Volvo are sponsoring the Ocean race that starts next week. Tehy’ve released a couple of new models to promote the race, tie in to the brand and have also put together this really sweet game. Guide the characters around the different scenarios to rescue the yacht over at Rush.

Screenshot from site

I like this game a lot, it’s engaging, it gets you involved and you want to replay it to beat your time. They have used the same techniques for the game as they have for the interactive car tours on the site as well.

As well as that, the Ocean race also has a game, but this is a lot longer. Join up, create your boat and set it sailing. This is a long haul game but you can win a car at the end of it. This idea is good and they’ve got 2700 boats signed up at the moment, but you’re going to have to be pretty dedicated to stick it out to the end. It’s a lovely combination of gameplay and realworld data, all brought together on a virtual earth.

The Volvo Open 70 fleet will race around the world, starting in Alicante on 4 October 2008. Now is your chance to race against them and your friends online, in real time, using live weather data and following the real race course.

Screenshot from site

I published my filter method for Twitter the other day, which came out of my frustrations with the many new followers I was getting. It does not mean I’m not following anyone new, just that I run through some criteria in making my decision. One of the new people I did follow was David Polinchock, from Brand Experience Lab. A few tweets later he pointed me towards this video about work they had done with Volvo in UK cinemas. I’d missed this back in November, but glad I’ve seen this now - I love it!

Carlton Screen Advertising used motion tracking cameras in 12 cinemas to play an inter-cinema game. By moving together, each audience steered a Volvo car down a course, collecting points along the way. Fun for one cinema to do, but you got to compete with others as well, adding extra spice. A game, collaboration, competition, fun, all elements that make this experience, and the brand behind it, memorable for the people involved. Let’s see some more of it!

Volvo have done some really cool Treasure Hunt challenges over the last few years, associated with the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. To promote their new XC70 car, they put together a nice site in conjunction with Yahoo which has another hunt on it. No prizes this time, just the fun of the search as you try and find 70 places around the globe to which they’ve take the car.

The concept has previously worked for them, so great to try it again and this is just for the customer engagement. After you’ve solved a clue, it encourages you to share with friends and share clues about how to find the places - a good passalong driver.

Following a comment from Maria I took a look around the reactions to Court TV notifying their winners for Save My Husband - or should I say not notifying them. It seems that many people who answered correctly never got the email, although over the last day it appears that a further batch went out, indicating issues with the mass mailing the first time. Yet another lesson to be learnt from this campaign; it does look like Deep Focus (and hence Court TV?) do appear to be learning and responding though, as some of the competitors are reporting correspondence with the CEO.

And they say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Following the Volvo Treasure Hunt, a fan of the game has created a tribute. So if you are looking for some puzzle solving goodness, here’s a great fix. (and hints and tips can be found on the Steeple Media forums)

The Cyber Awards were announced today; there’s a lot here that falls into my area so here’s what I really like.

First up I’m going to pull out a number of ads that have borrowed ideas from other internet elements. Whilst this can be seen as a homage to the idea, it can also be seen as ripping off; agencies have been accused of this before. I have no idea what the situation is for these pieces.

• First up is Volkswagen Rabbit, from CPB who riff off their own creative, putting the AI from Subservient Chicken into a banner ad. What was once a huge viral site now turns into a ad; add your word to the banner and watch the VW do things
• Adidas Impossible is Nothing. This appears to be ‘borrowed’ from Line Rider. But a nice little thing to do inside a banner.
• Kabel Deutschland (porn TV) has borrowed the Ragdoll Physics for their banner ad. But fun though -watch those naked people tumbling.

taking inspiration from other things online is common; at one point everyone wanted to do Post Secret; everything popular gets immitators

• Mini Showcase. Lovely use of niche sites. From a big site, follow the mini through the web through slightly eccentric British sites.
• I want to see a Ghost, for Pulse movie.
  

  Bring Pulse plot to real life, by creating a fake blog which is possessed by ghosts, and allowing users to become both main characters of the movie and the spreaders of the action, thanks to a high-level personalisation tool which allows text, audio, and real time webcam recording video for scaring friends. The Results: +300,000 visits with no advertising cost. +1,250,000 visits by now +18,000 references on blogs, forums and webs +175,000 viral email sent.

  Although I’m generally against false blogs, it depends how this was presented. It sounds intriguing though.

• Verizon Action Hero
  

  visitors to the site can upload their photos and be transformed into 3D action superheroes. Users also choose their own action adventure, picking a bad guy to battle against and selecting scenes, dialogue, and music. At the end of the process, the site renders a 2-minute high-quality CG movie staring the user and reflecting their choices. The movie can then be downloaded and posted to blogs, YouTube, etc.

  More interaction, getting the user involved in the advertising instead of just one way.

• Volvo Treasure Hunt. This is the first one, from last year. No results but I’m guessing it was pretty successful as they ran it again this year.

Pirates of the Caribbean 3 comes out in May. As a proven blockbuster franchise, it’s bound to be the target of advertisers looking to borrow equity in exchange for cash. Here’s the first one I’ve seen, from Volvo, setting up a treasure hunt to find $50k somewhere in the seven seas.

Sign up now to be notified when it starts. This is not the first time they have done this; there was a very similar promotion for the last film, where you could pick up a map from a dealer. Given the success of the last time, I’m not surprised they have tried again:

Response to the campaign has been unlike anything Volvo has ever seen before, Gangeri says. Visitors to the treasure hunt website stay an average of 30 minutes per visit. They’re swapping clues, guesses and hints on the blog Volvo set up for “The Hunt,” and more impressively, they’re doing the same on at least a dozen other gaming blogs, some of them started specifically to discuss “The Hunt.” Members of the creative team monitor customer feedback daily and even respond to it from time to time, but they’re not giving away answers– much to the chagrin of one especially dedicated gamer who somehow got Gangeri’s direct phone line and called her on June 27, begging for hints!

In another measure of success, Volvo has tracked more than 8,000 clicks from the treasure hunt site to Volvo’s online “configurator,” which allows users to price various combinations of features on all its models– an indication of interest in making a purchase, Gangeri points out: “Our overall goal is to generate interest in the brand, and it definitely seems to be working.”

Via Mindcandy

Update: Well, it’s launched and I’m obviously getting people here looking for clues. As i say in the comments, a good place to look is at unforum; Autoblog also has a very active post of people discussing the puzzles.

But if you do not wish to wade through those, here’s some starters. I’m not giving the answers here, but you can find them on the other forums. (Here be spoilers) First of all, everything so far is flash based and everything you need is in the puzzle graphics. What you need to do is interact with them to find the locations. Some you need to do things, others you need just to look hard.

Clue 1: Grab that piece of paper and move it; slowly. Soon you’ll see the numbers and you have to work out the order, just think where the N would go when writing the location and that helps you with the order. And there’s only 8 number so trial and error work here as well.

Clue 2: Keep moving around until you find the crabs. Click, click and click again on the crabs. Soon you’ll see the numbers.

Clue 3: up the stairs to the map room; listen to the man closely, he tells you all you need to know. Then find white mountains in the south and scratch and scratch. The numbers will appear. (This puzzle is the worse so far for legibility - the numbers are far too small to comfortably read. I wonder what they are doing in the Uk where accessibility is far more important.)

Clue 4: most annoying. Keep looking at the body; mess with the contrast until you can see as well as some of the numbers are hidden in the black. The order is from mouth to toe. Some numbers are not in normal Latin script, but in another language. There are 6 panels of numbers on the body, on each leg, arm and two on the torso. Use those to decipher some of the signs to get your full set.

And that is as far as I have gone. Any further you need to get a map from a Volvo dealer, which gives you a code to continue. At this point you need to enter all you details to play further.