Ikea: Domestic Policy

Reactive campaigns based on the current political campaign, is it working? it's sadly a bit bland for me, it lack some animations, Easter eggs and some live content as it would be good, for example, to have the photo of the "bigoted" woman in Gordon Brown kitchen.

http://www.thekitchen.ikea.co.uk/domestic-policy/election.html

Comet: Goal Celebration

And it has started all the campaign about showing your support, your celebration, your best skills, your best goal are back in force for the world cup and it depress me... I really hope it's all over soon...

http://www.comet.co.uk/shopcomet/advice/1004/Goal-Celebrations

Jimmy Choo: Trainer Hunt

A simply treasure hunt, primary on Foursquare so they check-in in exclusive places that relate to the brand ethos. Also on Facebook and Twitter so all bases are covered

Campaigns don't need to be expensive or complicate. Just fun will do...

http://www.facebook.com/notes/jimmy-choo/announcing-the-jimmy-choo-trainer-hunt/388778516181

Nike: Grid

Absolute madness of a campaign, I would love to see the tech behind this. Run from one phone box to another to earn badges, hello foursquare, and claim a portion of London.

As much as I love it, what happen? Well if you look at the leaderboard it looks like it wasn't a mad rush to get this done, except a few, most top 10 people got 2 badges and under 100 points. E1 for example had only 8 participants! N19 only 4! The campaign should have run for a week at least and not 24h.

Return on investment? Let' s hope they win awards for the concept and get some PR out of it because I don't think it's going to boost sale.

http://www.nikegrid.com/

Jayjays: Dance Off

Grab your 3D glasses and dive into it using your keyboard.

They must be gutted that Diesel beat them by a couple of weeks.

It's a solid site but the loading time kills it as the site is buffering like mad on me, this is not good when your audience as a short attention span.

The lack of links to an online store is criminal, I know that the campaign is all about getting people to get into the stores and shows their moves, if so where is the blog with the customers moves? my guess is that no one is going to do it and that the staff will still give you the discount as long as you have the codeword.

http://danceoff.jayjays.com.au/

5 Alive: Dancing Dodo

Over 10,500 people like it (and one of them one the ringtone) isn't this pathetic? or am I just too cynical and I should see this as only a bit of fun?

I have to admire who ever say: "we have no budget for this, fuck it, let's just use Facebook and put the product shots in the photo albums, no need for streaming the video,  Facebook can do that for us. No need for a shit product site and a CMS for UGC, Facebook again will do, after all, our audience is already there."

Other activities are UGC videos started by the brand and Dodo your photos application coming soon so it's obvious that they are going for the Compare the Market, meerkat strategy.

The death of the mini-site? maybe...

http://www.facebook.com/5AliveDodo

Turboboost Touchdown

Taking on the "Spot the Bull" concept you need to found where the rocket is going to land, a concept that follow the techxperts image of the brand.

Beautify executed with some great video footage the only problem here is that it's not live. At least the team are having fun doing this and this shown in the design and functionalities.

http://www.turboboosttouchdown.com/

Sleepeater

One trick only on this site, but the execution is beautiful and that's enough to get you to explore and appreciate the design direction.

http://www.sleepeater.co.nz

Walkers: Flavour Cup

It must be hard to found new way to promote crisps but it's always the same thing, found the new flavour or select between some new one.

There is also a crap flash game and picture manipulation tool, after that it's the classic UGC campaign.

I supposed they are making it easy and safe for their target audience.

http://walkers.co.uk/flavourcup/

Prison Valley

A webdocumentary, don't expect a 2 minutes web fix, you will have to invest some time here.

To a certain extend it's a mix between a CD-rom interactif (do you remember them?), a good forum and a classic website but the subject matter will keep you watching.

Is this the future of TV / Web program?

http://prisonvalley.arte.tv/

Mydorcel.com

Only the French could come up with this great campaign: become the next producer on a porn movie!

It's the Sellaband concept for the X industry. Simple and a great online / offline experience for the people taking part am sure.

http://www.mydorcel.com/

Secret Lewis

My biggest problem with this campaign is that I can no imagine Lewis Hamilton doing it in real life, I know I should use some poetic marketing licence but I just can't. The training videos trying to bring products and exercise routines are painful to watch.

For such a big ARG campaign, the site is poorly designed and the 3D games are so far pretty basic, but you have to admired the fact that the site is translated in 9 languages (except the "about page"?)

One of the clue on Youtube, got less than 500 views, the official forum is deserted so they are going to need a lot of PR to get this going for the next few months.

The question is do F1 fans care? and will F1 fans buy Reebok shoes out of it? My guess, they have wasted their money...

http://secretlewis.com/

Axe: Dirty Morning Test

Axe does usually good campaign but this is cheap and not funny am afraid, I was really really disappointed with it. What would be better would be that once your friends are pranked a Twitter or Facebook message is posted for everyone to see the embarrassing video, so Facebook connect or Twitter OAuth would have been much better. So let's hope the next prank is better.

http://dirtymorningtest.com/

Doritos: King of Ads

The king of Ads campaign is in full swing, after a quiet start, things are happening. Full screen videos and some pre-recorded inserts make the content take centre stage and works as well as any late night TV show. The rest of the site is a nice collection of powerpoint slides but the videos content from the experts, the prizes and the slickness of it all take this UGC campaign to the next level. My only comment would be that they perhaps should remove the old campaign that is still live on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/user/DoritosYouMakeIt if not the new one is here http://www.youtube.com/user/doritoskingofads

http://kingofads.doritos.co.uk

Microsoft: Kin

I am pass the target audience but I did not realised that the teens of today are so well behaved, leave such an existing life and listen to folk music all day longs. Around me it's more like drinking on the street corners, worrying about how to fund their education and will they ever get a job. Is it me or they are all white and good looking?

Did you notice that in one of the video the girl write her number on the guy hand? I mean he had his kin with him and he did not even use it.

So what about the site? nice stuff like Facebook connect to try the device but the rest is classic product demo and videos.

The Facebook journey associated campaign is the hills or whatever new reality TV show teens are in? is it real? If I was then I would have fake it to be honest.

http://www.kin.com/

Slapometer

Remember slap the monkey? then you will appreciate this website, it's a simple, interesting and rewarding proposition on the mood of the nation and am sure will be pick-up by PR. Isn't the web wonderful?

http://www.slapometer.com/

Fuck Cancer

Sober design, a bit or Papervison and you have a solid site supporting a great cause. The interesting bit here is the Facebook profile creator page in the "share it" section. This seems to be the flavour functionality of the moment.

http://www.letsfcancer.com

Philips: Parallel lines

Could Philips do better than Carousel?

Yes because the amount of content this time is even more impressive and the quality of the films are second to none but no because Carousel had that special effect feel about it, it was one take but you could interact with it, this is more conventional, I guess they are trying to reach a wider audience.

Some minor improvement on the interface this time around and still some hidden extra (if you can found them), but what's more impressive is that YouTube and Facebook are now part of the online experience with their own player and Philips engages the audience with a classic UGC competition but the Ridley Scott name take it to the next level.

http://www.cinema.philips.com/

Hotmail: The new busy

I switched to Google mail about 4 years ago, will this site make me switch back?

Well I had fun with pancakes dad and I have to admit it seems the product is finally doing a lot of thing it should have been doing a long time ago but the site did not inspire me to go further and dig out my old account.

http://www.windowslive.com/campaign/thenewbusy/

Blackthorn: The way it should be

Classic UGC content nothing new there, comments will be minimal and are only here because it's usually the way with this sort of campaign. Twitter and Facebook integration nice but than that's it...

http:thewayitshouldbe.com

Penguin: Speaking to the past

A lovely campaign that could have been better with the help of a cover generator. This would have pushed submission as not everyone is a designer or has the tools to produce a great cover. Nevertheless is good little idea that carry on the love for the brand.

http://speakingtothepast.com/

Stella Artois: Cannes festival

I wonder if there are 2 versions, one for boys and one for girls? base on the user sex on Facebook?

Great integration of Facebook content and even better data collection mechanic. The free film is a bit of con so just get there http://www.theauteurs.com/stellaartois.

No product placement, nothing, it's brand awareness to the max, shame they could have done more as this left me wanted more...

http://www.stellaartois.com/Cannes/website/

Uniqlo: Tweeter

Clever thing, get the people involved, show them their content and they will watch your commercial to the end.

You have to applaud the sinc animation with the music and video, the fact that you can tweet your individual add  and the simple but elegant design. Another win for UT

http://www.uniqlo.com/utweet/