Totally Dad Dancing

Planner A: "Fuck no idea what to do for this Jamaica pitch, there's like no money for it"

Planner B: "yes I know I have been researching all the stereotypes associated with blacks to try and found something funny we can use for it. you know good dancers, big dicks, lazies, dope smokers"

Planner A: "We can't do this, we would get fired"

Planner B: "Let's reverse it then, so it's about the English now, bad dancers, small dicks, workaholics, stuck up"

Planner A: "Our target audience will protest, the only idea that we could get away with would be the bad dancers one...my dad is terrible dancer"

Planner B: "brilliant let's do it!, let's use youTube to host the videos and we are done, bad dad dancing it is..."

Planner A: "We should get a celebrity, you know, to make it more official, like Rickie Haywood-Williams, is like, well cheap"

Planner B: "Do you think this is going to work? I mean UGC is like so 2000?"

Planner A: "Who care, concept done, no budget remember? pub?"

Planner B: "Pub! indeed"

http://totallydaddancing.co.uk/

We're all fans

A nice aggregator site with some even more nice graphs. It's a shame you can not Tweet the fans as this could be a good place for finding new friends. http://wereallfans.com

Uniqlo: UJ

It's seems a new trend to use music as the lead for the interactive piece, the first Mickey did this much better. It's all smart and all that but I am a bit disappointed by the minimum interaction available. Plus the funky / jazz piano soundtrack is getting on my nerves to be honest. http://www.uniqlo.com/uj/us/main.html

Burberry: live

In case you missed it, this was the live Burberry Fashion show, apparently in 3D too and replicate on over 70 sites across the web. Well they have the money...
http://live.burberry.com/

Amnesty: Demand Dignity

Again an old site but it shows the constrains of designing sites for European and Arabic languages. Try it yourself (they could have done more).

It's a shame that the form to enter your "voice" is so long, it kills the call to action spontaneity and I don't see who is going to SMS to the site?

There is also no reason why the site still show a beta message (data left from testing?) since the campaign is finished. I know charity haven't got a lot of money but if you are the agency doing the job, you should finished it and try to get you money back with PR.

The nice idea behind all this is that people could comment on the "voices", connect to people or be connected via people. The reality of it, for this sort of campaign, no one does, as seen by the 0 comments and 0 connection on most post.

The mission section, which is hard to find, has various level of content but is actually the best part of the site with some great voice blogs. I would have pushed the visibility of this content.

But the campaign worked, with over 50,000 voices raise, I am sure they could have had more if they have fixed some navigation and design issues. Sadly doesn't looks like the site has a "exit strategy" (cringe).

http://demanddignity.amnesty.org/

Eurostar: Get a little Paris

It's a US campaign for the Eurostar (why?), probably an old one as almost everything is broken on this site. The booking pages go to some 404 and there are no mashups in the database. As a one of visit site it's simple and raise a smile, it's a shame that they have not created all the possible mashups and I feel a bit cheated by it. The blue screen effect could have been polished, especially as it's stop motion, there is no excuse.http://interactive.taxi.ca/getalittleparis/site/

Citroen: DS3

Who designed this site? Are we stuck in the early 90's? this looks like a Director design. Go and shoot your designers.

The discovery section is shocking. If you are going to spend the money on a brochure please make sure you shot some material for the web. Text sliders? again this is not a brochure, go and shoot your copywriter. Do you really think people are that exited about your pictures that they want to download them or even share them, looks like your agency is ticking the boxes just so you spend more money with them.

The 3D brochure made me download a plugin and crashed Chrome. I had to change browser, disable my pop-up blocker and wait 5 minutes for the fucker to install. Clearly not a great user experience. So my expectation were high and after all this, I struggle to get the thing going and when it did I was confronted with a straight road full of cones and I had to slide the car left to right...you know what Citroen, you are giving a bad name to AR, this is shit and you just wasted your money, go and shoot your digital agency.

The "are you the one?" competition prize is to have the chance to drive the car for a year? come on, give the car away, what are you going to do with it after? if I win I would trash it on the last day. Ok so it's an online competition but you want my address and my phone number, why you are going to spam me?

At least they moderate the entries (will put my cock picture away) but only just over 300 so far that's a lot of money spend for not a lot of result. I really hope you have a TV add or offline campaign if not go and shoot your planners. I am not even reviewing the competition it's the classic upload and vote trick, badly implemented.

Actually I should stop suggesting to shoot agency people to be fair some morons actually signed this off. So who ever you are I think it's time to get into one of your lovely car without seatbelt and head for a wall.

http://www.ds3.citroen.com/

Keso: Cottage Chesse

Demonstrating a product is usually what advertiser try to do. Letting the user experiment the product is also a classic of the planning department with sample spots in major cities and so on but what do you do if you haven't got the budget? Well the next big thing is this website. It get the message across perfectly for a free range cottage cheese... I might just proposed this idea to some breast pump manufacturer to see if they buy it. http://www.e-kon.se/

Compare for Good

So what do you do when you brand is not know enough in a competitive market? Well you try to raise your profile, celebrity is always a good ideas, doing something good is another one, associate yourself with a reputable partner is also a classic as you benefit from their brand trust and audience. Ho my god, this is exactly what has beatthatquote.com done! A quick re-skin, not even a good one (why does the top nav disappear?) and Joan Collins and job done!http://compareforgood.com/

Audi: The next big Audi

It's polished, it's well crafted, there is tons of videos but I am not feeling it. Probably because the videos are too smalls after the full screen introduction, perhaps because the site try to be so hip and cool that I don't buy it. The "Take a ride" section is a joke and the "Customizer" is actually really good (even if limited) but done to death.

"Community" is just an aggregator but it's good to see brand like Audi finally catching up. Why do they think people would want to comments is beyond me to be honest. There are some existing content in the "Extra" section, Wallpapers and a screensaver; I am like pissing in my pants...

http://microsites.audi.com/a1onlinespecial/html/popup.html#/customize/

BBC: The Virtual Revolution

Well done the BBC for this great documentary about 20 years of the web. What's interesting here is the way they are trying to bring a new way to navigate what is no more than a big DVD. http://www.bbc.co.uk/virtualrevolution/3dexplorer_start.shtml

Doritos: Kingofads

Same idea as last year and same as the US Superbowl campaign so it looks like Doritos is trying to own the UGC space. we will have to see how the promotion is developing in the next few weeks but it's nice to see that they have though of licensing some tracks and got some name behind it, Campaign and AD&D are involved. It's just a shame that the final design relies heavily on videos and powerpoint slides transition. It does take a huge amount of time to load, optimise your site please.http://kingofads.doritos.co.uk/

Skype: Outside

A time limited campaign, as they won't be able to carry it for long, but what a cool one! Letting people experiencing the product for themselves is always a good idea, add a simple call to action and you get involvement and rewards. Great casting, great production value and great editing complete this brilliant idea. Skype is cool again and I dare you not to have a go yourself. http://outside.skype.com/

Labour: Vote NHS

Strong data can be a valuable tools for any campaign and this site is no exception but it would have been better to go further and have at least the results by counties. I spoke from experience and it's true that the NHS did a wonderful and fast job for a relative of mine. Shame the Labour government are high-jacking this for their cause. http://www.votenhs.com/

Shake the girl

I can't believe this has not been picked-up by Lynx or Nuts as this is would be the perfect app for a brand like them. Obviously it's a bit rudimentary and you could easily see the improvements that could be made (Feel free to comment for that!). http://www.shakethegirl.com/

Muji: Rhythm

They obviously looked at Uniqlo for inspiration, but this well designed musical portal bring the brand essence to life. I would have been more impressed if when I resize my window more product were displayed but you can have it all. http://www.muji.com/rhythm/

Honda: Live Every Litre

They obviously spend the money shooting the interactive film, have the money for a great director and the road trip but decided to be low key with the design. This surprise me as I think it is now minimal to the point of being amateurish. Great journey submission and preview mechanic but I would have done a bit more visual for the car section and a production blog would have been interesting as with some info about the award winning director (Claudio Von Planta). http://liveeverylitre.com/

Snikers: More Nuts Challenge

These are web episodes that will be reused on many platform / channel as possible. Do we care? no. No blog, no feedback with the readers, no interaction at all...what a wasted oportunity http://www.themirroronline.co.uk/snickersmorenuts/

Cow and Gate: Iron Count

Ok so you market this URL in all you TV add, in all the posters you produce and you forget to really put what kids eat in your calculator. Dried fruits? what about fresh fruit? what about the classic rusk? what about if I don't give dark green vegs but shinny red ones? no pasta or rice? jam, marmite? nevermind; my kid is over the recommended intake.
Do you really think people are going to share this on Facebook and Twitter? I tried a Twitter Search for The Big Iron Count and got "No results for The Big Iron Count", see told you so! Nearly 10,000 mum have taken the test apparently, I think most of them were disappointed with the experience. http://www.cowandgate.co.uk/bigironcount

Benetton: Casting

"It's not about catwalk cliches and model attitude. We’re looking for natural beauty and fresh faces" yea right! have you seen the models on the front page? Where is the sexy size 16 girl?
I give it to them the site is clean, cool and the design makes every entries look good. It's nice to see that the comments are in place and that everyone is helping everyone to get up the ladder. A big plus is the blog, they could have partner with Trend / Cook Hunter to get more exposure but they are really doing a great job of it.
The AR is shit, look at the screenshot, it's basically playing a video on the page, I just kill a tree for this!
They have a Facebook page but it's only a link back to the site, I guess it was in the brief.http://casting.benetton.com/

Wrangler: Blue Bell

The site crashed Chrome everytime I tried to resize it. So what have we got here? an interactive video? well yes and that's about it. You can even download the frame, WHOA! I am, like, pissing in my pants... Would have been much better and sexier if they have took it to the extreme and have the guy bumping into the browser window and bleeding... am sure the girls would love it. www.bluebelljeans.com

skittles.com

I would have gone crazy about this website if it wasn't another total reap-off of the Orange unlimited site. It's twice now that they are copying ideas. Why? http://www.skittles.com/

Adidas Star Wars

I know that a little internal campaign for Saatchi does the same thing and better (no @ problem in the input field, animation of the map and personalised message) http://saatchi.com/kiss/ and probably cost 5% of the budget of this one. The intro is too long to preview again and again. I though the Facebook feature was to post something on your friend wall but it seems to have failed when I tried it. I really hope it wasn't just to select their name. http://www.adidas.com/campaigns/deathstar/content/

American Apparel: Best Bottom

I wish I was in the meeting when they presented that one. Sex still sells and there is nothing wrong with it. They could have partner with a lads mag for more exposure. As people are only using brand items, this has potential for them, as am sure some male viewer will rush to buy some gears for their girlfriend. Not sure if people will post on Facebook but the Tweet function might get use. On a more serious note the IA is too simple and design is too minimal, all could have been improved easily but well done for letting people comment. http://i.americanapparel.net/storefront/UGCStyle/BestBottom2010/index.asp

McCafé

You would think McDonald would have at least given away some downloadable vouchers / coupons to try their coffee. I write coffee because let's face it, it's not because they are using "café" to be smart and sophisticated that the taste will suddenly change from the usual watering down piss that they serve in crap paper cup. The design is too compact and the drawing area is too small but it's nice to be able to replay the creation phase of the submission. But with no competition attached or share mechanic this campaign fell a bit short. A store locators would have been good and a "bring your used Starbucks cup and we will give you a free coffee" campaign would have been smarter.http://wakeuptowhatsnew.com/