nike@mybusshelter.com
by Heather Champ
It's become commonplace to see URLs passing by on the side of commuter
busses, flashing by in television ads, at the movies, and in print. For the
most part, they're fairly easy to remember, either because they're so
straightforward--www.toyota.com or www.microsoft.com--or silly in their
complexity, generally anything similar to www.blahblah-themovie.com.
Given the overall cacophony of places to go and sites to see, an
advertisement has to be very compelling to lure even the most jaded surfers
to their site.
A number of bus shelters, billboards, TV shows, and magazines have been
sporting ads with glamorous shots of Nike's sexy new shoe line (only the
trademarked "swoosh" and an e-mail address). Just who is bsanders@madeumiss.com? Not being
of sportive mind, the answer was not immediately apparent. Did B. Sanders
make the team at University of Mississippi, or is he or she a subscriber at
an ISP based on a childish taunt?
A tentative email was launched, with no subject and a simple message of
"huh?" There was no immediate reply, but eventually an autobot response.
| Date: |
08/24 10:56 PM |
| Received: |
08/25 7:28 AM |
| From: |
bsanders_r@webmail.nike.com |
| To: |
heather, h@jezebel.com |
|
Barry Sanders is a football player. You're a football player. Barry
Sanders is fast. You're fast. Barry Sanders has moves. You ain't got moves
like Barry Sanders. Oh well, 2 out of 3 ain't bad. At least you can chill
out at Barry's Air Super Zoom Web site! Http://www.madeumiss.com
|
If nothing else, Nike has proven that
there are a few good URLs left to be had. Instead of focusing on the
creation of one site, they've created eight "site-lets" to advertise eight
different products in the Nike line: http://www.breakudown.com (Air
Foamposite), http://www.ringyobell.com (Air
Ubiquitous), http://www.dyoazzup.com
(Air Hawk), http://www.trynkeepup.com (Air Max), http://www.goodgawd.com (Air Cover Max),
http://www.makeitrain.com (Air Total
Max), http://www.madeumiss.com (Super
Zoom), and http://www.bangonu.com
(Metal Force).
With the exception of Air Cover Max, each of the sites randomly serves one
of two possible designs.
The creators of @tlas, led by Amy
Fraceschini, have designed a wonderful series of sites reminiscent of Web
play found in sites like Jodi, äda'web, and other sites that
acknowledge the Web as a medium.
Combinations of Flash, frames, ASCII art, animated GIFs, and breaking the
rules create a palette of sites that don't take themselves too seriously.
All the sites have a "find it" dealer locator and a link back to the mother ship for the more standard
information approach.
Air Foamposite celebrates nested
frames "gone wrong" with a user being able to create an almost "mandelbrot
like" patterning. Most sites try to avoid this phenomena with controlled
targeting. One of the Super Zoom versions has a great Flash/ASCII piece that
begins with the wave. What could be better than this? With two versions of
virtually all the sites, there's a lot to see and fiddle with.
It's an interesting campaign with a user following a trail of bread crumbs
from a bus shelter to an e-mail and eventually the Web in a cross-media
campaign, although one could bypass the e-mail and fish around the domain
name. But that wouldn't be sporting.
To set the record straight: I'm not a football player . . .
