Hello Viking

Meet Ivan's Axe

What is a Viking without his or her axe?

Given that over 45,000 people have been playing Viking Smackdown (and some of you for over an hour at a time), we thought you'd like to meet Ivan's Axe, co-star in Viking Smackdown, our game, contest and birthday celebration all rolled into one.

Profile:  Ivan's Axe

Length: .96774 inches

Weight: .0000288 gaseous cubic ounces

Materials: Oak, Forged Iron & Brawn

Favorite Color: Dusty Pink

Temperament: Never a dull moment

Pet peeves: Being put away wet

Favorite TV Show: Starsky & Hutch

Favorite Band: The Portsmouth Symphonia

Currently Reading: The Family Circus By Request, by Bill Keane

Looking for: A cure for irony

Favorite Quote: “I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace.” – George W Bush

If you're looking for some tips on how to work with Ivan's Axe in Viking Smackdown, click here.

(Ivan's Axe owes a lot of who he is and how he came to be to our awesome pals Aubrey and Cole.)

Meet Ivan

This is Ivan Axe. He's the star of Viking Smackdown, our game, contest and birthday celebration all rolled into one.

Since Viking Smackdown's been played by over 35,000 people, we thought maybe you'd like to get to know Ivan a little better.

 

Here's his profile:

Ivan Axe

Height: 2.68 inches

Weight: .00036 gaseous cubic ounces

Sun Sign: Cancer

Favorite Color: Black, like his soul

Temperament: Steve Jobs on a bad day

Pet peeves: Pets, birthday cake, joy

Favorite TV Show: Fantasy Island

Favorite Band: Gwar, or maybe Toto, it depends

Currently Reading: Demian, by Herman Hesse and InTouch

Throws Axe: Right

Hoists Shield: Left

Looking for: Disappointment in all the wrong places

Favorite Quote: “When did I realize I was God? Well, I was praying and I suddenly realized I was talking to myself.” – Peter O’Toole

If you're looking for some tips on how to work with Ivan in Viking Smackdown, click here.

(Ivan owes a lot of who he is and how he came to be to our awesome pals Aubrey and Cole.)

Smack this!

A huge thanks to the almost 2,000 people who've been playing Viking Smackdown on their iPhones and iPod Touches since Monday. And a big shout out to "EED" for holding not only the high score, but the top three high scores: 990, 970 and 750 points at this point. You make us proud, EED. 

How does EED score so high? Well, practice certainly helps. Perhaps EED is one of the people, according to our analytics, who's been playing the game for over an hour.

Now, who's going to unseat EED? Remember, there's an all-expenses paid trip to Minneapolis for the winner. And that cake throwing opportunity.

Thanks as well to Jason at TechCrunch for the positive review and to Michael Arrington for the demo video.

And we absolutely must share a bit of this "review," err, translation? It's vikingtastic. 

"With exclusive four life to go until the start of Apple’s App Store, which module feature 3D games that near the iPhone to its limits, most developers would study emotional a browser-based iPhone mettlesome a intense idea. Throwing ordinary significance to the wind, ad authority Hello Viking has meet free Viking Smackdown, a Safari-based iPhone mettlesome that manages to verify plus of the phone’s built-in accelerometer. You crapper admittance the mettlesome by temporaryVikingSmackdown.com from your iPhone’s browser."

Awesome. 

How to play

Here's a few tips on how to play Viking Smackdown, the super awesome iPhone and iPod Touch game we just released. 

First, you actually need an iPhone or iPod Touch to play. Shaking your MacBook Pro or PC laptop just won't cut it. Neither will a Treo or Blackberry. And you can play Viking Smackdown right now. You don't need an iPhone 3G or the SDK to play.

If you've got that covered, pick up your iPhone or iPod Touch and go to http://vikingsmackdown.com...

1. Body Position

Hold your iPhone upright. 

2. Click Play

It'll take you to the initial gaming screen.

3. Power Up

Tilt your iPhone back, like you're about to pitch a ball, or throw an axe. Notice how the red bars accumulate. The iPhone's tilt-sensor is telling your Safari browser to build up the power level. You can throw/tilt forward at any time now...

3b. Careful, Steve!

When you're ready to throw/tilt your iPhone forward, DON'T LET GO OF YOUR iPHONE.

4. Toss Your Axe

Throw your hand forward. The tilt-sensor tells Ivan Axe to release, and the axe flies forward. Viking Smackdown will tell you how hard or soft you've thrown the axe, or if you've hit a target.

5. Keep Playing

If you're good, you'll keep hitting targets, and keep moving up levels. If your score is in the top ten when you lose, you'll be prompted to enter your initials in the Viking Smackdown High Score Contest™. (We'll also ask for your email.) If not, you can play again or taunt a friend.

6. Keep Playing Until August 15 at 5:00pm CST

Remember, if you've got the highest score on 8/15, you'll win an all-expenses paid trip to Minneapolis and the chance to throw a birthday cake at our CEO.

We'll keep track of the high scores here and on Twitter.

- - - - - 

UPDATE:  Jason Kincaid over at TechCrunch wrote a really nice post about Smackdown, including this nifty "how to" video. Thanks, Jason.

VikingSmackdown.com

Break out the aquavit—Hello Viking is one year old!

So we've decided to celebrate by unleashing Viking Smackdown, a game created especially for the iPhone and iPod Touch. 

(Got your iPhone out? Awesome. Go here now: http://vikingsmackdown.com. Don't have your iPhone handy? Well, here's a link.)

No need to wait for July 11. You can play Viking Smackdown on your iPhone today. See, it's not an application, it's not SDK. It's old school iPhone tech. We're using the tilt-sensor to trigger action inside the Safari web browser. (Of course, Viking Smackdown will be even more awesome, and still just as free, on an iPhone 3G.)

But that's not all...

Introducing The Viking Smackdown High Score Contest™.

It's more than a game, it's a game of skill! If you excel at Viking Smackdown, you'll quickly enter the Top Ten high scores. And if you're holding the highest score at 5:00pm CST on August 15, 2008 you win an all-expenses paid trip to Minneapolis, MN, the opportunity to don authentic Viking regalia and the chance to throw a birthday cake at our CEO, Tim Brunelle. We'll even broadcast the proceedings on the Internet.

Isn't that exciting?

You've got 40 days to practice and play Viking Smackdown! We'll be broadcasting latest high scores via Twitter. And we'll post more updates here, of course. 

A super huge thanks to our partners Aubrey and Cole for collaborating with us to make Viking Smackdown a reality. 

And while we're on the topic—big kudos to all of our first year clients, our family, our mentors and gurus and all of our collaborators. We're extremely fortunate to know you, to work with you and experience life together. 

Happy Birthday!

How Much Brand Utility Is Too Much?

A recent article in Adweek prompted a question, “Would every company benefit from creating a community around its product?”

In his coverage of the 2008 Cannes Lions Awards, Adweek’s Brian Morrissey interviewed the forces behind Nike+, last year’s big winner.

The article gives a good look into Nike’s evolving brand philosophy. (And it’s important to emphasize evolution here. Brands do, and must, evolve.) Nike appears to have taken the lesson taught by this new Website/Community/Service to heart, spinning their digital presence into a new focus: The creation of services important/helpful to people in general.

Stefan Olander, Nike’s Global Director of Digital Media says, “If we can do something good for someone, no matter the product, it's going to be good for us,” sharing the stage with Bob Greenberg, CEO of Nike digital agency R/GA. “The goodwill value to us is gigantic.”

With two new services for different sports niches, Boot Camp and Ballers Network (a facebook app.), and a third one crafted around shoe customization, Nike’s going the whole nine yards, and seems pretty committed to it.

Which begs more questions: Is creating a relevant service for people the best way to connect with them online? Would people tire of the increasing amount of participation warranted by the growing number of product communities?

Applied Arts Magazine

So Canada likes Vikings it would seem. It must be the stylish hats.

One of Canada’s premiere visual communications magazines, Applied Arts, has chosen one of our projects as a winner of its 2008 Photo | Illustration Contest, specifically the illustrations by Aaron McConomy for PwC.tv. Congratulations and many thanks to Aaron for the great collaboration!

If one wanted, they might see them on the awards page here.

Or in context, right here.

Dan, the intern

Dan Spillman joined us on Monday. He's our summer intern. Dan goes to MCAD, and is tall. We're excited he's with us. Dan's going to help us with our first birthday celebrations, and various client projects. Welcome, Dan!

Housekeeping

We finally got around to cleaning the office. Perhaps in celebration of spring or something.

Our first intern, Dan, started this week. Yesterday, in fact. We'll post his image here soon. Dan's a junior at MCAD and we're thrilled he's with us. You'll see some of his work soon. We've got him concocting ideas for our first birthday surprise/event/web-enabled gizmo. Trust us, the whole 3G iPhone release will pale in comparison.

We've also been working with some awesome new people in Florida, Massachusetts and California. We continue to be amazed at how much easier it is now to collaborate with wonderful people across distance, and you honestly don't sense the distance.

Our bookkeepers started this week as well. It's amazing how we managed to get through almost an entire first year of operations without them. But they are now on task, and whipping us into shape. Thank you, bookkeepers!

And we've been steadily adding to the equipment rolls. Thank you, Apple, HP, etc. Nice to spend money with you, too.

All of which is now causing us to look into new real estate ideas.

Meanwhile, projects of all shapes and sizes are brewing. We wrapped an online ad campaign for our pals at Kruskopf Coontz and 3M. You'll soon see more work soon for PwC, as well as a UGC-oriented project for a nifty corporate collaboration. And other stuff.

Oh, and did we mention we've started an entirely new company?

Right. Well, it's called BannerPalooza. Our motto: "There are no small ads, only small people."

BannerPalooza is an online display ad production warehouse. You have the ideas, and BannerPalooza produces them. From storyboards, to all the Flash bits--simple animations, video, data integration, to QA and trafficking. We work with your media team and the distribution networks to insure your intentions get built properly, on-time and on-budget. We've got a talented rolodex of producers and Flash experts standing by.

And so it goes.

One Show Interactive 2008

We attended the awards ceremony for One Show Interactive a few weeks ago. In a word: Impressive.

This year's award winners were very global. (Click here to download the Interactive winners list (PDF) from the One Club.) We saw lots of great interactive work from Brazil, Japan, Sweden and the UK. This year's show only confirms the necessity to consider global audiences, or at least the presence of them. Whatever you build—be it a campaign site, digital content or online display ads—will be seen by an audience much wider and more diverse than what you might have targeted. And that's good. Not just for general awareness, but for the practice of thinking beyond your own marketing "walls." What might an audience in Korea think of your project once they stumble upon from a Google link?

We also got spend time with old friends (and judges for this year's show) Benjamin Palmer and Will McGinness (who also chaired the judging committee). Nice to see those guys on stage.

Anyway, Best of Show went to the Japanese retailer Uniqlo and the production company Projector for the "Uniqlock" campaign. It's incredible and totally deserved the top honor. It's content and re-distribution technology wrapped in a simple idea.



You can read a ton about Uniqlo—its corporate history, successes, failures and resurgence—and the Uniqlock campaign here at Creative Review. Here's a few highlights from their article:

"Uniqlock is a downloadable ‘blog part’ created by Projector. It’s a simple clock that anyone can place on their blog to give the time and location of the blog’s writer. Each hour, it plays a specially written chime by DJ/producer Tomoyuki Tanaka, aka Fantastic Plastic Machine. Nearly 20,000 are in use worldwide. Uniqlo recently updated the concept with the addition of video: in the new version (shown), each hour is marked by a short dance piece performed by dance group, Core of Woomin, and directed and choreographed by Yuichi Kodama and AIRMAN."

"Launched in June, the Worldclock section of the imaginatively wrought Uniqlock site will inform you that more than 19,000 Uniqlocks have been set, and the site has been viewed nearly 46 million times by visitors from 204 countries."

Again, impressive.