Simply one of the best. Developed by BTS United Oslo over a year ago, this classic drove so much traffic on seeding launch that it actually drove Berlitz to shut down their site. 

Enjoy!   

In about 4,631 seconds (clocked at 2.42pm today – Friday), the next MINIvideo will be played on TheOtherView.co.uk. Part of a teaser campaign launched by Profero to promote the November launch of the MINI Clubman, it will be shown for only one minute a week!

This brave campaign consists of six 15 second videos that look at things from a different perspective. To find out more, set your timers!

The IAB cross-media study singles out TV and online as the key media for promoting brand engagement among consumers.

They define brand engagement as consumers’ “willingness to recommend”, “brand preference” and “intention to use in future”. The benefit of this metric is the ability to identify the strengths of a particular medium and tailor messages accordingly.

Their topline findings revealed that the greatest impact on brand engagement came from TV ads, while online ads and associated websites combined had the second biggest influence. Surprisingly, press ads were the least effective at driving brand engagement with consumers.

The study identified the relative strengths of different media in relation to their brand engagement effectiveness. For example TV helps promote a product’s image as a good quality brand, while online is better at building trust and highlighting an entire product range.

Internet marketing is 2.4 times more effective than its share of spend suggests. The average online spend of the brands was 4.8% of total spend – online delivered 2.4 times the return on investment – suggesting that brands should be investing nearer 12% online if they want to capitalise on a higher brand engagement index.

For more on this study and results visit IAB.com

In a move designed to enhance user experience, MSN in the USA are planning to limit the number of video ads a user will see in any visitor session.

MSN said it plans to significantly limit the number of pre-roll video ads it delivers to users as part of a major overhaul of MSN Video scheduled to go live today.

Through the use of a new algorithm, MSN’s video ad scheduling will be based on an individual user’s time spent on the site rather than the number of clips viewed by that user, as is commonplace in this still early stage of online video’s development. MSN users will now only see a video ad every three minutes they spend streaming content on the site.

We’re yet to see reliable stats regarding user dissatisfaction with in-video advertising, but this is surely MSN’s way of preempting any backlash.

This information was sourced at MediaWeek.com

Using a helicopter designed for extreme conditions, Gnuf.com air-lifted huge dice, each over two meters tall and weighing half a ton, over a steep snow-packed slope in the mountains outside Nuuk, Greenland.

Gnuf.com, an online gambling company of course, allows users to place a bet on the result (revealed on 23rd October). Our money’s on a double six for this massive viral campaign!

Blyk, Europe’s first advertiser-funded mobile phone network, launches today with the backing of more than 40 brands. Sky, Boots, Xbox and XFM are among the latest brands to have signed up to advertise on the service.

Blyk, which is run by former Nokia president Pekka Ala-Pietila, will offer free calls and texts to users willing to accept ads on their handsets. It was due to go on sale across Europe in June but was forced to delay the launch to ensure the service worked properly.

Blyk had already signed deals with advertisers including Coca-Cola, L’Oreal and Buena Vista. Ala-Pietila says: “Our free offer is 217 texts and 43 minutes every month and this could mean no more phone bills for up to 4.5 million young people in the UK – with no contract. We have the brands that want to speak to them too, representing almost every industry sector there is.”

It was announced today that Blyk will be an invite-only mobile virtual network operator (MVNO). Invites will be sent out via “channels targeted to reach 16- to 24-year-olds” in the coming weeks.

The mobile marketing push continues…

We sourced information for this article at MarketingWeek.co.uk

The creative minds behind such TV shows as ‘Thirtysomething’ and ‘My So-Called Life’ are launching a web-based show, hoping to find the artistic freedom online that they say is lacking on broadcast networks.

The show, called ‘Quarterlife’, will make its debut on 11th November on MySpace and will be paired with its own social networking site that will include story extras as well as career, romance and other information for the show’s young audience.

We sourced this information at MediaGuardian.co.uk

The BIG day has finally arrived and one Proud Sponsor of Irish Rugby is doing all it can to ensure a historic win in Paris tonight.

In recent days the travelling support has been checking out the Guinness Pub Finder to plan their build up to the big event tonight. As the planes depart for Paris one after another, those of us left behind are daring to believe that a historic Irish win is possible.

We’re spending the final hours checking out our Guinness Fantasy Rugby teams and testing our virtual kicking skills. A Surge of Pride is building and Cybercom dares to Believe……… COME ON IRELAND!

Google has officially launched Gadget Ads – widgets that advertisers can use to spread their messages across the search giant’s content network.

The portable applications come in standard ad formats, and are built on the Google Gadget API, an open platform that will let advertisers customise the widget’s look and feel – as well as pack it with features like RSS feeds, videos and rich media animations. The ads are currently running in an expanded beta phase that includes such advertisers as Pepsi, Intel and Paramount.

Google Gadget Ads are sold on a CPC or CPM basis through AdWords – so advertisers can include them in a standard, auction-based keyword campaign. Marketers have the option to target consumers by keyword, site, demographic or geographic location, and their Gadget Ads will compete against text, images and other ad formats for the placement on pages in Google’s content network.

A year ago Google were firmly an established ‘search giant’. Since then, with the purchase of YouTube, DoubleClick, this weeks appointment of Andy Berndt from Ogilvy, and now the introduction of Gadget Ads, Google’s range of advertising services continues to grow and grow.

Xbox 360′s “Halo 3″ is exiting the digital world, with a global campaign aimed at making the world of the game tangible, with the conceit that the Halo wars really happened (or will really happen – it is set in the future!).

Rather like “War of the Worlds”, the campaign for “Halo 3, a game depicting an apocalyptic battle between humans and invading aliens, attempts to treat the fictional characters of the game and its battles as future history.

The effort, by US based Tag, features reminiscences by soldiers who fought the battle and an elaborate diorama that recreates several critical skirmishes in the game. The campaign, “Believe”, also lionizes the game’s central human leader, Master Chief Petty Officer John 117, and treats him as a real-life hero. In the campaign, the diorama becomes a kind of Memorial to veterans of the Halo wars, all to create history around the world of the game.

The Internet effort includes a large banner campaign directing consumers to halo3.com/believe, which offers a impressive flyover of the diorama. When one clicks on certain soldiers, a documentary-style video runs in which that soldier, played by a human actor – long after the war – recounts the battle, and The Master Chief’s role in saving his battalion.

Tag also created a Halo 3 channel on YouTube and Yahoo. And in what has to be the ultimate expression of the campaign, a real statue to the Master Chief in Singapore.

Visit the Halo 3 site and you’ll see why it impressed us so much!

For a taster, here’s the sublimely original (for a videogame anyway) TV ad: