Happy Tuesday - Google Doodle, The Wind and Gizmoz.

I wanted to start the day off on a positive note. So I thought I would bring up a couple of things i think are pretty cool…

1. The 'Doodle 4 Google' competition - Google is asking Australian school kids to come up with a Google doodle for next Australia Day. It is running it as a competition with prizes to the winning school of $10,000 of tech gear.
I like this. It is a very simple way to engage with a particular user segment (schools and kids). It provides the creators with a real benefit (its a design project schools can do, there is a prize and the winning entry will get BIG exposure). Provides a real sense of locality presence (makes Google seem more Australian). Agreed its not revolutionary - but just goes to show that user engagement and UGC can be easily done. Give and thou shalt receive!

2. The Wind Ad. I keep going on about this ad. I am showing work colleagues, friends - even mentioned it in the podcast (which you can check out the second instalment of!). Ad for energy co. in Germany. One awards. It is clever. Expensive idea, inexpensive execution!
3. Gizmoz. Check this site out. Nothing super special here. Just a nice little idea and some good fun to be had.

Now that I have got all that out of my system I can proceed with the rest of the day being cynical, critical and abusive! Hooray!

If you want to hear us go the hack, we lay into Telstra and Diet Coke in Episode 2 of the Gen Y Marketing podcast. What can I say...easy targets I guess!
Cheers, Nat.

Gizmoz avatars to take centre stage at the MTV music awards

So it seems that the new animated avatar site Gizmoz have teamed up with Taco Bell to create a user generated advertising campaign which will apear in this years MTV Music Awards. Whilst there seems to be no prize money involved, this is a great opertunity to raise the profile of gizmoz at the same time giving Taco Bell an inexpensive advertising avenue that takes the user community under their wing.

The competition goes a little somthing like this. Members of Gizmoz use the sites to create an animated 3d figure based on a photograph of themselves, they then use the animated avatar to create a 30sec add spot for entry into the competition. I was a little sceptical when I first had a play with the Gizmoz technology assuming that it would not work quite as well as the demo clip, but it turns out the technology behind the site actually does quite a good job of compiling a 3d image of ones face and animating it with eyebrow and mouth movements to give life to the figure.

From an advertising point of view its quite a smart move from Taco Bells marketing department. By asking users to create a CGI ad Taco Bell can avoid problems such as shakey camera work, bad lighting, etc and thus ensure the quality (to an extent) of the entries. How well the final ad is received from the television audience doesnt really matter in this case, the true value of the competition is undoubtedly the time the content creators spend thinking about why they like Taco Bell and what they should say to appeal to new consumers.