To promote Cellcom’s First Love branded content project of 150 Israeli teenagers’ love stories, McCann Erickson, Tel Aviv, commandeers the URL address bar on participating websites. Visitors to these sites could view short love letters right inside the browser’s address bar which in turn led them to the First Love website simply by pressing enter. From a tech POV, this is kinda cool. From a marketing POV, it effectively raised Cellcom above the banner ad din and yielded a 1.86% Click Through Rate (CTR), 37 times higher than the average CTR in Israel. My only real issue is this “refreshing” of the URL clogs up the browser’s history rendering the back button useless.

Location-based promotions have been around for years and it is no surprise that behemoth social network Facebook would make this technology an integral part of their platform. And brands like Coca-Cola have been taking full advantage of this in smart and engaging ways. The Recycling King campaign created by Israeli ad agency Publicis E-Dologic encourages people to “think green” by having them upload pictures of themselves recycling.

Coca-Cola registered over 10,000 recycling bins on Facebook Places and then challenged users to vie for the title of Recycling King by checking in to the most bins. Whether or not you feel revealing your whereabouts to virtual strangers raises huge privacy concerns (and Coca-Cola just duped thousands of Israelis to volunteer their purchasing habits), the campaign has proven to be quite successful; with over 26,000 pictures uploaded and more than 250,000 checkins. If you’re a marketer or an environmentalist, it is something to think about.

Baby Inside is the follow up to Evian’s hugely successful Roller Babies video that not only went viral but was inducted into the Guinness World Records as the Most Viewed Online Video Advertisement (over 25 million as of 8/19/09).

Both videos are part of the integrated Live Young campaign created by BETC Euro RSCG, Paris. It includes print ads, TV commercials, and social media.

Watch the video above (best to keep your eye on the T-shirt to get the full effect of the dancing baby) and then participate by adding your own video clip to Evian’s “longest music video” at Let’s Baby Dance microsite (or via an iPhone App). I did.

Commissioned by NYC marketing company Moss Appeal to develop branded content for DirecTV Ad Sales team’s social media  initiative, which included a Twitter page, a Facebook page (with two custom apps), and this interactive DirecTV Perfect Match Game that utilized video outtakes from DirecTV’s popular programming.

The game also featured a Bobble Yourself viral marketing component where participants could upload a photo to create their own bobblehead with a personalized URL that featured them on the game’s microsite. This created greater engagement and encouraged more sharing through email and social media.

Never really believed that sex sells unless what you’re selling is sex(y). It does get your attention though and if that’s the point of advertising then it wouldn’t matter much if the concept was high or low(brow).

These videos for Fortnight Lingerie by Toronto-based ad agency Red Urban not only use sex effectively to raise awareness for a unknown underwear brand but created PSAs that teenage boys will actually pay attention too. In addition to the videos below, there are other “goodies” to be had at the Super Sexy CPR microsite.

When I first created this casual game as a promo for the launch of answerYES Interactive, I figured it would be popular but I was really surprise how supersonic that popularity grew. Within weeks, visits to the new website went from virtually zero to over 10,000 and the longevity of the campaign would prove to be years, sustaining significant traffic even today (just Google Japanese Supermodels).

answerYES gets lots of client requests to create something similar for their own promotions (which have or will show up here), so, it was time for Japanese Supermodels 2.0. I don’t expect the same viral dividends as before but that’s okay (the game is a labor of love now). Play the Japanese Supermodels Interactive Game at its new home and let me know what you think.

I created this Flash “game” over a long weekend as an experiment in viral seeding. I wanted to track the short-tail curve of traffic to my site from a popular social entertainment site like Newgrounds. For those not familiar, Newgrounds is primarily a Flash portal started in 1995 by Tom Fulp (who still manages the site and regularly contributes content). The site has a rich community of Flash programmers, animators, and gamers. Members get to rate and comment on submissions. And though professional game shops contribute content often, the portal tries to be a platform for the casual content developer. This being the case, content runs the gamut, from kid-friendly cartoons to pornography (there is a “mature” section which requires a login).

I was feeling punchy when I created this (must’ve been all the Red Bull). It is intended to be a joke, the butt of which is the player. If you’re not easily offended then you’ll probably have a good chuckle. If you are easily offended, you should go here.

Though the experiment ran for only 5 days, the initial 12 hours generated over 2,100 unique visits. This was mainly due to the fact Newgrounds posts all new submissions on its frontpage. It dropped off quickly from there but by the time I took it down, I had hit my target of 5,000 uniques.

Aside: the votes I got ranged from 0 (the worst) to 10 (the best). Most of the comments were constructive or encouraging but a surprisingly visceral reaction from a few who clearly did not like being the butt of a joke.

After speaking at a small business conference about viral marketing, I was pulled aside by Albert Maruggi of The Marketing Edge for an impromptu interview on the subject. The lobby of the Sheraton Hotel in downtown Stamford is nice but the acoustics are something to be desired during a mid-day conference so I apologize in advance for the audio (though Albert did a fine job cleaning it up).

Albert has over 25 years of marketing and PR experience under his belt and his podcast series is one of the longest running (perhaps the longest). You can hear my whole interview on his blog.