"Spam, egg, spam, chips, spam, spam and spam, please."

Here's an example of some excellent marketing: Everyone's favourite mechanically reclaimed meat product - SPAM - is launching a new garlic variant. The basic idea for the launch has been to tie in with hit musical 'Spamalot'. Fine.

The genius bit is the way everything from the product name (Spam with Stinky French Garlic) and packaging design, to the viral game, totally embrace the spirit of the Python musical and indeed the Holy Grail film. For example, the copy is all excellent, using John Cleese's insulting Frenchy-speak to get the product benefits across, while still being genuinely entertaining.

And the online game component...



...is not only fun to play (a simple set-the-angle-and-power affair a la 'Tanks' or 'Worms', only greatly improved by the use of livestock as ammo), but is also crammed with lovely Pythony bits (the Black Knight has to be despatched limb by limb).

Finally, the touch that really made me want to congratulate the people at Spam, Underground BLC & 4T2 Multimedia, was the fact that they've built in an ingenious way of driving sales. Whereas most games-purporting-to-be-virals do well to shoehorn any mention of the product, this one gets more enjoyable if you actually buy the product. By entering the barcode from tins of Spam with Stinky French Garlic, players can unlock extra items to lob from their catapult.

For someone who never, ever buys Spam, I find myself wanting to nip to Budgens to get some, in the hope I'll be rewarded with a Killer Rabbit to sling at the Knights Who Say "Ni".

Hungry suitcase.

Yesterday, I was having a bit of a play, and I found Hungry Suitcase

Done by New York agency Big Spaceship it's a viral/micro-site for Royal Caribbean - and is worth a look just to see the level of craft that's gone into it: there's tonnes of beautiful 3D graphics, nice animation, and a well acted and scripted voice track.

Unfortunately, it's crafting that is the site's downfall too. Presumably from a desire to pack in as much 'fun' as possible (or bill the client for more and more animation time!), the site requires you to pack item after item after item into the suitcase, via every room in the house, before you're rewarded with a fairly funny sequence at the end.

It's totally unnecessary, and a real shame - turning a delightful experience into a tedious one. Worse still, Royal Caribbean aren't even mentioned 'til the final 'movie', so anyone who doesn't feel like packing all 12 items will bugger off before they know what the site's for.

It's a pity, because the concept is a good one.