Transform Your Life With Hasbro

This northern summer product placement, viral marketing and film special effects are going to be taken to a new level. I am talking Transformers and the film by Micheal Bay due for release in July (Steven Speilberg is executive producer). I have the feeling this is going to be huge. My 7 year old son worships at the alter of Optimus Prime and many of the adult males I work with recognise the words "More than meets the eye" at their mention (I did not until my son got a action figure last Christmas...who needs Christ when you have Optimus). Now the decks are being cleared for what will be a very distributed release program:

Transformers - with Spielberg reckoned by Hollywood observers to be very much the power behind the film - seems equipped for battle both at the box office and the aisles of Toys R Us. Last month, Hasbro revealed an entirely new line of movie-linked Transformers. And in an effort to make the consumer's world "more than meets the eye" (a longtime teaser for the toy line), it will have further spin-offs in stores at the start of June, such as the Optimus Prime Voice Changer Helmet, Optimus Prime Big Rig Blaster, and Starscream Barrel Roll Blaster. (The Guardian)

When you think about it, what could be more perfect for product promotion than a group of dynamic polymorphic mechanical robots who can take the form of potentially any mechanical device. So far the companies announced as on board for the Transformers juggernaut are Pepsi, Hasbro and General Motors. I am sure there will be more. It is rumoured that new devices featured in the Tranformers movie will be The Xbox 360 game console, iPod music player, and plasma televisions.

We are discussing whether our 7 year old will see the film on release. I must admit I have a soft spot for the original Transformers (I don't for Beast Wars). However seeing the film and navigating the aftermath of consumption are two different things. Its going to be a hectic summer.

A Million Penguins too Many?

Big Tony stretched his arm, yawned, and lazily flicked the channel from world news to a documentary on photography which aroused his interest only because of the scantily clad bathing models currently in front of the camera.

If you are wondering where this is going check out A Million Penguins a wiki novel project that was unveiled yesterday by publishing giant Penguin. This is the opening paragraph of chapter one as of midnight Friday 2nd February 2006. It may have changed by now. It is being presented in the terms of an experiment, but it could be easily called publicity.
I am not sure the term novel should be applied to a wiki that builds on a narrative network. It will be interesting to see if another term emerges along the way. According to the 'About' page for the project:

Can a collective create a believable fictional voice? How does a plot find any sort of coherent trajectory when different people have a different idea about how a story should end – or even begin? And, perhaps most importantly, can writers really leave their egos at the door? Typically, a writer will acknowledge in print the efforts of their book’s editor, copy editor and agent, since they each will have read the work in draft form. But such acknowledgments regularly include a disclaimer along these lines : “Any errors that remain are, of course, my own”.

Oh look, in the time I took to write/paste the above, the opening paragraph is now:

Big Tony stretched his arm and gave himself one final yank. He yawned, and lazily flicked the channel from world news to a documentary on photography which aroused his interest only because of the scantily clad bathing models currently in front of the camera.