Just wanted to give a mention to 33Across, Eric Wheeler’s new ad targeting system for social media. Good luck Eric! Its a fantastic idea.

A big congratulations to Andrew O’Dell and P.J. Pereira on their new agency venture Pereira O’Dell. I have a feeling these guys are going to be huge.

A hearty thumbs-up to Scott, Shelby and crew over at Dizzywood. Its a new online learning RPG for kids which is incredibly well done and intelligently thought out. Being a new dad myself, I’m excited at its possibilities.

Just a shout out to my friends over at politicalbase.com. Well done site, loads of stuff to play with. A real eye-opener when you see dollars and cents behind politics.

http://www.politicalbase.com

From Nirav: Ahh. Online work that gives me some inspiration. Check out the latest effort from Stella Artois. They are the king of beers right now. The way video is used on their sites is some of the best I’ve seen. It’s full length movie production quality. 1) The “video effect” pauses between scenes in the first set of movies are seamless. 2) Then make sure you click through to the Le Courage “the world in 1366″ section to learn some beer history and play some games. There too, they’ve created games so well designed and integrated with the story/video that you’re pulled right in to the story.

http://www.stellaartois.com/

This from Nirav: Simple and fun, not exactly an ad but worth mentioning. Nice subtle sounds.

http://www.feedthehead.net/

Wow, go HBO! An online-only ‘experiment’ which lets you peek into the lives of some pretty bizarre situations. It’s intoxicating! Well done, created by Big Spaceship in New York.

http://hbovoyeur.com

Hi all. Well, I’ve left this blog more or less without new material for quite some time. However I just wanted to note where I’ve been and where I’m going. It’s a new site called DivineCaroline and I’m very excited at its
potential. Have a look when you have a moment.

http://www.divinecaroline.com

All the best,
Sasha

SubZero, makers of dreamy kitchen swag, released their wine site recently. Consisting of a decent blog and a fantastic wine-care 101, whoever designed the site is so clean they can skip taking a shower for a week. But who’s responsible? In-house? Bravo to whoever you are!

http://subzerowine.com/ 

This one’s from Nirav Patel.

I thought I’d never say it, but as far as insurance seminars go, this one is at least interesting and informative. Wonderfully produced by Fallon in flash and 3d, I’d love to hear more about how it was created.

http://travelersinsynch.com/challenge_popup.html

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Aside from the overkill naming, Mercedes introduced their ‘Brand World’ today. For such a well done piece, with nice copywriting inside, you would think they’d give it a better title. Otherwise it’s a delicious Flash site with all the requisite materials. German agency Scholz & Volkmer are responsible and I think they did a great job extending the Mercedes brand. Mein Esel ist tot!

http://www.mercedes-benz.com/content/mbcom/international/
international_website/en/com/Brandworld_Home.html

Doesn’t everything taste better in France? Certainly their Coke Blak site is a step up from our USA version. I still have yet to try the concoction, have you?

http://www.coca-colablak.fr/

Toyota’s recent launch of it’s latest youth brand, Yaris, comes with a well done flash microsite. Off the beaten path city guides with a 4-angle video viewer are well produced and executed. But who’s responsible? Saatchi & Saatchi seem to be the agency of record offline.

http://toyota.com/yaris/ 

Fellow copywriter Rich Siegel recently published his accounts with Nigerian scam artists: Tuesdays with Mantu. Rumors of a movie? Bruce Willis, you reading this?

http://www.tuesdayswithmantu.com/

Unsual, true, but very well done! Nokia hits home with its bizarre microsite.

http://pjotro.com/

Phillip’s halerious microsite gets a ‘beer gut at Nascar’ high-five for it’s fantastic copywriting. Where else could you get away with this? Bless the web!

http://shaveeverywhere.com/

Charlie from Exopolis sent over their latest project, the website for Nicktoons Animation Festival. Fantastic site! A bit heavy on the assembly animations, but who cares unless you’re in a rush. It’s gorgeous, well done!

http://www.nicktoonsnetwork.com/shows/animfest/nnaf.jhtml

Portfolio night IV is coming up May 4, get in gear!

http://ihaveanidea.org/portfolionight2006/

This site has been up for a while, but deal lord it’s full of fun stuff.

http://pdl.warnerbros.com/wbmovies/corpsebride/flashsite/main_popup.html

My friends Kevin Sherman and Colin Spooner have been creating some pretty cool video integrated flash sites. Have a look:

http://www2.square1home.com/div_intro/start.html

Unfortunately spammers forced me to disable comments. I’ll turn them back on once I can find a good fix.

Thanks!
Sasha

Lincoln takes another leap into the advertainment space with Lovely by surprise. Very nicely written and executed. It’s a bit ‘lean-forward’ but worth it.

http://www.lovelybysurprise.com

Click the ad below, help out OnlineCreative :)

Here’s an interesting take on user-submission: Viewer-Created Ad Message = V-CAM. Current TV is attempting to coin a user-created ad format for their network. Users would submit ads for Sony products, and if their ad is selected they get $1k. If their ad is used beyond Current TV, they get anywhere from $5k to $50k. Not too shabby.

Sony and Current are probably one of the few combinations which could make this work, over-thought acronym aside…

http://currentv.com/studio/create/vcam

Charlie Short and crew at Exopolis put together a kick-ass Valentine’s Day card. It’s as funny and about as embarrassing as the answering machine scene in Swingers. Well written VO commentary between the horrendous play list. Well done!

http://mixtape.exopolis.com/

This must come from the wicked minds of Crispin in Miami, but who executed it? Be sure to click the red ‘watch your joyride’ link after you configure the car. My God it’s good.

http://vwfeatures.com/

Not to abuse the nepotism here, but I have to say this site is elegant, simple and just feels right. AKQA’s Visa team (Steve Scowden and Peter Cole) put together a lovely little microsite for the latest Visa campaign. Well done!!

http://lifetakesvisa.com

This viral campaign is getting a lot of buzz and even more skepticism with a healthy media buy supporting it. Targeting blogs, the campaign features expert personality Dr. Myra Vanderhood who’s sharp satirical wit only adds more cred to the effort. Well done! Now unravel the client already!

http://pherotones.com/ 

Well, looks like McDonald’s Australia is a bit ahead of the curve online. In a very ‘Apple’ looking way they’ve taken a more conceptual look at what a McDonald’s Website should say and do. There’s lots of good stuff in there, but perhaps it’s the American sensibility in me, it just seems a bit ‘cold’ for a burger joint.

http://www.mcdonalds.com.au

Courtesy of Random Culture >

Well, aside from the undertones of a giant corporation assimilating a rebellious subculture, you gotta give Nemo Design credit for pumping out an honest site. Nice retro pop-up window resizing sync’ed to audio! (click on ‘history’).

And for street-skate clothes, it’s nice to see Nike going a bit understated.

http://nike.com/nke6/v2/

From the north comes the latest Mini site. The home page feature is fantastic! Well done, very clever and well written. Bad Mini… Bad!

http://mini.ca

Well done Organic! The latest Dodge Charger online effort grabs you by the (xxxxx) and has some nice touches like a video mixer and desktop app. Combined with a good media buy this really hits the mark.

http://www.dodge.com/charger

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Infiniti pulled off a very interesting idea for their auto show booth this year. Interactive 2-way mirrors with very powerful digital projectors gave people a way to interact with the display. I’m not sure how they pulled off the motion detection, but watch the video, it’s fantastic!

http://www.interactivemirror.net

From Saab Japan comes their latest microsite. It’s a fantastic execution, but you have to have enough time to really get into the mood. A very sit-back experience.

It reminds me a bit of when Infinity launched in the US. The commercials were entirely about tranquility and not the car. Unfortunately it didn’t work out in the North American market, thankfully there’s Japan.

http://www.saab-saibu.com/cp/tour/

A bit of a departure from the hard edge of gansta rap, Rebok recently launched their new microsite for their G6 III shoe. Created by Zugara in Los Angeles, I think the site does a nice job with it’s somewhat messy/soft illustration style. Nice video masking.

http://www.rbk.com/us/g6III/

Happy New Year!

Behold IBM Lenovo’s microsite for the new titanium thinkpad. There’s some really nice elements flowing through it. I wouldn’t have put so much focus on the voting, all the action is in the ‘Persuadatron.’ However everything is very nicely designed. Perhaps a bit too ‘aqua-close to Apple? You decide:

http://www.whichsideareyouon.com

Happy holidays everyone! While in Barcelona for xmas last year, my wife and I witnessed 2 very interesting traditions. Both relating to Crap. The first is a small man placed in nativity scenes, taking a crap. He’s called the ‘Caganer’ and sure enough, every nativity scene in Catalunya has one. Something about ‘blessing and fertilizing the earth,’ but I think it’s just fun for the kids.

The second traditional figure is the Caga tio, which is a log-shaped creature with a blanket. Gifts are hidden under the blanket, and on Christmas eve the kids whack it with a stick, causing the Caga to crap presents.

Fantastico! We all need a little more pagan crap in our holidays.

Have a great holiday everyone! See you in the New Year!

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A little nepotism here: My favorite agency, AKQA, just released their holiday cards:

If our troubled teachers didn’t have enough to contend with: Cell phones, PDAs, laptops, PSPs, here’s yet another must have for Gen Y. Regardless of how successful this thing will be, you have to give Fly credit for putting forth such a rich and highly produced site. Worth the long loading! Anybody know who’s responsible?

http://www.flypentop.com/

Big commitment for Acura going all-flash. Somewhat understated for an automaker site, it’s nicely photographically focused. My critique would be the pop-up format, I’d rather see it in a main browser window.

Web development shop Genex is responsible, and should be very proud.

http://www.acura.com