BIG-ASS MESSAGE GENERATOR GOES VIRAL

Not that we ever tire of covering the most lavishly integrated campaigns spread across multiple touch points, it's just that sometimes, it's nice to be dealt an unbranded distraction.  It was therefore with disproportionate glee, that we began playing with bigassmessage.com - a glorious waste of time. 

Check out www.bigassmessage.com

By visiting the site, users can input their own 48-character message, which is then made 'big-ass' with its own URL for sharing with friends/victims/loved ones. There are four different display themes to choose from: Basic, Magic (the magic being that the flashing screen will trigger a seizure if you stare at it for too long), Pepsi (in which certain letters are substituted for the brand's infamously revised logo) and Jeopardy (think the typeface used in the iconic gameshow). 

Props to Björn Johansson (formerly of farfar, Stockholm and now at Ogilvy, New York) who created the site. Be sure to head over to the homepage of creative collective Bjernie's Fast Food to check out more of his deviant side projects.  

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SHARKRUNNERS: The Future of Social Media

Tired of the same user-generated content (UGC) campaigns?  We completely understand, as much of the karaoke that passes for creative these days is repetitive uninspiring.  That’s specifically why we love area/code.   Area/code is based in NYC and develop campaigns that leverage today's environment of pervasive technologies and overlapping media to create new kinds of entertainment.  

Area/Code is one of the few agencies that highlight and integrate the connections between imaginary spaces and the world around them.  Whether urban environments transformed into
spaces for public play, online games that respond to
broadcast TV in real time, simulated characters and virtual worlds
that occupy real-world geography, game events driven by real-world data, or situated media that corresponds to
specific locations and contexts. These connections can take many forms.

Our favorite example du jour is Sharkrunners.  Designed by area/code for Discovery Channel's 20th Anniversary Shark Week, Sharkrunners is a persistent game of oceanic exploration and high stakes shark research.  Players take on the role of marine biologists who seek to learn as much as possible about sharks through advanced observation techniques.  Sharkrunners is a game of oceanic exploration and high stakes shark research. 

Players take on the role of sharkrunners: daring and adventurous marine biologists who seek to learn as much as possible about sharks through advanced observation techniques.

In the game, players control their ships, but the sharks are controlled by real-world white sharks with GPS units attached to their fins. Real-world telemetry data provides the position and movement of actual great white sharks in the game, so every shark that players encounter corresponds to a real shark in the real world.  

It get’s better. Ships in the game also move in real-time, so players receive email and/or SMS alerts during the day when their boat is within range of an encounter. Players login, choose crewmembers and an approach technique, and then collect various data from the nearby sharks. 

Visit SHARKRUNNERS HQ or PLAY NOW.