Ah. Virals, virals, virals. The wave continues. I subscribe to viralmonitor which means basically, I get emailed a ton of different viral things as they’re released. Still, I have yet to find much of anything that’s better than what you see on adrants or adfreak. The typical stuff I get is like this game that I got today. (Click on image to play.)It’s called Mascot Kombat for Protrade, a stock market trading site for tracking pro athletes. All for fun? Real? Fake? Who knows.
Programming seems solid, the look, sharp. But one big disconnect is that the mascots seem so oddly connected to pro sports and football teams in particular. I know the NFL can be a mother when it comes to protecting/allowing use of its logos and colors, but the Redskin here is called Chief Sterotype. Swoop the Eagle, obviously from Philly, has a Cowboys star on his helmet.
And, if ProTrade is about all sports, why push the NFL so much? After playing a few rounds, the game works but all the directions up front make it seem a little too much. Is the trading on their site like this too? (Wanna make a realistic mascot game? Add in the sound effects from the Eagles game I was at where their own fans were telling Swoop he sucked.)
On the flip side, the Devil’s Advocate might respond, ‘hey, it worked you’re talking about it. Isn’t that what virals are supposed to do?’ Yes and no. When I was seven, I stabbed myself in the head by accident with an X-Acto. Now that got attention. But virals are supposed to drive far more people to a site and connect with a brand because they’re funny as shit or cool as hell.
Not be singled out as something that could be improved.
Tags: advertising, brands, viral
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