This Switzerland public service announcement proves that a Star Wars tie-in can fit on anything like an old shoe. It promotes recycling with an off-the-wall recreation of the Skywalker vs. Skywalker faceoff from The Empire Strikes Back. Notable is how its creators were thoughtful enough to include all of the little memorable moments from the source material.
Watch it at Adverblog.
Ad Age lists the top 10 viral videos for the week of Feb. 8.
Monday morning quarterbacking flushed out this week’s chart completely, slotting in all Super Bowl players. Even stubborn videos such as Evian s babies and Microsoft Natal were eclipsed, as viewers scrambled online all week to watch ads aired during the big game. Ad Age says that the ten Super Bowl spots on the chart drew a combined 44.7 million views. Nearly 18 million of that went to the number one video, Doritos spot about a guy faking his death for a casket full of its chips. The next closest are an E-Trade baby spot at number two, followed by Snickers Betty White playing football ad at number three. Each drew a little more than 3.4 million views. The remaining videos in descending order are spots from Motorola, Audi, Focus On The Family, Google, CareerBuilder, Bridgestone and Hyundai, each getting between 2.5 million to 3 million views.
The chart is compiled by Visible Measures. The firm told Ad Age that 20 percent of all views for Super Bowl spots were driven by social media pass-alongs.
Check out the full list and watch the videos at Ad Age {link no longer active}.
There’s been about 30 percent less Wii Nunchuk, and probably just as much more style in the way Ubisoft has been presenting Red Steel 2 compared to the prequel. The Nunchuk’s gone because no one fishes using the Wii s novelty as a hook any more. One could argue that a lot of the style comes from the game wanting to be a Spaghetti Western, and Ubisoft obliging wholeheartedly in the title’s positioning. In fact Red Steel 2 seems to become more of a Western with each trailer. This one’s the most Morricone-esque yet.
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Watch it at GameTrailers.
Square Enix and Avalanche Studios get creative again in highlighting the game play in Just Cause 2. The open world action game is showing off an incredible amount of freedom. The game makers inject a bit of comedy in this trailer to show off the variety of kills players can pull off, much of it thanks to impressive in-game physics.
Watch it at GameSpot.
Microsoft debuted this trailer for Remedy Entertainment’s Alan Wake at the X10 Xbox 360 game expo. The game makers haven t shied away from openly presenting the title as made-for-games Stephen King style horror. That messaging has been prevalent in the trailers. The game’s E3 2009 trailer {link no longer active} opened with a near shot-by-shot lifting of two King film opening sequences, pasting director Frasier Clark Heston’s intro for Needful Things {link no longer active} next to Stanley Kubrick’s for The Shining {link no longer active}. This one plays more like the second-to-third act span in a King film trailer, giving glimpses of the action and hinting to the presence of incarnated evil. All in all it’s a brilliant tether for the title’s product positioning.
Watch it at GameTrailers {link no longer active}.
Capcom put out this Valentine’s Day themed trailer featuring the femme fatales in the upcoming title Super Street Fighter IV. There s no shortage of creativity in it. It s expertly crafted in terms of pace, directing and editing. But the highlight here has to be the art direction, an ink sketch, almost calligraphic art style that Capcom’s worked into previous trailers for Street Fighter IV. It takes center stage here.
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Watch it at GameTrailers.
Coca-Cola has been known to run ads channeling sports drink advertising {link no longer active} to push Sprite to the urban set before. This recent spot essentially turns Gatorade s slogan “Is it in you?” into a visual premise. The ad uses nifty special effects to depict actor-rapper Drake as a robot seemingly made up of hodge-podge music component parts, and fueled by Sprite.
Watch it at YouTube {link no longer active}.
If you missed Spike’s GameTrailers TV exclusive reveal for Sony s newest God of War III trailer, it s now on GameTrailers.com. The expectation for this one was lots of game play. It’s there, but so is a bunch of art treatment eating up the first third of the trailer. The creative is outstanding, but once the game footage rears its epic head it s a wonder why Sony bothered framing it with all of that styling. Then again Sony may have just gone for PR mileage out of the game’s TV creative. The trailer times at exactly a minute minus the front and end logos.
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Watch it at GameTrailers.
Ad Age lists the top 10 viral videos for the week of Feb. 1.
New entries this week are topped by Bud Light’s made-for-viral Clothing Drive, debuting at number one with just under 1.3 million views. The spot was billed as the follow-up to Bud Light’s Swear Jar ad aired during last year s Super Bowl, but the beer brand knew better than to try and get this one past censors. Ad Age says that Super Bowl buzz likely helped drive its popularity online. Another high-placing premiere is a Super Bowl ad. Doritos TV spot about a guy playing dead for corn chips placed number four with about 667,000 views. Right below it with about 648,000 views is the last new entry for the week, a well-crafted British public service announcement for wearing seatbelts.
Ad Age’s chart includes number of views for the week and percentage change in views for videos that stayed on the chart. The list is compiled by Visible Measures.
Check out the full list and watch the videos at Ad Age {link no longer active}.
The debut trailer for Glitch shows off a trippy little game. It s an online MMO being developed by Tiny Speck, a game company set up by the co-founder and former staffers of photo sharing site Flickr. Based on first glimpse there s an abundance of creativity in the design, and with a hefty dose of psychedelic influence. That influence might even seep from art style into game play, judging how the trailer depicts the game almost as a series of up and down mood swings. It kind of raises questions on what was going on at Flickr.
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Watch it at GameTrailers.
