Sock Puppets Promote Iceland Express

Written by Paul van Veenendaal on April 15th, 2008 | no comments

Iceland’s low fare airline Iceland Express, based in the Icelandic capital of Reykjavík, has launched a new fun viral campaign called “Iceland Socks“, involving a rag-tag bunch of loudmouth sock puppets with questionable taste in clothing.

Visitors of Iceland Socks can customize their own experience in Iceland, by adding subtitles or selecting scenes depicting thirteen well-known Icelandic tourist attractions e.g. Geysir (the best known geyser in Iceland), The Blue Lagoon (a lagoon that holds geothermal seawater), Reykjavík (Iceland’s capital), Jökulsárlón (a lagoon full of icebergs, broken from glaciers), Mývatn (lake renowned for its natural beauty), Seljalandsfoss, Seyðisfjörður (one of Iceland’s many fjords), Skógarfoss (one of the most spectacular waterfalls in Iceland), Snæfellsjökull (a glacier visible from Reykjavik), Þingvellir (an important place in Icelandic history), Reykjavíkurtjörn (Downtown Reykjavík) and an Icelandic restaurant.

Independent game company Gogogic developed almost the whole campaign: from creation of the socks, acting, camera and green-screen work, front-end design to the back-end system. The jingles and background sounds were outsourced. The “Iceland Socks” campaign unrolls in 3 stages, the first stage is defined as “pure viral” or “word of mouth distribution”, direct promotion is held to a minimum in this period. The site is advertised on some blogs that are related to Gogogic or Iceland Express and also a small group of people was set to seed the site. The next stages will introduce some promotional effort, yet to be revealed. An end date is not been set yet due to updates and other material that might see the light of day.

Since its launch, two weeks ago, the campaign has been picked up by various countries in the target market: Western Europe and the US. The top 3 countries at the moment (excluding Iceland) are Germany, United Kingdom and Hungary with the US close behind. Iceland Express, with its main base Keflavík International Airport, operates its services to 14 destinations in Scandinavia, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Spain using leased aircraft.

So start creating your own “Iceland Socks” version, feed the sock puppets some lines and cut a short film and send your masterpiece to a friend, foe or the nearest film school!

Thanks to Jónas Björgvin Antonsson from Gogogic for providing the information about the Iceland Socks campaign.

Also checkout these airline campaigns on ViralBlog.com: Delta, Finnair, KLM: Stop The Hassle, KLM Fly For Fortune, Virgin America, Virgin Atlantic and British Airways

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