Thursday 26 June 2008

The Orange Balloon race is on!

Here's an interesting viral brand campaign. Orange have commissioned this fantastic social media project where you can race a balloon across internet miles and the winner gets a VIP trip to Ibiza with some mates.

The graphics and execution of the race are superb, and the team at Poke have done a great job on it, though I think it is seriously aimed at techies as there is little instruction on how the thing actually works for the layperson. It feels like they got so caught up in the clever trickery of making it all work that someone forgot about the user experience as there is little to help you through some of the registration and starting stages - it seems to assume you already know how it all works already?!

However, an innovative viral concept from which Orange get a rich stream of prospect data and huge amount of brand presence in exchange for interraction with a truly innovative and fun application!

You get to choose a balloon, then steer it over websites along the course (that you can also submit, so other balloons can visit your site, too) and friends and contacts can give you a boost to help you on your way.

We've joined the race, so search out the "preview" balloon and give us a boost! You can see the progress of our little blimp in the panel on the right of this blog.

Hurry, there's less than 6 days to blow our sleek dolphin (yes, I did that on Porpoise!) balloon along!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

There is no doubt it is a lovely piece of work. Poke and Orange seem to have a great relationship as the work they've produced together is just getting better and better.

The one thing you can honestly say about the balloon race is that it's an original idea. I've certainly never seen anything like it.

You can read some other points of view over at ben's blog...
http://noisydecentgraphics.typepad.com/design/2008/06/balloon-thing-g.html

(still doesn't help me get a better network coverage though)

nickbroom said...

Lovely piece of work, but the worst user interface I've experienced in ages! I lost interest after my initial excitement as people I'd referred to it couldnt work out what to do easily and the system didnt tell you things in the early registration stages that would have helped (like your balloon is tethered awaiting moderation!)
Then, when the race results were announced today, the email I got was a blatent sales push and I had to go to a link and find my own balloon (I lost interest) to see where I had come.
How I wish I had launched a Vodafone balloon hehehehe.