In 2003, Disney released Toontown, its first MMORPG, to garner children’s and tweens’ eyeballs, attention, and parental wallets. This is the type of game that invites you to create a character that interacts with hundreds (and thousands) of other computer and human characters in an online environment that is filled with puzzles, challenges, and quests. The more experience you gain, the more you can customize your character, and the more prestige you gain in this online world.

It is completely immersive, and completely addictive. Corporate brands have had a difficult time trying to figure out exactly how to monetize this user experience, but it seems Disney has figured it out.

With this strategy, Disney is not attempting to convert each web user into an immediate web buyer. Rather, this is a play at creating and extending its brands, marketshare, and mindshare. These types of games are constantly being updated and modified to deliver compelling content to game players. I’m sure you can imagine the Disney creatives dropping in hints and suggestions that introduce users to emerging Disney products-of-the-moment.

And think about immersion. Television spots are usually 30 seconds. A YouTube video might be 5 minutes tops. But typical MMORPG gaming sessions are 30 minutes to three hours. Now that’s what I call an impression!

Now why would there be a Wikipedia entry for this spot? Whether Honda somehow had some influence on the article being written or if interested members of the Wiki community wrote it on their own, this is one way for the Accord brand to say in front of consumers. Of course, the spot is highly acclaimed and is already quite viral with people emailing links to around the internet. But having a Wikipedia article adds a sense of credibility and adds the spot to our (semi) official advertising history.

Anyway, this microsite promotes the upcoming spoof comedy, “Meet the Spartans.” The site allows users to customize a video featuring Carmen Electra by adding their name as a tattoo, their picture, and their phone number. You then email the resulting URL to your friend.

When you open the link, it takes you to a spoof site called “Celebrity Dumpster,” which is designed to look like a celebrity gossip site. (A clever way to reinforce the movie’s spoof concept.) Then you click on the video to play it in an embedded flash player. And in true YouTube style, the site gives you a link so you can embed the video into your own site. This creates the long tail of brand awareness, which will persist beyond the initial viral spike, helping the message stay relevant until at least the DVD release.

It’s viral. It’s interactive. It’s fun.

http://www.carmenhasacrushonyou.com/

For a special surprise, make sure to put in your real phone number. The phone number makes this thing viral!