Celebrity Love Island online campaign to generate hypothetical offspring of contestants

by Emma Rigby, Revolution UK 16-May-05

LONDON - ITV is running an extensive online ad campaign to raise awareness of its primetime reality series 'Celebrity Love Island' starting today.

The show, which will feature 12 celebrities including Abi Titmuss, Blue member Simon Webbe, former Atomic Kitten star Liz McClarnon, Rebecca Loos and Callum Best, will be promoted by a viral game called Baby-O-Tronic, which allows players to match contestants and see what their offspring would look like.

A range of rich-media formats, a viral game, HTML and video emails, and a desktop "screen mate" have been developed by Play, the digital agency set up by M&C Saatchi and the former itraffic directors Jon Sharpe, Ethan Segal and Matt Gorzkowski.

The campaign running through the five weeks of broadcast will use overlays, MPUs and expandable banners placed across sites including MSN.co.uk, handbag.com, hellomagazine.co.uk and fhm.com, with planning and buying by mOne.

Crab News Screen Mate, a friendly downloadable crab, sits on desktops and keeps users updated with all the news from the island.

The technology for the ad formats was developed by b3 Products, a spin-off from Lawton eMarketing.

ITV selected agency Graphico to develop and run the website for the show, which is planned to launch in time for the first episode. It will provide online coverage of the show in which celebrity singletons are sent to an island paradise to compete for cash, votes and love. The show is being hosted by Patrick Kielty and Kelly Brook.

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