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This weekend I went to see the brand new film, Slumdog Millionaire. This is a film about an 18 year old, Jamal Malik, who grew up in slums of Mumbai and found himself on India’s version of ‘Who wants to be a millionaire?’
Jamal was able to answer all the questions, winning 20 million rupees, because of the experiences of pain, poverty and torture that he had been through during his life. As Jamal is asked each question we are taken back to an event in history that caused him to recall the answer - from the name of who invented the gun, to a particular song he was forced to sing on the streets in order to gain more money as a beggar.
This is an incredible story of how one young boy came from the slums to becoming a very wealthy man, of course love blossoms, their is treachary from his family and there is blood shed. Yes, great film, nevertheless it is completely and utterly fiction.
However, what equally inspired me is the fact that this film was created by Celador Films, Celador being the creator of ‘Who wants to be a millionaire?’ and, in this credit crunching world, what better way to increase the profile of an already successful brand.
The only real millionaire here is, Celador. Good job!
There are only a small number of true successful viral web projects which usually come from individuals, not corporations, from oneredpaperclip.com to myfootballclub.com it is not easy to find a project that is a viral dream, the latest came along this week.
islandreefjob.com is the online home for an advert for a vacancy for Queensland Tourist Board. The job is, literally, the dream job of the caretake for the islands of the Great Barrier Reef. The actual job entails feeding fish, going by plane to get the post, exploring the islands themselves and blogging, uploading videos and pictures to the internet for the world to see. Oh, I forgot to add that the job is for 6 months, it includes a 3 bedroomed home to live in, a salary of $150,000 AUS and flights!
No sooner than the website had been launched, the media picked up the story, Globally. With 2 days over one million people had it the website causing it to crash and now, over 160 people have applied.
What REALLY gets me excited about this PR is that, not only has the story gone viral, but the whole role and vacancy has been designed to update members of the public, around the World, of the progress of the position and developments on the islands of the Great Barrier Reef. Good work!
However, what I fail to understand is why the Queensland Tourist Board did not include a newsletter sign up on the website with the ability of one individual who inserted their email address to win an all expenses paid trip to the islands. If only a fraction of the million who had hit the website had done this then their database would still have been large, enabling the tourist board to stay in touch with those who hit the website!
Ahhh well, still, good going!
