Chris Dobson, general manager of digital marketing sales and trade market at MSN International, tells us why the campaign, which can be seen at , deserves to kick off the MSN top 10.
"This is a classic example of how online can bring to life an offline creative, which may otherwise be bypassed on a billboard or bus. Advertisers are beginning to realise the opportunity there is in creating award-winning material that has much bigger appeal to a receptive online audience.
"The existing offline creative work used a deliberately low-budget art directional style, playing on the idea that Ginsters spends so much money on its product that it had little left for advertising.
"The poster campaign consisted of five separate executions, each illustrated in a Python-esque style, and Dare was set the creative challenge of creating a story that linked the five poster executions within a viral movie.
Using Flash animation techniques, additional graphics and overlaid sound effects, Dare built the Mpeg movie from the offline poster creative and entitled it 'The Worst Ad Ever'. The Mpeg was seeded to opinion formers as an attachment and submitted to Lycos' viral chart as a link."
The ad's success saw 'The Worst Ad Ever' remain in Lycos' top 10 viral chart for three consecutive months, and the campaign also won the Interactive Advertising Bureau's Creative Showcase in August 2003.
MSN is the exclusive sponsor of the Cyber Lions awards at this year's International Advertising Festival in Cannes. For more information visit .
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