opportunities to improve online advertising for consumers, advertisers and publishers.
2. Historically, we’ve not allowed third parties to serve into Google’s AdSense network, which has made it hard for advertisers to get performance metrics. Together, Google and DoubleClick can deliver a more open platform for advertisers, and provide the metrics they need to manage marketing campaigns.
3. By combining Google’s infrastructure with DoubleClick’s knowledge of agencies and publishers, we can create the next generation of more innovative ad serving technology, one that significantly improves the efficiency and effectiveness of online advertising.
4. To manage ad inventory, some of the largest publishers use DoubleClick DART for Publishers – but a good portion of it goes unsold. It’s our view that the combination of DoubleClick and Google will help these publishers succeed by monetizing their unsold inventory.

From a technical perspective, Google will also be able to get web pages to load faster by reducing latency from ad servers.

Highlights are mine. Think about them.

Here they are, 3 ex aequo winners at Cannes Cyber Lions 2007:

First, from the wacky Swedish folks Far Far, the Diesel voyeuristic experience: 2 girls kidnapping a sales guy and reporting the whole thing live, with several cameras 24×5, showcasing the new Diesel Intimate collection.

(check the demo site here)

Second, the work by R/GA for Nike+. It’s one of the most astonishing examples of integrated marketing you’ll see this year.

Last, the pre-announced and most obvious choice, the Evolution video for Dove by Ogilvy Toronto.
While the viral video is the tour-de-force for convincing clients of the power of online marketing, the Nike initiative is pointing the right direction, with their efforts of bringing closer consumers and brands.

I’m saving the other awards to waste time research this weekend.

© http://www.flickr.com/photos/caribb/156052002/

Being accused lately of lack of transparency, Google is releasing today detailed URL reports for AdWords. Advertisers now have more information where their ads appear, optimizing their campaigns accordingly to their performace, with metrics such as domain, URL, impression, click, conversion and cost.

The improved feature is named “Placement Performance”, is one step closer to true contextual advertising and will surely benefit from insights brought by the DoubleClick acquisition.

More at Clickz

As a tribute to Lynette, i’m posting here my favorite quotes of the Future of Online Advertising Conferece, in the form of interesting snippets.

Heather Luttrell (IndieClick)

Who are we to say what the future of advertising is? What we can do is provide a framework to analyse which sites are up and coming for advertisers/marketers.

© http://flickr.com/photos/wagoldby/128716494/

(more…)

DDB Istanbul sent me some interesting online advertising pieces a few days ago, and i didn’t had the time to post them. I already knew one of the ads, but the other 2 are as thought provoking and to the point as the first one. Choose wisely any of them.