MTV's Online Music Awards

I spotted this great story over on Revolution Magazine. The virtual world Habbo Hotel has teamed up with the MTV Europe Music Awards to create an online MTV-branded space for users of the site to hang out back stage and become pop stars, and they even have the chance to win a virtual award. The virtual awards allow Habbo members to visit the main stage, walk on the red carpet and access several back stage areas. Habbo members also have the option to vote for their favourite artists, and participate in a number of competitions and activities in the build up to the actual MTV Europe Music Awards.

Christian Batist, senior vice-president of marketing at Sulake Corporation, the creator of Habbo, said, "Music is the sole biggest asset that our teen users value in their lives, and thus we are extremely happy to partner with MTV Europe Music Awards. The highly involving activities in Habbo will allow us to activate a massive music-loving user base to take part in the awards. We aim to generate massive amounts of votes for the MTV Europe Music Awards from our Habbo audiences around the world."

Habbo Hotel, which is a virtual world geared towards teens, attracts over 14 million monthly unique visitors.

Cadbury’s Make-A-Wish

Cadbury’s have just launched a new microsite for the UK and Ireland to support their sponsorship of the Make-A-Wish Foundation. The site, which has been developed for Cadbury’s by Weapon7, introduces ‘The Wish Workshop’. ‘The Wish Workshop’ is the home of five unnamed, quirky characters who have a strange language all of their own.

The site offers five different films, all produced in a really cool old-school stop-frame animation. They show the five characters making and launching new wishes. The wishes which are represented by stars, will be added to the sky everytime new real-life wishes happen. The site also features a live stream to the homepage of all donations. Essentially visitors can see donations as they happen in real-time, including any donation that they make themselves.

Promotion of the site and campaign will be done on the 16million plus selection boxes that Cadbury's will sell over the Christmas period.

Augmented Reality: Cereal Box

To promote Luc Besson's new movie Arthur and the revenge of Maltazard, the clever folk at Dassault Systemes have developed a seriously cool augmented reality cereal box. Dassault Systemes have created a 3D game experience based on their multi-support 3DVIA Virtools platform. Check out the following video of the creative...

Dublin Zoo Announces The Names Of Its Two Sumatran Tiger Cubs

Every now and then I see something that I think is worth sharing, and while it may not be anything to do with Digital Marketing or Marketing at all, I figure why not! Last May two Sumatran Tiger cubs were born at Dublin Zoo. Finally, following a nationwide competition that drew hundreds of entries, the cubs again find themselves in the spotlight with the announcement of their names. “Emas”, which is Indonesian for “Gold”, is the name that has been chosen for the male cub and “Wanita”, meaning “Woman”, for the female.

Gerry Creighton from Dublin Zoo said, ”Emas is a typical male. He’s boisterous and playful and loves to explore. We’ve got to know his manner now and we all agreed that “Gold” is perfect for him. He has a beautiful, vibrant rich gold coat with dark stripes contrasting it and he really is a winner in our eyes.”

Gerry continued; “We love the name Wanita and think it suits her down to the ground While Emas is a very strong male character, Wanita displays truly typical female traits. She has a really sweet nature, and is far more relaxed then her brother. She is really close to her mother and has shown classic feminine characteristics.”

Interestingly the cubs father, Kepala, has taken an active role in the cub’s upbringing which is quite unusual as male Sumatran Tigers are traditionally solitary creatures. In another unusual twist, the family enjoy sleeping together at night alongside each other.

Sumatran tigers are a critically endangered species with fewer than 400 alive in the wild. Dublin Zoo plays a significant role in the international breeding programme which is designed to ensure the survival of tigers in their natural habitat. As well as contributing to this breeding programme visitors to Dublin Zoo have the opportunity to support these critically endangered species by purchasing a Tiger adoption pack at Dublin Zoo gift shop.

The following video is an interview done by Darragh Doyle back in July with one of Dublin Zoo's keepers, Anita, about the cubs.

Channel 4 on YouTube

Channel 4 have confirmed that they are in the final stages of signing a deal with YouTube to allow YouTube to host most of the channel 4's content in full. An initial deal has already seen Channel 4 securing the right to sell the advertising that appears around its content, in a profit=share arrangement with YouTube. Channel 4's chairman, Luke Johnson, spoke at last week's Association of Online Publishers Digital Publishing Summit saying that traditional broadcasters needed to 'seize opportunities' to profit from online video.

To date Channel 4 has attracted 25,500 subscribers and a total of 700,000 views to its main YouTube channel, but it also has several other channels including E4, T4 and Hollyoaks. It recent months however, Channel 4 has also been populating its website with a back catalogue of programmes, all of which have utilised pre-roll ads from Nina Ricci's Ricci Ricci and Nokia among others.

Channel 4 sources have indicated that their internal planning believes that the market is approaching a 'tipping point', and a greater number of people will watch its programming online than on TV. This is in direct correlation to a recent survey carried out in Ireland.