The solution: immersing the consumer in an action-packed chase – The Chase – across PC programmes. A heroine outwitting two thugs trailing her through YouTube, Facebook, and Microsoft Office, all the while demonstrating the amazing things Intel’s processor lets us do on our computers. The two-minute video was a big hit and was named an ‘Ad Worth Spreading’ by TED that you can watch here.

Following on the success of the video, Intel partnered with Microsoft Advertising to take elements of its creative and continue The Chase on a global scale across Microsoft platforms, spanning mobile, web and Xbox Live, and covering the UK, Germany, France, Russia, Poland and Turkey. To make this phase of the campaign a truly engaging experience, we kicked off with a 24-hour bespoke homepage takeover across MSN sites, created one-on-one games on Windows Live Messenger, and offered Intel theme packs for Xbox Live Spotlight users. And importantly, we extended The Chase experience to handheld devices with the use of expandable rich media.

The campaign was a great success for Intel. Research conducted by Dynamic Logic across the UK, Germany and Russia showed uplifts in the campaign association for the brand across all markets, with the highest spike seen in Russia. The campaign also boosted Intel Core i5 processor awareness, particularly amongst the Windows Live Messenger audience, which saw a 21% increase. We were able to help Intel, a giant company that makes products people don’t necessarily touch or see, bring its brand story to life.

By creating a branded experience with rich, interactive content across multiple markets and screens, we really demonstrated what Microsoft Advertising’s unique offering is all about. In a way, today’s consumer is like our heroine jumping effortlessly from screen to screen – our task as digital advertisers is to engage them holistically and tell a good story in the process.

*David Pugh-Jones is brand strategist at Microsoft Advertising

Players of the game will be able to explore the world of Panem – the setting for The Hunger Games trilogy – and complete missions that will take them to each of the ‘Districts’ and the ‘Capitol’ where they will interact with characters from the story. The game will be the first place fans can see the official Map Of Panem, and the Districts layout. Details for the Map Of Panem will be rolled out in the game with a steady stream of chapter expansions.

“Suzanne Collins’ amazing novel delivers an unbelievably detailed world that completely immerses the reader,” says Sam Glassenberg, CEO of Funtactix. “Fans want to enter this world, interact with the characters and truly become a part of it.”

As part of the marketing effort for the film, Lionsgate has also launched an online immersive games experience at TheCapitol.pn, where visitors can register as a Citizen are be assigned to one of the Districts. Users can head to the square and collect their gifts, as well as send letters of love and support to their District’s Tributes.

The series has been created by content design outfit Somethin’ Else together with games publisher Electronic Arts, using The Sims 3 as its platform – a virtual studio and soundstage.

“This is an exciting and experimental way to tell stories about coping with life using a game that millions of teenagers love,” says Gemma Brady, Channel 4 Education. “It is exactly the kind of creative innovation we love to see at Channel 4 Education.”

PTTP will select up to 40 European producers, storytellers, decision-makers and executives to attend an the six-day Pixel Lab, with confirmed tutors including Nuno Bernardo of beActive, Ben Grass of Pure Grass Films, PTTP’s Tishna Molla and Michel Reilhac of ARTE.

Post Germany, Pixel Lab cross-media project producers will come to London in mid-October where they will receive pitch presentation mentoring from an industry expert and attend Power to the Pixel’s Cross-Media Forum.

More info on The Pixel Lab 2012 here

“We are going to implement the cross-marketing campaigns throughout the year that leverage the popularity of Anelka and Shenhua to enhance the brand awareness of Firefall among the target audiences in both China and the global market,” says Chris Shen, The9’s VP of marketing. “We have successfully promoted our online games via cross-marketing campaigns in the past years and we believe this would be a very innovative and effective way to enhance the Firefall brand and attract more gamers.”

Forget about emailing that CV off for it to be spammed by some tired recruiters’ inbox, and start jumping through Upstream’s clickable hoops. All set to decrypt anagrams, show best figures in maths and match some cool emotions to a hypothetical scenario? Then you’re ready to crack on with The Upstream Challenge.

It’s designed to take a maximum of 60 minutes and leads users through a series of seven timed missions. Of course, it is recruitment and the games do relate to specific aspects of the marketing positions, but it is also a bit of fun.

For Guy Krief, svp, innovation, at Upstream, it’s a chance to find candidates who might have all the right skills but who aren’t attracted by traditional recruitment postings. The game aims to amplify Upstream’s message that they are looking for marketers with added value.

“Our hope is that this type of engagement will attract a wide range of talent, and will prove more fun and compelling than the typical recruitment process,” says Krief. “It’s been said that you can learn more about a person in an hour of play, than in a year of conversation, so it’s going to be fascinating to see the results.”

According to Krief, these missions may uncover candidates who would never have otherwise applied.

The new marketing campaign managers, five in all, will get to work on Upstream’s global, multichannel client campaigns.

“TVs are evolving towards more connected, social and interactive forms of entertainment and Playcast’s business strategy is to partner with large IPTV operators… to bring cloud gaming to their customers as part of their media offering,” he explains. “That makes the social and live aspect of the portal extremely important as it opens great opportunities for integrating gameplay with content and services in the future.”

Andres-Clavera adds that the JWT Innovation Lab is keen to work with publishers to co-create new titles that maximise the possibilities of IPTV gaming using the Playcast portal, and to look into organic ways of integrating games and brands.

Going forward, the Lab aims to develop new portal features and projects across platforms and wants to help shape the cloud-gaming experience for TV and PC.

JWT’s work with Playcast is part of a creative ‘intrapreneurship’ strategy for the ‘intrapreneur meets entrepreneur’ model. This allows the Innovation Lab to partner or be employed by start-ups in order to empower their existing business models, or to build products and services focusing on user experience on top of core technology innovations.