polygamist rules?

What's slightly more salacious than a man with multiple wives? How about a womann with multiple husbands? Here's some amusing viral stuff to go with your breakfast.



Check out this site. It's based around a 'scandal' about the first known female polygamist. This enigmatic woman, Francine Fleiss, has reportedly flitted around the continent over the past decade and has married 5 men from 5 of the most fascinating cities in Europe.

Coincidentally the site is run by Cool Capitals - a site designed to expose the coolest cities in Europe to the rest of the world.



The spoof is quite clever...you're not quite sure (for a few seconds at least) whether it's real or not...and it's an unexpected way to promote this Cool Site and it's primary function.

watch this space

A new promotion by Lion Nathan for Tooheys Extra Dry - proving some companies can get it right when they target the edgy Gen Y crowd.

Why?

Right concept - edgy, incorporates money, fame and risk.
Right look and feel - Numskull-esque street art graphic style
Right sound - The Bagraiders. So. Hot. Right. Now.
Right amount of branding - Appropriate and minimal. No "In Your Face" approach here.

6 Beers of Separation plays on the (yes, you got it) concept of 6 degrees of separation. The winner gets $12k, a 6 pack of Toohey's Extra Dry (because you catch up with mates over a beer..tenuous but believable) and a camera crew.

They then have 18 days to meet 5 people who will lead them to their hero.

The competition entry closes at the end of November, so we'll be watching how this pans out.

World AIDS Day

A bit of a self plug here...The Works Sydney is proud to show a new Community Service Announcement we've completed for the AIDS Trust of Australia for World AIDS Day.

A huge thank you to all involved in the project including Adrian Goldthorp, Sinead Roarty and the team at Foxtel for making it come to life.

try drugs

Everyone loves a good before and after scenario. Whether it's a TV backyard makeover or the Dove Real Beauty campaign, it's a safe bet that you'll stick around to see what the change will be.

Here's a great banner from Mediafront, showing you what happens when you try drugs. It's a bit like Yasmeen Bleeth's cocaine posession mugshot..no?

before:



junkie makeover:



What is great about this banner is it's simplicity. Very little branding (even for a Community Service Announcement), allowing the obvious horror value of what can happen when one is a drug addict to do it's work.

source: bannerblog

Nintendo Wii

This is one of the smartest online advertising capers I've seen in quite some time.

Nintendo Wii has suffered all sorts of issues - it even spawned a site to document them called Wii Have a Problem, but this little piece of genius redeems it and then some.

It starts off as a normal looking YouTube page...



and faster than you can say "Hurricane Ike" (What? Too soon?)...things start to break...



Does it demonstrate the key difference in the product? Yes. Does it do it in a way that the user finds engaging and entertaining? Yes.



Smart, simple. Top marks.

art in hong kong

A beautiful site for Sino properties (they own a bunch of shopping, business and residential properties) in Hong Kong. The site, Art in Hong Kong is a showcase of artistic events across Hong Kong, hosted in Sino buildings as an initiative to bring art appreciation and artists a higher profile on the island.

The site contains galleries of photos from events, a calendar of upcoming events, calls for artist proposals as well as event descriptions.



The site is a beautiful combination of hand-illustrated whimsy and smooth flash development to make this site a pleasure to navigate and explore. The homepage uses 3D panoramic effects with really effective results.



Just makes you want to get all arty...

do the bolt

Chasing the man of the moment.



Golden boy, Jamaican Usain Bolt is sponsored by Puma. How happy they must be this past week or so. The Puma running site is celebrating Bolt's Olympic achievements, integrating all the sexy elements of what makes Bolt, erm, bolt.



Namely the gold shoes (by Puma, which you can -of course- buy online) his Jamaican Dancehall moves in the form of a video and image gallery. You can even witness the world record runs and if you're up for it, race Bolt via a very cute advergame, where your fingers do the running.



This site is a great example of good timing, balanced integration of celebrity, current affairs, amusement and commerce, all wrapped up in a very smooth and user-friendly flash site.