Million Dog Mosaic in Brandweek.

Nice case study from Brandweek on Pedigree's Million Dog Mosaic below.

Case Study: Pedigree's Million-Dog Mosaic
Feb 21, 2009
-By Kenneth Hein

The Challenge
Every year, more than four million dogs end up in shelters. Pedigree decided to do something about it by creating the Pedigree Adoption Drive Foundation last year. The charitable organization is dedicated to helping shelters and rescue groups find homes for dogs. Now the issue was how could the Mars Petcare division raise awareness and money for its cause.

The Plan
The foundation and the "Million Dog Mosaic" were promoted at Pedigree.com, Dogsrule.com as well as at Milliondogmosaic.com/pedigree. Each time a consumer uploaded a photo of their favorite dog onto the site, the Pedigree brand donated $1 to the foundation. The mosaic was promoted via a custom Facebook application, the Westminster Dog Show Pedigree Pop-up dog store as well as integration with its advertising campaign, which features the hero adoption dog, "Oliver." Oliver is featured on the site comprised of consumers' uploaded photos. It was featured on a nonprofit channel on YouTube and targeted e-mails sent to an in-house database also got the word out. Catapult Action-Biased Marketing helped put the effort together.

The Results
In one month, there were more than 1 million page views of the mosaic. To date, more than 55,000 photos have been uploaded. It set the record for user-generated mosaic participation, beating American Idol. "It signified that Pedigree is a company that walks the walk when it comes to fully aligning with the values of its consumers," said John Anton, director of marketing at Pedigree. "A million dollars was raised for the Pedigree adoption drive. [The campaign] brought together dog lovers in a fun place where they could be entertained, do research on the best way to feed and treat their dogs, join a like-minded community and be rewarded for their engagement."

Suds take over Miami.

Sony using Miami like overflowing washing machine as the backdrop for a commercial for Sony's digital cameras. It must have been a blast to see live. More spots here on you tube.

The Wall Goes Interactive

Until now, loved ones of Vietnam War victims had to travel all the way to D.C. to pay their respects. Last week, a digitized version of the Wall was launched.

The article sums up its features:

"The Web site, unveiled last week, links names to casualty reports, historical documents and digital photographs, and allows users to leave online tributes to those who died."

I think it could come in handy for web-savvy kids and teens conducting their next research project. It also establishes community and "in loving memory" on a whole new level. But, I can see folks (those who are more personally touched by the events) arguing as to whether it's really necessary. So, is it helping to further preserve history? Thoughts?

World Golf Tour Online

World Golf Tour is worth checking out. It's an online golfing game ala most console/PC golf type games, but done using photography rather than entire 3D worlds. It's really nicely done. Fortune magazine had a full article about it here:

World Golf Tour Article

The article speaks a lot about how this game is going to have people slacking in the work place. After playing several times, i'm not sure that's entirely the case. Not yet anyhow. I'm going to keep watch for new features and social aspects that i hope appear. Making your golf team is great, but i want to be able to communicate on a higher level with my teammates. Maybe i'm spoiled though being a facebook junkie, twitter lover and xboxlive guy. Being a golfer, i'm keeping my fingers crossed for this one.

The game.

A great cause

Helping shelter dogs just became REALLY easy. For every photo you upload to this mosaic, pedigree will donate 1.00 to the Pedigree adoption drive. What an easy and great way to help! The Pedigree Million Dog Mosaic