A recent article written by Noelle McElhatton of Marketing Direct titled, UK Politicians Need to Learn the Digital Lessons of the US Presidential Election touches on the differences between how political parties utilize online marketing techniques in the US and the UK.

One of Special Ops Media’s Co-CEO’s, Jason Klein, is quoted in the article as saying that the official McCain website was “a more simple experience - the basic elements of quick and digestible information without any bells and whistles. It makes sense for the type of voter he was chasing.”

You can see the full article at Marketing Direct’s Website here

Special Ops recently launched the official website for XS Games Pop Star Guitar, bringing to the web the music, the style, and the rock for users to interact with and purchase. Other components include social networking profiles, a join the team fan club, and some downloadable media.

Check it out here: http://www.popstarguitar.com/

The lovable hidden character from the Where’s Waldo? books turns 21 this September 21st. In order to celebrate his golden birthday, as well as his big two-one, SOM has made him an Official Website and a Flash Widget that takes some of the original pages and turns them into a find Waldo Flash game.

Now that he’s all grown up, Waldo is traveling the globe. You can follow him on one of his two blogs, Keep Looking and Hit The Road, where you’ll see Waldo updates as well as travel tips for your own adventures. Other features are Waldo’s wiki, a create your own Waldo avatar, social pages, a Waldo assets package to create your own Waldo content, and a link to submit your own Waldo content to be featured on Waldo’s site, not to mention links to everyone’s favorite Where’s Waldo? books.

Grab the widget here, and embed it in one of three sizes: http://findwaldo.com/widget.html

Check out the website: http://www.findwaldo.com/

In order to give users everywhere access to content for the upcoming film Burn After Reading, SOM has designed and developed an ad unit that also contains a widget. As proven with the U23D project back in January, this marriage between paid marketing and viral marketing creates a winning combination for online marketing overall.

Check out the ads here:
www.chud.com
www.doubleviking.com
www.ropeofsilicon.com

Check out the widget here in the “Television” section:
www.myspace.com/supercat5000

Recently SOM launches an online application for Proximo’s spirits brand 1800 Tequila that encourages artists around the globe to upload their own artwork to become bottle artwork for the brand. To accompany this, 1800 Tequila is sponsoring a contest in which they will pick their favorite bottle design and use it in a global campaign.

Go to the site and upload your own artwork on a bottle. Who knows, you may be discovered.

www.1800tequila.com

Special Ops launches the official website and fan community for the upcoming release of Hamlet 2. Combining the film content with user-generated sweepstakes and other fan team incentives, this robust film site allows users to sign up and engage with the film’s overarching story by contributing their own Rock Me Sexy Jesus videos and other content, taking poll questions, answering trivia, posting to boards and keeping up with the blog. In addition, all of the fan team engagement can be done through the website or the robust Facebook application soon to launch.

There will be a series of challenges for the fan team with various prizing, including winning a screening of Hamlet 2 in your home town. Be sure to check back from time to time to enter more challenges.

Check out the website here: www.hamlet2.com

Special Ops officially launches their second ad campaign with their new client SOAPnet. This campaign is unique in that it’s one campaign with 2 entirely different ad directions flighting at a 50/50 split. Able to get all units up and running within a 3 week timeline, both creative and media worked around the clock in tandem to make this campaign both timely and successful.

Check Out The Ads
General Branding: link
Win the Look: link

Special Ops launches its first project with a new client, BigIdea, the company responsible for the fun-loving talking vegetables: VeggieTales. Bringing our online media and publicity expertise to their most recent title, VeggieTales: Tomato Sawyer and Huckleberry Larry’s Big River Rescue, which released on DVD today, the campaign has been wildly successful, garnering over 2 million unique views in just 2 weeks…and counting.

Check out the Flixster page: http://www.flixster.com/movie/veggietales-tomato-sawyer-and-huckleberry-larrys-big-river-rescue

Continuing to expand the relationship with clients such as AMC, Disney, and First Look among others, Special Ops has been producing a steadily rising number of online ad campaigns, almost tripling the number of campaigns in the past 6 months.

Here are just a few recent examples:

AMC - Million Dollar Baby
Expanding Rich Media: link
Video Rich Media: link

AMC - Alexander Ad Units
Expanding Rich Media: link
Video Rich Media: link

First Look Films - Meet Bill Units
Expanding Rich Media: link

The recent release of Graphic Vision Group’s new website has turned some heads, including winning site of the day on Adobe’s website showcase.

See all of our site of the awards here: Adobe Site of the Day Showcase