A zoo in New York has launched a viral campaign to put pressure on their Governor to keep state funding of zoos and botanical gardens.

In budget proposals for this year, Governor Paterson has cut state funding for zoos by 50%. The zoos say that the cuts will force many of them to close.

So the Bronx zoo is fighting back with a cute viral campaign featuring a porcupine. The video isn’t very slick- but it definitely gets the message across. And who knew porcupines were so cute?

Check out the video here: http://www.wcs.org/ (the video is on the left side below the header labelled “Watch this video and send it to your friends”).

NMA has named Compare the Meerkat as it’s campaign of the month. Ahh…i love this advert…cute meerkats and a thoroughly stupid idea asking me to compare meerkats instead of car insurance providers. What a fantastic idea.

Like all good viral ideas the campaign has translated brilliantly across various mediums. Aleksandr (the star of compare the Meerkat) has 30,000 friends on facebook and 1000 twitter followers. He also has his own website where you can compare meerkats (and it’s all written from Aleksandr’s foreign perspective- which kind of reminds me of the way Lolcats speak).

Anyway- i love this campaign. Like NMA, I would like to see them do something clever with this whilst everyone is still listening- something engaging and cool.

Anyone who has ever worked in London will know that commuting is a very dull business. However, commuters in London Liverpool street station were treated to something out of the ordinary on the 15th of January.

Network operator T-mobile staged it’s very own Flashmob where 400 commuters, tourists and underground staff leaped into action to bust out a co-ordinated mix of dance moves right in the middle of the station.

For those of you not up on the lingo, a flash mob is when a mass of regular people assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual action for a brief time and then quickly disperse. Famous examples include the time a huge crowd of people stood frozen for several long minutes in Trafalgar Square and a previous, pre-arranged silent dance party at the same Liverpool station.

(In fact flash mobs are a particular form of smart mob, which is a term coined by author Howard Rheingold in his 2002 book Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution. I would recommend this book for anyone interested in the subject- I read for my dissertation)

Anyway..

Hidden cameras recorded the performance and the full clip was aired in the first break during Big Brother on C4.

Since it was aired, T-mobile have been called the “latest fool to jump on the Flash-Mob-as-viral-marketing bandwagon”.

They’ve also been criticised for using a flash mob to sell their products: Flash mobbing is typically seen as an anarchic, freedom-of-expression act, although this one was organised by T-Mobile for an advert.

However, I think we have to take our hats off to T-mobile because the idea and execution was excellent. It certainly got the attention of commuters at Liverpool Street Station. But don’t take my word for it…watch it here:

Slightly off topic today- but I have to mention that Lost season 5 is out tonight and I’m very excited.

I can’t really talk much about the spoilers I’ve been reading because some people in the office aren’t completely up to date (Tim and Dan- tut tut). However, I can mention that there has been talk that the flash forwards and flash backs are going to stop this series. Apparently there’ll be an unspecified new format, reminiscent of the episode “Ji Yeon.”

Anyway…if you are up to date- watch this spoiler on YouTube and sit tight until this evening. Horrah!

I remember seeing this game a while back and now an official version has been released for the Iphone and the PC. Crayon Physics is a puzzle game designed by 25 year old Petri Purho in 2007.

The object of the game is to get a ball from point A to point B. You move the ball to the star by using (virtual) crayons to draw the physical objects that make it possible to transport the ball to its goal. The player does not have control over the ball, but can interact with it by drawing shapes (like ramps, barriers).

What makes Crayon Physics so much fun is that there are a number of different ways to solve each level. Players can be as creative as they like and solve each puzzle through whatever means they can come up with.

The game is also quite captivating. The visual presentation is meant to look like a folded up piece of paper complete with childish crayon drawings. And the music is extremely unobtrusive and calming.

Check out the website here, or watch the demo video below.


Crayon Physics Deluxe trailer 2 from Petri Purho on Vimeo.