Welcome!
Bienvenue to Viral Intelligence, as we try to rattle through the ups and downs of viral and buzz industry for the merry month of July. There have plenty of top end changes as the big corporations manoeuvre their online ad policies, while at the other end of the spectrum, agencies are still pumping out top-notch content. Read on to know more....
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News Round-up:
Kensington Report viral series launches on Heavy.com
We've just launched a new viral series called the Kensington Report for Heavy.com - the US-based entertainment site. Check out a couple of clips from the series here: Racist Cheese Alien Babies The Kensington Report is a series of 8 short Chris Morris-syle satirical news reports ,taking a look at phenomena such as Mindjacking and posing questions such as "Does eating cheese cause racism?". The answer's of course yes . . . The series has already had over 400,000 views - so is flying around the web and doing its job of establishing Heavy.com in the UK. More advertiser sponsored Kensington Reports are in production at the mo - with the next out in a couple of weeks. Keep tuned . . .
Internet Ad growth will slow to a measly 30% in 2008
WPPs GroupM report makes interesting reading about the projected growth of internet advertising (and the demise of more traditional forms) Perhaps the most interesting prediction though is that, while online growth is expected to be about 34% this year this will slow to 30% next year. A factor behind this slow-down is the move of internet users into social networks which are more difficult to access with traditional online ad methods. Advertisers licking their lips at the prospect of breaking into these networks are increasingly looking to the 'viral effect' to achieve this....
Greenagers rule the roost...
Contrary to the belief that teenagers are all heavy smoking anti-social types - the next generation are developing a growing environmental conscience and are now more receptive to 'green' advertising.
According to a this report 38% of online teenagers have environmental concerns and of those 15% are labelled as "Green Teens" who are seen as being especially responsive to online marketing. This group also are more likely to buy products online and use other online services such as chat rooms, mobile content websites and digital photo services.
They're also good advertisements themselves - 45% of them liked to be the first to hear about new products and their self-proclaimed popularity made them trendsetters among their peers. If we need evidence of the rise of the greenager, our sister company Delib recently launched an environmental game aimed at this age bracket called MyAbodo for Defra and has received over 100,000 views in the past fortnight.
Google to target casual gamers
With 1 in 4 web users playing online games, Google are making moves to deploy Adsense more strategically, reports GigaOM.
At present, games can be played with strips of adverts around the outside- the player is able to ignore the ads easily and revenue from those adverts remains low. In their “AdSense for Games” presentation at last week’s Casual Connect conference in Seattle, Google outlined plans to integrate Adsense into flash games to ensure people see them a little bit more.
As the report says, "An AdSense optimized to Flash and other game-centric platforms would mean more revenue, would mean more companies jumping into this space, would mean tremendous shifts toward an audience of casual gamers which is (as the presentation noted), upwards of 200 million. The size of this audience cannot be understated: 1 in 4 of all Web users visit gaming sites, primarily to play casual titles. So a system which monetized this usage better wouldn’t just influence the game industry, but the development and direction of the Web in general."
Who are Jamodu?
During our Ashes victory over the Aussie's in 2005 cricket fans were left slightly bemused over the 'new sponsors' of The Ashes - an unknown company called Jamodu.
One clever-clogs had gone about setting up a blog under the name of Jamodu and is offering your company "to be part of the craze that is currently sweeping the country" in the form of advertising space, just to earn back the cold hard cash he has said to be spending for his own advertising. Jamodu even got a heads up from Henry Blofeld on Test Match Special. While the Jamodu blog hasn't had a post in nearly 16 months, new BBC TMS discussions have led to a new wave of traffic and discussion about this mysterious company...
And for reference, the domains Jamodu.com and Jamodu.co.uk have been registered by a company in the radio frequency sector. I wonder if they're benefitting from the free advertising from npower, and now us of course.
5 of the best
The five best this month really show that viral ads are raising the bar in terms of the quality of creative idea and doing all they can to promote peer-to-peer activity around their campaigns. Dive in and see for yourself:-)
Kensington Report- Superheroes next door
Everyone has the right to be a little paranoid about their neighbours. For one thing they know where you live. In order to promote new US show 'Who Wants To be A Supehero?' you can look for common clues to determine whether they are in fact superheros - with a bit of breaking and entering. Another Rubber Republic release in this popular series.
Icetruck TV
We first heard of Dexter after an episode of Newsnight a few weeks back. If you're in a mood to fool someone you can send them a "realistic" personalised movie
claiming they're next on the serial killer's hitlist. It's low on the believable factor but anybody who recieves it is bound to be amused and the opportunity to pass this on is easy and compelling.
Top Gear to virals...
Personalised expereinces are increasingly the name of the game. Thanks to James May and Yahoo you can now become a star* of your own tongue-in-cheek mini-movie dedicated to you and your 'passion', whatever that may be. Just a little something to inflate your ego really.
Milky Milky
This is a stunning flash game from the Californian Milk Board. In a world deprived from milk you are on a mission to retrieve the treasured 'glass' but are constantly being pursued by those trying to send you to Milkatraz. An incredibly addictive game with lots of little platform style mini-missions which can make you wonder - "All this just for milk?" Best bit has to be the car chase game in which, through lack of milk, you become increasingly weak and unable to steer!
Human Tetris
What the ? Being a Japanese TV producer clearly involves a room full of mind-expanding chemicals and a super-nintendo... There may be some advertising in there but let's not let that ruin what is a piece of Youtube Gold.
