How many people have ever hit one of those design speed bumps?  Well, in other words, it would be called a lack of inspiration.  I have to have a personal site mock-up done by Monday….and maybe even my self-promotional ad.  aka, whatever I can finish, by Monday for a rough critique in Joel’s Interactive Design class.  It was Wednesday and I still had NO IDEA what I wanted to do.  I asked one of my professors, Angie, for some help.  She kindly lent me three of her design magazines and said I should take a look.  (THANK YOU ANGIE!!!)  AMAZING!!!  Some of design I found in those magazines blew me away!  She lent me two of her Communication Arts magazines and a HOW Design magazine.  I highy suggest both of them for inspiration.  You could also browse their websites: HOWdesign and commarts.com!!!  Check them out!  Highly inspirational.

I also happened to find an amusing game with GREAT, no, AMAZING design.  This site and game was created to promote milk’s health’s benefits.  You get to play this great game while learning facts about milk.  The game looks so realistic and has, on average, users spending more than 12 minutes on the site – quite a feat!

So I think it’s time for you to take a study break.  Visit this site, learn some cool stuff about milk, and have tons of fun!  Enjoy!

Este verano estuve leyendo el libro de Jon Steel “Truth, Lies & Advertising. The Art of Account Planning” y resulta que hoy he tropezado con el fruto -con una evolución muy favorable y adaptada a los tiempos- de una de sus mejores campañas: “Got milk?”.

La campaña en cuestión se empezó a lanzar en noviembre de 1993 de la mano de Goodby, Silverstein & Partners para la ,entonces recién constituida, CFMPAB ( California Fluid Milk Processors’ Advisory Board o Consejo Asesor de la Asociación de Productores de Leche Líquida de California). Tal y como dijo en 1994 Bruce Horowitz en el Los Angeles Times “Sólo hay 2 cosas en el mundo más aburridas que la leche entera: la leche semidesnatada y la leche desnatada.”; y claro, luego encontramos conceptos tan sencillos y potentes como “got milk?” que pueden llegar a durar más de una década.

El fruto es una de las webs de la campaña, donde a pesar de su gran dirección artística, presenta un juego entretenido y bastante original. “Get the Glass!” presenta a la familia Adachi, imputados por delitos de robo de leche, que deben evitar que la policia les capture consiguiendo llegar hasta la cima de la isla donde viven y poder beber del vaso de leche que tanto necesitan. Mientras tiras los dados y te mueves por el tablero puedes caer en las casillas de Fortune, Missfortune, Mastermind y otros juegos de rapidez. Considero que, a pesar de ser una iniciativa del 2007, es una campaña realmente interactiva que hace que vayas interiorizando -sobre todo si no has seguido durante 14 años- los beneficios de la leche de una forma muy divertida. También tiene su gracia la isla Milkatraz donde te llevan si te capturan -donde he estado como 10 veces…-.

Pantalla inicial del tablero Get the Glass!

Tras esta experiencia he buscado más webs relacionadas con Got Milk?, entre ellas el site oficial. Realmente han tenido muy en cuenta la interactividad con los usuarios para poder mostrar los beneficios de la leche para el ser humano, así como formas graciosas de reciclar los envases.

Cómo reciclar envases de leche

Y siguiendo con “Got Milk?” también existen más casos como el de Planet in Need donde habitantes de planetas lejanos han descubierto en la Tierra una bebida milagrosa (Miracle Elixir) llamada “Maravilla Blanca tonificante que mantiene la fuerza en los huesos, reduce el riesgo de caries y ayuda a tener el pelo sano y a dormir mejor”.

El emperador del planeta haciendo su discurso introductorio

Y por último, también me gustaría añadir, Toma Leche, la versión de la campaña en español -supongo que estará dirigida para la comunidad hispana en USA- donde conducimos un camión a través de un pueblo que organiza los contenidos de la web (anuncios televisivos, beneficios de la leche, noticias y eventos, recetas…). Todo ello con una estética muy francesa -a mi parecer-.

Pueblo de Tomaleche

Con todo esto mi reflexión final es la siguiente:

A pesar de todas las innovaciones tecnológicas que se han sucedido desde 1993, la marca y la campaña han conseguido adaptarse y aprovechar mejor los medios interactivos para transmitir su mensaje principal (“¿Tienes Leche?”). Desde mi punto de vista, han creado piezas -en este caso webs- donde de forma participativa el visitante aprende y puede utilizarlo a su favor para navegar por ellas. Se insiste en los beneficios de la leche y en las consecuencias de no tomarla sin anteponer la marca, puesto que se trata de un consejo asesor. Y eso es lo que más me gusta, pues pretende ser didáctica por encima de todo, vendiendo los beneficios del producto genérico para todo el colectivo del mismo sector. Podría incluso ser institucional si la hubiera hecho el Ministerio de Sanidad y Consumo.

También me pregunto porqué en España ésto no ocurre…Quizás la leche no ha estado nunca en crisis (a pesar de que yo no tome desde hace muchos años) o quizás no se piensa en el beneficio de los colectivos y las asociaciones como ocurre en EUA. Y así acabo.

The -hard to believe but true- story

I’ve just come across this flash game I was very fond of last year. I didn’t bookmark it because I went back several times from IE History and when holidays ended I just forgot about it. Later I tried to remember its name or any clue to google it but I didn’t succeed. Mysteriously I’ve found its shortcut fifteen minutes ago in my games folder. Can you believe it? I got this computer -with MS Vista- last November; my former PC had MS XP. Nothing to do. Hard to believe. But real as the sun.

The links

Getting back to the title in this post, Get the Glass! is a Flash game copyrighted by the California Milk Processor Board as part of its campaign to promote milk drinking in the States. Apart from Get the Glass! their Got Milk? site is worth visiting to read about health benefits, get some tasty recipes or play some other games.

The screenshots

Un’interpretazione ladresca del famoso gioco dell’oca, si gioca a tutto schermo, con un “drag and drop” si lanciano i dadi.
Attenzione alla pattuglia…
Un gioco per finire il week-end e per distrarsi il lunedì mattina in ufficio…

> GET THE GLASS

O jogo Get The Glass, é um dos melhores jogos feitos em Flash que já vi. Já faz um tempo que existe, mas ainda é um tesão a produção! É uma ação da empresa Got Milk? muito conhecida pelas suas campanhas que colocam o bigodinho de leite em todos os famosos… Para jogar acesse: http://www.gettheglass.com

Abaixo a campanha com os dois personagens mais bacanas do Heroes, o japonês Masi Oka (Hiro) e a gatíssima “Claire Bear”: Save the Cheerleader Save the World!

Mais campanhas da Got Milk?

Acesse: http://www.gotmilk.com/fun/ads.html

The new Coke Zero game is now available in English. (I know it’s not new news and I’m probably not the first one to talk about it. If you did before me, please let me know).
It is North Kingdom’s biggest project so far, after the very successful ‘Get the Glass’ game that won them gongs and galore last year.

North Kingdom is a very successful online production company and I believe they went direct to the client for the Coca-Cola game. Which makes business sense, as they can get more money to produce the game by cutting the middle man (the agency). And there is a (unofficial) saying that says that the more money you invest in online production the more likely it is to go viral…

It’s the equivalent of a successful production company starting to make TV ads directly for clients, without the involvement of an advertising agecny.

‘Get the glass’ was developped with Goodby, Silverstein and partners. I do not know how they worked together and how involved they were in the game development. I suspect they briefed North Kingdom and gave them some strategic guidelines. The result was a wonderful game that was actually selling the product in a engaging way. It was cute, charming, the game-play was great and it was spot on brief.

However, I do not see any of these things when I look at the Coke Zero game. Yes, the production quality is amazing, some of the scenes are really impressive and you can see the amount of work that went into it.

However, what’s the idea? What’s the story? Where are the chicks from? What’s going on here? The acting is not good. The satisfaction from playing the game is not that great either.  Where ‘GTG’ was brilliant and smart, I’m here left with a strange after taste that I don’t really know what is going. (And the guy can’t shoot!).

Which makes me wonder whether production agencies should really go direct to clients. I think the Barbarian group tried that a few years ago and it didn’t really work out. (please correct me if wrong). UPDATE:I was corrected by Benjamin who told me they were quite successfully doing 50% of their projects directly with clients. See the comments section.

Spending a great deal of money in online production certainly helps the work standing out, but I still think we need an agency involved to make sure the work actually delivers on something else that ‘wow great game!’. Just because it’s an online piece doesn’t mean it’s not advertising anymore. We are starting to talk big budget here, as this game probably cost more than £250K to produce, and even if it’s a game, it’s still an ad and should be treated as such.

Just my point of view. Open for debate as usual.

Ενα πολυ ενδιαφερον web-based board game ονοματι ”Get the Glass” πηρε το βραβειο FWA (Favorite Website Award) και δικαιως.Στοχος ειναι να οδηγησεις μια οικογενεια στο γαλα και εχει τη μορφη επιτραπεζιου.Φτιαχτηκε απο την εταιρεια Got Milk? ως promotion για την νεα της καμπανια.

Αν εχετε λιγο χρονο δοκιμαστε το ”Get The Glass” εδω, αξιζει!

published by Glite

The FWA Website of the Year Award 2007 have been released, the winner, “Get the Glass!”.

As well as the FWA Website of the Year Award 2007 the FWA have also announce the FWA People’s Choice Award 2007, sponsored by Adobe which was also “Get the Glass!”.

Here are the press releases for the FWA Website of the Year Award 2007 and the FWA People’s Choice Award 2007, sponsored by Adobe.

The “Get the Glass!” website is phenomenal, the highest quality animation and graphics, it’s like having a Pixar movie you can play with, the ability to have true interactive animated movies has arrived!

This site was not our first choice although to be honest our first three choices were all equally good for different reasons, so were happy they won. Our choices were:

1. Halo 3: Believe by AKQA
2. HBO Voyeur by Big Spaceship, BBDO NY, HBO
3. Get the Glass! by Goodby, Silverstein & Partners & North Kingdom

Here’s our reasons.

Halo 3: Believe by AKQA

This website is great, it got our first place for a couple of reason, the quality of the images is outstanding, although the interaction is poor. The main reason that we gave it first place was that it is one of the few websites which we could actually see the business objective coming through into the website. We assume the campaign objective is to engage consumers into believing the war was real and this is almost a documentary of the aftermath, so encouraging them to purchase. We think the website while not overly interactive achieves this marketing objective.  The music selection, which is often overlooked, is also fabulous.

HBO Voyeur by Big Spaceship, BBDO NY, HBO

Again this is a great site, what we liked about this is the possibilities it has, imagine when your TV and your PC are the same device, Windows Media Centre actually works or Apple TV lets you do more than just watch iTunes.

The HBO Voyeur website has the potential to be the next step in content for PC/TV Convergence, the way all entertainment will be!

Get the Glass! by Goodby, Silverstein & Partners & North Kingdom

We have mentioned above why we like this site, the highest quality animation and graphics, it’s like having a Pixar movie you can play with, and all over an internet connection, what more can you ask for.

Anyway these were our choices, let us know what you think!

The FWA site of the year award!!

And People’s Choice award!!
(i am 1 of the people!!)

Go Get the Glass!!

i absolutely love this…
i think the characters are really funny, the Adachi family…haha…it does sound very real i must say. i can really almost imagine somewhere in the world, in real life, there’s a Adachi family on some weird mission. Ok, maybe not weird, but “James Bond” kind of mission?… Roll the dice!! Roll the dice!! i enjoy just dragging and just throw the dice any way i like…hehe..

Milkatraz?…hmmmmm…i like…