Lastminute.com debut Mexican Wave Ad

OK, so a Mexican wave doesn't sound very enthralling, however this isn't any normal Mexican wave, this is a Lastminute.com Mexican wave using a run of three consecutive 60-second ads on ITV, Channel 4 and Five, due to start on Saturday night (28th February 2009) at 9.50pm. As you can see from the preview below, the ads will feature a Mexican wave of thumbs-up and viewers will be asked to follow the wave as it flows from ITV through to Five.



The great thumb wave will take viewers all over the world, and will challenge people to guess the number of thumbs they see in order to enter the online prize-draw. The website set up for the campaign is as follows http://goodstuff.lastminute.com, which will also feature the ads once aired.



This is a fantastic idea, and demonstrates a very well thought through creative and media execution. It has had significant media backing including digital outdoor, in order to generate enough buzz, and personally I cannot wait to see the result. Those times again are:

Saturday 28th February
ITV1 at 9:50pm
Channel 4 at 9:51pm
Five at 9:52pm


Update: To view the full ad - Lastminute.com Great Thumb Wave advert


Enjoy!

Tic Tacs viral to Everton fans to say sorry!

In order to apologise for those deprived of the winning goal last Saturday during the FA cup replay against Liverpool, Tic Tacs launched a viral ad last night which recreated the goal for Everton fans. The technical error was apparently caused by ITV's automated advertising system, with a Tic Tacs advert interrupting the match as the winning goal was scored. For those of you who want to see the ad, here it is courtesy of Brand Republic...





For anyone who was unfortunate enough to miss the moment when the mistake happened, you can view it below with thanks to Rick Lamb who dug this out.





Enjoy!

The end of Project Kangaroo?

Well so it may seem…It’s been reported on Brand Republic today, that Project Kangaroo, the on-demand joint venture between BBC Worldwide, ITV and Channel 4, has been blocked by the Competition Commission, after allegedly spending £25m on staff and development costs since announcement of the platform in November 2007. There were high hopes for the platform which for advertisers meant reining in the rapidly growing video on-demand market, by offering a central platform for users to view popular programming on offer from BBC Worldwide, ITV and Channel 4.



Despite the fact that throughout the last year or so there has always been conversations regarding the concerns that "there was a danger that the platform could be too powerful" (30 June 2008, the UK's Office of Fair Trading referred the proposal to the Competition Commission), it seemed the platform would still be launched intially in 2008, which was later moved back to early 2009. Today however with the news of the end of the venture, it appears that rivals to Project Kangaroo including Virgin Media, Babelgum and Joost will be cheering, after all calling on the commission to block the platform.

From early polls and comments on the news, the agency world seems reasonably split on the decision of the CC. However I seem to think that with the ammount of work which has already gone into Project Kangaroo, I don’t think this is the last we’ve seen of some sort of joint video on-demand venture between BBC Worldwide, ITV and Channel 4. Watch this space I guess!!

For the full Brand Republic article click here: Kangaroo killed off by Competition Commission