I know you came here for the farting elves, so if you don’t care about interactive agency ad campaigns scroll down to the links about viral campaigns.
Anyway, dontread.org is part of agency and audible’s new campaign to
In fact the only reason i’m writing about it was because they’re press release ended up in my inbox because it had the words “enhanced user experience”.
Well I hate to be a whiny mac user but the “captivating experience” of the ad was pretty mediocre on my ibook and firefox. Mind you i’m sure the level of compression they used on the audio clips was not a function of my ibook’s lack of power, or my macs lack of audio processing capabilities. As soon as I hit the site a highly compressed clip of “jarhead” started playing, that was so thin and tinny it had me looking for the stop button immediatly, it grated on my ears, and i’m no audiophile, but it was uncofortable to listen too.
Here’s what they wanted to get out of the campaign
“creating viral componants?” that’s funny. Viral doesn’t mean “ability to send to friends”
Viral means “compelled” to send to friends because something is shocking, surprising, or hysterically funny. Think KA’s evil twin - cat getting decapitated, subservient chicken, or anything from JibJab. In fact since I just mentioned JibJab I must recomend they’re “very viral” Farting Elves present the 12 days of christmas, and while i’m on the topic, how come the farting elves sounded better on my ibook than the audible “don’t read” campaign?
Sorry but “don’t read” isn’t viral, except for the fact that i’m talking about it because it’s not viral and someone may disagree and a whole meme will develop on the sidelines talking about whether this campaign is viral or not. Maybe that was your plan all along… Touché agency.com, maybe you do know viral from your elbow.
And it seems the Canadians aren’t too happy with this campaign either 
Canuckflack - Audibile’s new campaign is mean to child literacy
I came across the banner from the campaign few months earlier and wanted to send people at agency.com the similar reminder - ” Using big words, “Viral”, “complete interactive experience”, “immersive and positive experiences” (all the words their creative president used here!). Its good to know how other people think the same way. It seems like Agency.com does creative strategy from their hip and their strategy is paralyzed from neck up! Good fuckup guys!
Thanks for the comment. In some ways it’s a shame, I’ve worked at a couple of big interactive agencies and they are full of smart, bright, innovative people, and yet they don’t turn out the innovative work they should because they lose the thread somewhere. IMHO these interactive agencies become so big they end up looking and sounding like their clients, and become as concervative. It’s a shame, because I’m sure the clients are spending big bucks for innovation and what they are getting is a company that looks and sounds like them.
Karl