Out for a duck - again

Last week a client asked me if I have played www.stickcricket.com yet. I wish he hadn’t.

This afternoon I remembered the conversation when I checked the England cricket score so went to have a look. After a three or four games is still had not got past an average score of around ten before being completely bowled all out. On the very rare occasions I actually hit the ball I normally was caught. I left feeling frustrated.

Despite my current loathing of the game I would bet good money on me returning to try again. I will certainly be challenging other people to have a go and see if they share my experience.

So well done to Stick Cricket for creating a successful viral game - I still wish I had never played it though.

Gaps "Watch Me Change" Viral Campaign

www.watchmechange.com
Created by Fuel Games and Crispin Porter & Boqusky

First of all I would like to congratulate the developers as the viral campaign obviously worked – EG. I was sent a hyperlink to the campaign by a friend. It is also very well built, funny and original.

I can’t imagine that Gap seriously believed people would actually make models of themselves as opposed to their ideal member of the opposite sex. The addition of “strip tease”, “strip” and “stripper” in the sites metatags seems to confirm the intended usage.

Therefore this is a great example of a viral campaign deliberately created for misuse - avoiding any potential issues with the Mary Whitehouses of this world.

On the negative side there must have been lots of people who got bored with the numerous stages of personalising the model before it eventually stripped – Check Oli's comments out.

Nice work. What do you think?

Why complete forms with strange email addresses?

I have noticed a trend in people leaving "amusing" email addresses in the viral campaigns we build. Although this is only true for a small percentage of participants I must confess to being fascinated. To try and understand the motivation behind entering this information I have attempted to group these users. Have you got any explanations for this erratic, but humorous, behaviour?

1) The lazy form filler

Examples:

czxcxzxc@gdgdfd
rtyrt@dfh.com
XXXXX@XXX.COM

Tactic: Hit some random keys and make it look vaguely like an email address by adding @. Note the proximity of the keys c,x,z and r,t,y,d,f,h

Possible explanation: I guess this user wants to know what happens when they complete the form and are hoping they get some kind of in game reward for participating. The domain extension and “@” symbol are used to avoid form validation.

2) The comedian

Examples:

Name: “Please”, Email: “suckmyb#lls@noontomorrow.com”
Name: “Harry”, Email: “Potter”
Name: “Do you”, Email “stink@ThisLikeI.do”

Tactic: Complete both sections of the form with a joke, famous persons name or question.

Possible explanation: I can only assume this person has had an enjoyable experience and is in a humorous mood. Perhaps they think that someone checks the emails being submitted and wants to send them a joke? It seems like a lot of effort for no real reason but I would like to thank these people for making me smile anyway.

3) The doubter

Examples:

im-not-tellin-u@piss#ff.com
shutup@hotmail.com
no@way.com

Tactic: Complete the form with a negative answer but still tick the data protection box

Possible explanation: I can’t believe people remember these email addresses and are using them to store their progress in a game so why take the time to complete the form? Have they simply got strong opinions on data protection and wish to voice them?

4) The aggressor

Examples:

F@CKOFF@GAYGAMES.COM (My personal favourite. I like the way they have capitalised the text to ensure their message is really clear.)
KissMyArse@Ihate.u
GoThrowYourself@aTrain.now

Tactic: Try and enter as many swear words in all possible fields and then tick the data protection box

Possible explanation: I can only conclude that these people must either really hate data collection, have despised the game (but still played it to the end?) or be one of my ex girlfriends.

Have you come across any better examples?