Holiday Inn's viral campaign starring "talking egg."

Holiday Inn is a currently promoting its "Best Breaks" package that includes a free hot breakfast with a standard room via a "talking egg-a-gram."

The viral campaign consists of five rich-media breakfast characters, developed by technology company Oddcast, which people can program to speak any message and e-mail to friends. Independent i-shop Digitas of Boston also contributed to the effort.

"It's very difficult to break through in traditional media," said Mark Snyder, senior vice president of brand management at the Atlanta-based client. "We wanted to interrupt the consumer and insert the brand in a fun and compelling way."

Consumers can access the "talking egg-a-gram" at Holiday Inn's Web site. Earlier this year, the hotel chain also sent about 7-8 million of the electronic greetings to primarily business travelers in its database.

During a two-week period in February, New York-based Oddcast reported that more than 75 percent of the people who received the e-mails opened them, and 37 percent of those who opened them, forwarded them to others.

About Oddcast
Founded in 1999, Oddcast (www.oddcast.com) develops and distributes rich media software solutions for the e-learning and e-marketing markets. The company's flagship product, the VHost™, provides a robust, easy-to-learn, end-to-end solution that enables organizations to sign up, design and program interactivity into existing e-learning and e-marketing platforms, all within a single interface. All of Oddcast's products are web-based and ASP-hosted and can be delivered to any device even in low-bandwidth environments such as PC's, CD-ROMs and mobile devices.

The company has won numerous interactive design awards and currently serves approximately 600 customers, including Coca-Cola, Cisco Systems, Intel, L'Oréal, Chrysler, Sony, Colgate, Viacom and McDonald's.