EA: Sim City Let's All Be Mayor

If you know you audience can easily spend 100's of hours playing your game, what better way than presenting your game then by letting watch hundred of hours of live gameplay?

This is a simple and cheap solution for people to preview the game with a bit of engagement from the audience (you can vote on a few things live).

The problem is that the hosts aren't funny and they could use Twitter more for live feedback, nevertheless it works as a campaign.

http://letsallbemayor.com/en/event/casino-city

You'll never wear that again...

The idea is that you look at your old photos and decide the fashion faux pas so you can recycle your old clothes for charity. The problem? Facebook isn't that old so users might not have uploaded enough old pictures to be relevant.

The more interesting part is to go through your friends' photos instead to engage conversation and banter. That's the real beauty of the app. Simple and perfect...

https://www.facebook.com/stadsmissionen/app_322689507837678

Volvic: Team Volcanicity

The classic competition mechanic where you send in your details, pimp yourself to your friends and family for votes and then become an ambassador for the brand. Which means free content for them...

The problem as usual is that if you do not win then you will not care for the winner's content because let's face it, they are having fun and you are not...

Still it's worth a shot...and at least they are prizes to grab for voting.

https://www.facebook.com/VolvicUK?v=app_254553244581393&rest=1

Coke chase

What a shit website, they could have done a bit more with the presentation... So what's the deal here? Trying to trend on Twitter? Creating the final ads for the Super Bowl? Sell more Domino's pizza?

They have spent a lot of money shooting these clips and they are displaying them in a small embedded player, this should be on the Coke branded YouTube channel, big and bold.

I actually think Domino is the winner here as they get more screen play and their videos are more memorable.

It looks like you can vote over and over and you can see the other video without sharing (just close the pop-up)

This is poor coming from Coke

http://www.cokechase.com

Kitkat: Choose a chunky champion

If the people love to vote, then let's do it again...and you can vote 4 times a day! Really? There are people that actually want to vote 4 times a day? Seriously? Don't they have a life?

What is scary is how thick is the FB audience, the post on the wall clearly asks the users to go to the app to vote but no; 80% of the comments are people posting their vote.

This is probably why the app in itself is actually boring. They could have made more entertaining with some extra footage of the superheroes explaining why you should choose one flavor on top of another or by rewarding people that voted by entering them in a draw to get a box of your favorite flavor so you can convert your friends and family to participate.

https://www.facebook.com/kitkatuk/app_464212296957743

Strange Talk - Climbing Walls

Ikea did something similar when it asked to tag people name to products, this time it's using Youtube embedded links to propose a similar mechanic. The song is actually pretty good but partnership with a detergent is no really helping the street credits, is it?

There is also a competition that broke Facebook terms and conditions as you have to like entries
http://www.facebook.com/Cheer

YouTube Town Hall

Simple concept that really push the debate out there. The results are worthless as the big guns will always have the votes but this should not matter, it's democracy in the digital age.

http://www.youtube.com/yttownhall

My Farm

Forget Farmville this is the real deal, spend £30 and be part of an active farm. Sponsorship taken to the next level and transparency on where you money goes. A simple and brave initiative.

http://www.my-farm.org.uk/

Fabriques-moi un conte

The public can vote for the story, the actors and the location in these remakes of famous children stories. It's a shame that this competition hasn't got his own site as the radio-Canada site is in a way.

It's also a shame that you have to register to see the possible choices but great content and always nice to see some behind the scene footage. Perhaps they could have push a bit more the voting and let people decide some possible scenario too.

http://lescontes.radio-canada.ca/index.html

Hula Hoops Talent Class

This must have kept the agency busy for months, kaching!

So what have we got here:

Home page: Back to the 80's with the animations, I like your style

UGC: upload your talent? overdone but am sure all the sados that can make it to the auditions might give it a go. you have to register first, what a shame...looking a fool for 10k? is it worth it? If only the winner was going straight to the final now that would have been a proper competition / collaboration not just a branding exercise.

Vote: See above, good that you can search by username but registering to vote? Hey Mr Hoops are you sure you are actually going to do something with all this data, are you going to spam everyone after?. Make sure you email noreply@hulahoops.com just to be on the safe side hey!

Get inspired: Shit download, thank you

Claim free talent lesson: ha the big offline offering!  Why can you not have done this with postcode and google map? shall I start to go on about how small the box is and that you should shoot your art director? shall I start that, really, the consumer has to do all the work and that its basically a con from the stage school to try and get you to enroll your child and pay £20 for each 25mn to 90mn session after that.

http://talent.hulahoops.com/

Facebook BT

More than 9000 people voted on what type of dress Jane should wear, are they all BT employees? Come on people haven't you got something better to do?

This is the part where are should praise BT for trying to do something a bit different but I can't be bother as it seems that the share and Submit button are broken, well in Chrome anyway.

http://apps.facebook.com/btwedding/

Jillz loves football

Fun campaign where users are encourage to vote to reverse the world cup rule of banning players to take their shirt off.

The site is terrible of course and they could have improve it with full screen option, wallpapers for PC and mobile, much better design and more rushes from the shoot.

http://www.jillzlovesfootball.com

Casting Playboy

You will have to register of course as it's Playboy, you might see some nipples, coming soon to Europe.



http://www.castingplayboy.com/

10 Downing Tweets

A bit of API work here to pull in the Tweets and generate some stats. Add this a bit of design work, a pool and some live voting and you got a great site that will help Twentysix getting some good PR. Sometime a bit of work on the side can be a good thing for an agency...

Does the digital active voters represent the real demography? I guess we will only know on the night...

http://www.10downingtweets.co.uk

Voterpower

Take http://www.theyworkforyou.com/ API and NEF information, had a bit of time and get The Gardian involved and you get simple but effective site regarding the UK political landscape.

http://www.voterpower.org.uk/

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/

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/

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/

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

Turkey Off

Sometime simple is better and this one page site does it all by using social network as part of the voting mechanic. They don't ask you to comment, to donate, to use a widget or to email all your friend. They just ask you to vote by using Twitter, Facebook or Linkedin (an odd choice but understandable as they can retrieve the number of contact for the voting). Perhaps they could have added the number of view/subscriber on youTube as part of the equation. This should remind everyone that sometime the simple is better. http://www.turkeyoff.com/