Instead of coming up with its own viral content, MSN Search's new campaign, MSNfound, takes existing virals and weaves them into a six-character narrative.
Each character has a video lead-in and lead-out to an already-popular viral clip, including the stylings of David Bernal, one of the dancers in VW's "Gene" ad, and Virgin Mobile's Dog Judo.
To get to the clips, the user runs a search for a pre-detemined keyword, which yields a results page with the next piece of content embedded at the top. Ultimately, the viral clips lead the user back to each character's "journal".
Maureen McHugh, a freelance writer who worked on this campaign, wrote about the site in her blog, but the entry has mysteriously dissappered.
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Well, a "Search Opera" isn't a bad idea to sell a search engine, not bad at all but maybe I just like the phrase "search opera". ;)
Now, using other brands virals, that is a little odd, the David Bernal breakdancing is just a great clip but the Dog Judo sells Virgin Mobile phones.... Did the advertisers like Virgin chip in to have their fun virals be part of this search opera? Seems likely, and is not a bad idea......
Why Maureen felt the need to remove her own posting is a mystery... I didn't see anything wrong with it.
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PermalinkUsing non-original content does makes sense for a search engine, But yeah, seeing the Dog Judo in there was particularly odd.
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PermalinkI forgot to add that there's no mention of the Virgin brand though, and no link to the Virgin site... so maybe MSN was the one who had to pay to use it?
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PermalinkCute idea but it won't change that the search engine is utter crap.
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PermalinkNo wait, I take that back I have changed my mind.
I really dislike this campaign. I watched the Karen things, and taking an already viral video, adding your own actress crap intro to it, and reseeding it on the web is just crap on so many levels. Since in the case of Dog Judo for example, there is no link to Virgin who paid the creator of the Dog Judo is this possibly a campaign where MSN makes a name off the creative powers of others with complete disregard to copyright?
I know that dime-a-dozen bloggers have no clue about such things like copyright, but MSN!? Hello? And nothing, nothing, annoys me more than the fake people with their fake blogs created by some massive corporation who hired actors to play them. Cut it out. Makes me sick.
My highr rating here goes to slydecixs article, not the campaign.
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Permalinki think it's rubbish.
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PermalinkI agree. Too fake.
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