How many application launches this year have made you genuinely excited? How many have you followed from conception to pre-deployment with such a fanatical energy that if it were an iPhone launch, you’d be queuing up outside your nearest Apple store right now?

My guess is not many.

Well for me, there has been, and tomorrow (October 20th 2011) marks it’s mass market launch. Whale Trail by ustwo has been in development for some time now (6 months), and thanks to their CHIEF WONKA Mills, its journey from conception to launch has been very public. Now Mills is not known as a marketer, but this launch is supported by an intelligent marketing and promotional strategy. We have had a chance to glimpse at everything from character design to first play videos; understanding every twist and turn along it’s development path as if we are part of the team.

What this has done is establish an emotional attachment between a select number of people and the game. You feel as though you have watched a child grow, and are now excited to see the next stage of its progression. It’s first day at school if you will.

By using Twitter, Youtube, Instagram and Facebook to name but a few, ustwo has harnessed the power of social platforms to do what many believed only video could do: emotive communication. Ultimately, even though Mills has been reaching out to just under 5000 followers, and the 100+ people fortunate enough to play test the game before release, he now has an army of fanatics who will gladly spread the word and advocate Whale Trail to the respective social circles. And you know what, even if the game was shit, people probably still would tell their friends to download it.

The problem is…Whale Trail is actually brilliant. Using the well adopted endless runner format, and taking it to an even more premium level, alongside with a fantastic soundtrack (by SFA legend Gruff Rhys), and gameplay that’s guaranteed to drag you back in with, dare I say it, an Angry Birds-esque addiction.

Whale Trail is an utter delight for the senses, and have complete confidence that this could be the next major phase in an incredible journey for the app development and user interface studio.

So as if you were ever in doubt, if there is one thing you need to do once it is live, is head to the app store, search ‘Whale Trail’, part with your disposable income, and spend the next few months indulging in a love in with Willow the Whale.

I promise you…you will not regret it.

Besides, an angry bird ain’t got shit on a flying whale…

Links

Whale Trail demo video
Whale Trail by Gruff Rhys music video
CHIEF WONKA mills Twitter

Who has heard this in a conversation, or brief, or spec before?

“We are targeting the youth market, so whatever we make needs to be cool”

The term itself is contradictory. More often than not, it is used by an ageing old school marketer, who thinks cool defines what ‘young people’ like.

I know so many different types of ‘cool’, which is why the term creates confusion.

Jude law is fucking cool. A good looking bloke, with good fashion sense, clearly got the chat, and he is minted. He is traditionally cool.

One of my very best friends is a whole different level of cool. His past jobs include “Medieval Jouster” and “Blackjack Croupier”. He knows the Countries song off by heart. He loves the Blues Brothers and does some of the strangest stand up comedy I have ever seen. He is in his own right ‘cool’, but is a mile away from being like Jude Law.

What I suppose I am trying to say, is trying to find the cool solution just won’t fly. Doing a Facebook fan page, creating an iPhone app or launching a Twitter feed doesn’t cut the cool mustard.

The fragmentation in the youth market is quite significant, but by changing the way we think about cool, we more often than not can identify an obvious solution amongst the foray of cool ideas.

Throw ‘cool’ in the bin.

Its just called resonance.

Amongst the hype of the PR machine surrounding mobile applications and technology, NME/Blackberry have quietly launched a competition that could show some of the biggest businesses in the world how ‘mobile’ should be done. Working as a partnership, the competition gives the key demographic the chance to win a Blackberry handset, as well as tickets to an NME gig.

Now here is where it gets even more interesting! Although you can answer the question and submit your details online, you can also join the NME blackberry group on blackberry messenger to submit your answer. The Blackberry market share in the UK is already quite significant, and is no longer just the email enterprise phone for business executives. Facilitated by Blackberry messenger, the RIM brand is now becoming a real force in the 16-25 age range (a demographic shared by NME). So, what is to be learnt from this competition?

• Incentivised – Using prizes that the consumer WANT to win, NME and Blackberry are able to collect rich audience data
• Permission Granted - With all this data collected in mind, the question is still posed “Would you like to receive marketing…etc” in a clear format. So although being brands that their audience WANT to engage with, they still demonstrate respect for their consumers by asking their permission to continue the conversation
• Natural Environment – The BBM element is a stroke of genius for two reasons. The first being the ‘environment’. With its rise in prominence in the youth market, Blackberry messenger (or BBM as it is known in short) exploits the prolific nature of SMS but in an instant messenger format (similar to that championed in the late 90′s/early 00′s by MSN messenger on the desktop). Because youths are participating regularly in this environment, it seems right that a brand should enter this space (with permission)!
• Value Exchange - The Value exchange at face value here is obvious. Participants have the chance to win prizes that are relevant to their interests, and at the same time, NME/Blackberry suddenly have data to a very valuable target demographic. But the BBM element gives an EXTRA value add for NME/Blackberry. You see, by building a blackberry messenger group of NME fanatics, suddenly that is access to a massive group of opt-in consumers who own Blackberrys and love NME. You just cannot buy data that specific! And what is EVEN BETTER, is that BBM is free to use (on a data plan), so NME can deliver targeted, relevant marketing messages to opt-in consumers for a stupendously tiny cost!

Imagine if NME bring out a native Blackberry mobile application. Suddenly, rather than spend thousands trying to market it, they have the audience data ready and waiting to send to ONLY the people it is relevant too. Magic.

Foursquare offers a more recent and relevant example of turning life into a game, but this latest concept takes the biscuit. Watch the video and get excited. I certainly did! If this isn’t an example of understanding a human beings inherent need for entertainment, anchored with incentivisation, to exploit what is a traditionally mundane activity, I don’t know what is!

It combines an iPhone, a remote control car, an on board microphone, a Virtual Reality headset, Wifi and an Arduino board to create a top driving experience for its user! Gavin is currently developing the project as his major for his degree in Interactive Media Production, and invited me along with his course mates to beta test in the University sports hall (which made the test even better with its slippery surface!).

He has two key objectives for the project:

• WiDrive’s primary objective is to allow a user to control a remote control car using a mobile device, currently this is an iPhone. The user is able to steer the car by tilting the phone using the iPhone’s accelerometer to measure the amount inertia being exerted at each axis of the iPhone. This is then translated to an integer value of which the car can respond to. This data is sent to a third party module on the car using a wireless socket connection, this module takes the place of the standard remote control receiver and sends a pulse width modulation signal to the car’s onboard servo which steers the car from the left to the right. This same method is used to increase and decrease the acceleration of the car.

• WiDrive’s secondary objective is one of immersion. A driver can be mentally transported into the car using a combination of an onboard wireless camera and a pair of video glasses. The aim of this is two fold. It allows the driver to drive out of line of sight and covertly into areas of interest. The second aim is to immerse the user within the driving experience offering something not currently found on the market today.

Having had a play with the it myself, I can say I have not experienced anything quite like it! Initially, I had a go without the headset, but found that I was a little heavy handed with the turning and speed. Once I had the headset on, I found that I was much more aware of the sensitivity of both the acceleration and of the turning.

After a bit of practice and getting comfortable, you become well immersed in the experience and despite crashing it twice (on one occasion the camera flew out like a passenger not wearing a seatbelt), it was still a hell of a lot of fun too!

Gavin Williams is an extremely talented developer on the Interactive Media Production Course at Bournemouth University, a course which continues to produce some truly brilliant design and development talent. I have an array of students I can recommend for placements, grad schemes and internships, so get in touch and I will try and put you in touch with some quality candidates.

In the meantime, check out the awesome video of WiDrive in action below, and pictures of the project in development in Flickr!!

WiDrive Open Beta from Gavin Williams on Vimeo.