Hello Again!

Welcome back to another episode of the Viral Intelligence saga. We’ve been busy little bees in October getting our Viral Manager software into the public domain, designing and seeding more and more virals and looking for innovative ways to tap into the vast video and social networking markets. A lot has been happening with us and a lot has been happening in our world. Check it:

News Round-up:

Acquisition of the Decade

October saw Google’s staggering £880m stock acquisition of YouTube. The deal is being hailed as the most important internet acquisition in history. It is an amazing tactical move that positions Google as the world’s leader in video distribution. Astonishingly, Google acquired YouTube for nothing! In the last couple of days, Google’s share value has already exceeded the value of the stock they acquired. Analysts are saying that although Google could have paid for the deal within six years by simply placing AdSense ads on YouTube, they are going to introduce a wealth of exciting new advertising models to the site. Watch out for amazing new advertising systems in the shape of paid content syndication and interactive product placement. The question is, will there be opportunities for marketers to deliver contextual viral content with these new ad models? One thing’s for sure, this is going to be the talk of the town for a long time to come.

Subservient Chicken on Xbox

In its boldest digital move yet, Burger King has announced that it will launch a series of games for the Xbox. They will be available free with select meals. The games will feature the famous BK viral characters; The King, his girlfriend Brooke Burke, and of course, The Subservient Chicken. Three titles are planned - "Big Pumpkin," "Pocketbike Racer," and "Sneak King" and all will be compatible with Xbox Live; giving BK the opportunity to market special online offers.

Yahoo! Joins Online Video Race

The new Yahoo! Video lets its users upload, watch and search for videos. Nothing new there. However, Yahoo! says that it has more content than other video websites because it crawls the web, accepts uploads and receives direct feeds. It will also include videos that Yahoo! already hosts on its music, news, sports film and TV channels and even material from rival YouTube. While this does offer another channel for us marketers to peddle our wares to, it sounds like they aren’t offering any groundbreaking services for their average user. The incentive they offer is the possibility of fame… Perhaps it would be better if the incentive was cash like the Metacafes and Revvers of the web.

5 of the best

Here are five of the best viral campaigns that we have picked up over the last month - October 2006.

Doggles In late October we launched our new game for the British Greyhound Racing Board (BGRB). Race Doggles is an exciting and slickly styled flash-based flying game. Fly your Biggles like greyhound through the hoops whilst doing your best to keep up with the ever receding Baron Von Hare. The game is incentivised by the free giveaway of free admission / drink tickets. It gets increasingly hectic as you progress through the levels. Chocks away!

Dove Evolution "Dove Evolution," a 75-second viral film created by Ogilvy & Mather, Toronto, was uploaded to YouTube on Oct. 6 and has been viewed several million times since. While that is impressive, it pales in comparison to the sudden traffic spike the site "Campaign For Real Beauty" has enjoyed from the cross-platform viral success of the "Dove Evolution" film.

Mini’s Latest Viral Offering Mini have followed up on the viral success of their “Ave a Word” campaign with another p2p email driven flash application. It allows users to design their own mini, which then drives across the screen to spell out a message with its tire tracks. Your can then send on your car design and message to your friends; this then enables them to do the same.

Experiment 214 Coca-Cola has finally decided to jump on the well known Mentos-Diet Coke bandwagon. Coke’s initial reluctance to acknowledge the phenomenon was due to the fact that they didn’t want to damage their brand. Now however, they realise that they are losing control of their brand by not acknowledging anything. Therefore, they have got stuck in to creating their own superior and highly elaborate virals.

Car Park Pong Here’s a nicely designed little viral game to help promote the Science Museum’s “Game On” exhibition. It’s clever in that it marries the earliest and simplest game engine with fluid, modern graphics and references; thereby encapsulating the evolution of computer games.

Hello Again!

Quick Links

News Round-up:

Acquisition of the Decade

Subservient Chicken on Xbox

Yahoo! Joins Online Video Race

5 of the best

Thanks for reading. See you next month.

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