Advertising as content. Brilliant ad.
It's entertaining.
It stays on the companies message...
Funny. Cute. Has a baby...check, check, check.
And they did it all in cgi. This was obviously a requirement due to the baby being a ninja master. But it works. It has a certain Shrek-ness about it that imbues even a bit more humor into it.
A+ effort.
Update: Wilkinson has a website devoted to the campaign - www.ffk-wilkinsong.com. The trailer is there, it talks about the characters, goodies, and a game. A 96 megabyte downloadable game. So this is not an inexpensive proposition to create. It is merely exploiting a non-traditional channel.
This falls into the subject my friend Todd Sawicki wrote about here: http://www.techrivet.com/2007/03/28/whyViralIsntFree.aspx.
Although I could argue that the viral campaign has other goals in mind besides bottom line sales. Increasing awareness in the consumer to your brand is also a valid goal, just one much harder to measure.
Update 2: The game is pretty lame...not worth the download time. Picture a slower, less fun, stupider, mortal combat.
Anyways, here's a screenshot.
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