But I was sold on the gameplay description and the trailers, not the actual experiential elements. They’re a little less successful in my case, but I’ve seen they are definitely catching the eye of many.

The experience is a variation on uploading your photos and appearing as part of the trailer/video. The difference here is that you don”t choose which photos to upload but that it grabs them from Facebook. To take part, you have to link your Facebook profile to the game page, using Facebook Connect, a variation on OAuth where you don’t have to give out your password to anyone.

Prototype Login (screenshot from site)

It then runs a trailer for the game, pulling your photos in from the service and interspersing them throughout the action. they also include all your details, the personal information. As I only have 1 image on Facebook, I thought they wouldn’t have much luck but what it does it goes and trawls your connection and brings in their photos as well. You can’t share the video or embed it anywhere as far as I can see, so I think they’re mainly avoiding the copyright and privacy issues that this ‘borrowing’ of images and use of personal details entails, but I was surprised that the system would do this.

After watching the personalised trailer, you get to answer some questions to win a game copy and an XBox360 and then you’re then asked to spread the word, using your choice of network – Facebook or Twitter. This seems to be a requirement of the competition entry, but as I can’t see any terms and conditions, I’m not sure

Prototype Spreadability (screenshot from site)

This is the second campaign I’ve seen this week that has built in the ability to autopost to your status stream, so it’s looking like it’s this quarter’s hot trend. It’s a savvy call to action, although if too many in your network do it, I can see it not quite having the desired impact. Making it compulsary is problematic; the experience should be good enough to get people to want to share it, not making them do it because you don’t trust your stuff is good enough for sharing.

Elsewhere on the site, you can get a story overivew, see some trailers and get some great artworks to download. Most importantly, you can pre-order, but only from specific retailers (Smartoys which is French, fnac, Game Mania, both Belgium.Dutch). So despite being able to see the site in English and it being big in English blogs, you can’t actually by in the UK. The site has been done in Belgium by Sponge and 1MD, so it looks like it is for that market only, although there’s no indication until you’re deep into that it does not apply to you, but again, no T&Cs so I’m not sure if I can enter or not.

Prototype Scene (screenshot from site)

• First of all, you need to sign up
• Then, pick your team. You have a choice of 10 drivers across 5 different cities. You need to pick 2 for your team.
• When the race starts, Vodafone track the taxi drivers – using the GPS in their HTC Magic phones. The miles are totalled up. The idea is to complete the race distance in the shortest time. The race distance is that of the target F1 Grand Prix, it was the British one last week, next it’s the German one. Over 5 races, you score points for distance and time, so the person with the highest points wins a trip to the Italian Grand Prix (there’s lots of other prizes too)
• Keep an eye on your drivers. You get lots of statistics about them, so if your driver is not travelling enough, you can swap them around to improve your mileage.
• Come back again and again!

Vodafone Taxi Grand Prix (screenshot from site)

This is a pretty nigty idea. A contest connected with the real world and real people. You get brief bios of the drivers, who are also twittering, so you see what they are getting up to, so over time, you’ll get to know the drivers and what they are like. The mechanic is simple and the interaction allowed keeps you coming back

But the most successful product this week is the Carl Jr Portabello Mushroom Burger, which is running a YouTube campaign. it looks like they are sponsoring a number of prominent video makers to create a video around the product. They’re all good and slightly mad. Given the combined number of views across all these videos, that’s what I call a successful campaign, with a high degree of relevance and reaching out to many different audiences.

Nigahiga has the most watched version.

From smosh

The anti-Carls Jr parody

from WasteTimeChasingCars

The official version – which is no fun at all, far too much ’serious’ advertising

From Hot for Words

from iJustine

• I’ve been blogging about digital media for 3 years, most recently here, but at Behind the Buzz previously
• I’ve also a personal blog that is updated occasionally at Licence to Roam
• I work in digital marketing and social media at twentysixLondon

There’s more on the about page. Thanks again.

But the e*trade babies have crept into there, as a trailer for an ABC Money special that was broadcast last Friday. They were big around Superbowl and have made a comeback here.

Spot the Bull with Orange (image from Poke)

Orange are again doing their Spot the Bull competition, giving away tickets to Glastonbury if you can predict where a bull will be in a field at a certain time of day. I played this last year and it was good fun; it got launched yesterday, starting off with an email, I’m guessing to all of last year’s participants. Later on, I got a lot more information about the competition from Poke.

• They’re using a new bull this year, called Desmond, a 5 year-old Charolais Apparently last year’s bull was a little quiet, they’re hoping for more action this year.
• In another change, they’ve adjusted the tech they’re using. Instead of a complicated set up using GPS and satellites to follow the bull action, they’ve got people in the ground, posting the position every 5 minutes and getting great pictures using a mini-dv camera. In a further extension, they’re also tweeting throughout at spotthebull
• They’ve gone mobile this year; go to the same URL on your phone’s web browser and get a sweet mobile version of the site. You can play direct from your phone or SMS your chosen square. There’s also a html version
• Return visits are encouraged. Statistical information is being built up around where the bull will be over the day, plus the tweets will let you know what Desmond’s favourite places are. You can start to predict the bull’s behaviour. Another tip is to play at weekends, which were quieter last year so you have a higher chance.
• There’s an embeddable widget, which brings all the bull action to your blog or profile.

What I think

It’s a successful mechanic for a competition, that obviously worked well last year, enough for them to bring it back. What I’m most impressed about is how ’solid’ the campaign is, with all the elements connected. There’s a html version, a very nice mobile version, a chance to connect with SMS, the sharable elements. They’ve connected all the dots from a digital perspective. My biggest issue is with the flash version, which is heavy, takes a while to load and slows down the browser. It’s very, very good, but just a little too much of it. All in all, I love this campaign/

As a blogger, they connected with me well, a polite first enquiry about writing about it, then a whole load of imformation that is just lovely. It was done by the Poke team, so thanks to Dylan for the info.

Armano Tweet

David Amarno just tweeted this:

people heading up social media initiatives with almost zero online footprint is the new jumbo shrimp

I think I’m missing a cultural reference when it comes to the jumbo shrimp, but I’m guessing he’s referring to people getting involved with social media activities despite never actually using the tools. It was something I found when looking for a job, a large number of people in the ‘digital’ space with absolutely no online presence at all (that could be found).

The question is, does an ‘expert’ or at least someone heading up a social media initiaitive have to practice what they preach. When you’re employing someone in any area, do you look for third party evidence they actually know what they are talking about or do you just take them at face value, that they can talk about the subject but they don’t have to demonstrate it in action. Most job interviews are just that – a good conversation.

With social media, any such external evidence is obvious, you should be able to find the person’s activity across a number of networks. If there’s nothing there, questions could be asked about their ability to work in that space. However, it could be possible they have only ever worked in the space for employees or clients, their whole presence is in someone else’s name and never their own.

There’s also a personal choice for how you are using the tools. I’m present in many a social media place, but I don’t necessarily use the tools in the same way I’d advise a client. I don’t necessarily want to push my personal brand, but that does not mean I can’t advise on how to do so. Others may be active but use different personas that may not connect back to any professional profille

Getting back to Armano’s statement, I absolutely believe that someone working on social media needs to be active in the space, but it’s not always going to be easy for an external view to understand how and where they are active.

That’s the only one in the weekly charts, but coming on strong today is this one for Captain Morgan, a lovely little chat up line; it does not appear to be an official upload, but it’s still pulling in the views. Right on brand message.

First, we have Jerusalem by William Blake, turned into the strange quotes from a footballer. Although I’m not sure you’d have all these people watching a press conference, the strangeness definitely fits.

We’ve also got The King Blues, quoting Byron, a moment of stillness and contemplation in the midst of a rock gig. (you can also find the video on their MySpace)

As well as the two above, the BBC YouTube channel has a whole bunch of interviews with various celebrities, talking about how poetry has influenced them.

On the BBC site, you can vote for your favourite poet (my vote went to Yeats), find out about the many programmes they are doing on the subject or the live events. According to the email I received, there’s also supposed to be a widget I can embed, but that seems to have failed to arrive at the moment.

What I think

The email pitch was nicely done, polite, all the information required, from someone I’d previously met. Definitely not a mass emailing there. The videos are lovely, then again it’s the BBC, so you’d expect that.

The site itself acts as a hub to all the other content that is being offered, an information hub. At the moment, the only interactivity is the voting. I’ll take a look at the promised widget when it arrives. A solid site, nothing spectacular, but supporting the season well.