Bloggers Report Robot Sightings

A digital campaign has launched to promote 'Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen', which is based around two 'blogs' carrying stories of sightings of giant robots around the globe. The two blogs, The Real Effing Deal and Giant Effing Robots, are both conspiracy style sites, informing the public of the hidden truth about these strange giant robots. The sites feature regular blog posts, imagery and video footage of "transforming" robot sightings across the world.

The videos are really well done and show a host of locations such as Tokyo, Berlin, Barcelona and the UK. There is also one brilliant video of a robot sighting at the Champion's League final in Rome.

The campaign has been produced by Rubber Republic for Paramount Pictures and is being promoted worldwide. The blogs are supposedly run by characters from the film. Rubber Republic say that "the overall objective of the campaign is to allow fans to get more involved in the film's back story and find out what has happened since the first instalment".

Heath Tyldesley, marketing director for Paramount Pictures International, said: "Extending the narrative of the film into the real world prior to a film's release is a great way of building buzz and awareness among fans and viewers, rewarding them for their engagement with the first film. Directors are really embracing broadening the platforms of the films narrative to include the web and Michael Bay is no exception."

Matt Golding, creative director at Rubber Republic, said: "These clips not only take the world of the film into new spaces where fans can engage online, but also provide additional content around the film driving awareness of the release."

Microsoft $10k Give-Away

It seems that Microsoft Australia have really decided to go after Firefox's growing marketshare. In a rather intering online campaign, MS are offering (AUS)$10,000 to one lucky person who finds where the cash is "buried" on the internet.

The campaign has been activated from Microsoft's own site (http://www.microsoft.com/australia/ie8/competition/) but users have to follow Microsoft on Twitter (@tengrand_IE8) for clues to find the money. However, they have to do it with Internet Explorer 8! The site states:

"But you'll never find it using old Firefox.
(So get rid of it, or get lost.)"

Interestingly there is a dialogue box on the Microsoft site that is not viewable through Firefox, so users are forced to use Internet Explorer 8 to see any content there. Obviously Twitter works perfectly through Firefox, leading me to question their use of the micro-blogging site. Obviously it makes sense to "fish where the fishes are" (as someone I greatlty respect often says) but at the same time, if the entire campaign is driven to use Internet Explorer 8 instead of Firefox, surely they could have based everything through the Microsoft site?

Cheers to Gav for passing this on to me.


- - - - - Update - - - - -

Lukasz in work directed me to this site...

It's from a Mozilla Linguist and Coder, Mitcho. Clever! Check him out here or follow him on Twitter.

Win a House on Twitter

Back in 2007, Channel 4's 'Grand Designs' featured a house in Cheltenham owned by Tim Bawtree. Tim's £800,000 house failed to sell and soon after the airing property prices in the UK started falling. Faced with no certain turn-around on the current market, Tim decided to give the house away. Honestly.

Tim's plan is to link a microsite for the house to a Twitter account and generate enough traffic to sell ads on the site to raise £820,000 to cover the price of the house (and all costs) and allow a donation to 'Help for Heroes'.

Ads on his site are being sold for £100 a block, and Tim needs 90% of the blocks to be bought for the give-away to be activated.

The winner will be chosen at random from Tim's Twitter followers

Tim said: "Similar things have been done, but there was no hook. The hook here is that people can win a house for free, which will drive traffic from Twitter to the home page."

Koogle

According to a Brand Republic article, a new Search Engine is about to launch specifically aimed at orthodox Jews. The Search Engine, named Koogle, will allow orthodox Jews to search the net without breaking any Torah commandments. The site has been designed to meet guidelines provided by orthodox rabbis and will ensure that no sexually explicit material is shown.

The site will be Hebrew language based, offer a filter for ultra-orthodox Jews (so cannot have things such as TVs in their homes), and will not allow any activity on the Sabbath.

The name 'Koogle' comes from Google and the traditional Jewish dish 'kugel'.

36% of all Advertising will be Online Advertising by 2013

In a report on the British Entertainment and Media Market, PricewaterhouseCooper have concluded that 36% of all advertising will be made up of Online Advertising by 2013. Although these are UK based predictions, the figures indicate an almost 100% increase in Online Advertising spends in just 4 years. This follows an April report from PricewaterhouseCooper that showed UK Online Advertising expenditure had grown by 17.1% year on year in 2008 to £3.35bn, an increase of £540m compared to 2007. This was a growth from 15.5% to 19.2% of total UK ad expenditure.

Phil Stokes, the leader of the entertainment and media practice at Price Waterhouse Coopers, said:
"We anticipate fundamental structural change in many of the business models across E&M sectors to happen imminently. Perhaps surprisingly, a slowing economy will accelerate the migration to digital technologies among both providers and consumers of content, meaning the industry that went into the recession is very different from the one to emerge the other side. Segments will have to consolidate, the least loyal customers have already left, higher quality products will be valued by both consumers and advertisers, and digital distribution will have become mainstream -- commanding fees more in line with its value. For each of the industry's diverse segments, the winners will be those who focus on driving and leading change which delivers real value for consumers."