Beale's Best In Show: Orange (Poke)

In Cannes last week Lord Puttnam, one-time Sixties adman now chairman of the digital agency Profero, hit out at advertisers for being obsessed with "trendy" websites like Facebook.

I think Puttnam might approve of the new digital ad campaign for Orange, by the agency Poke. Yes, it taps into trendy social-networking sites but this is a campaign that ranges wide across the web. And it's clever.

It's called the Orange Balloon Race and it kicks off this week using digital versions of those animal-shaped balloons from the Orange Pay-As-You-Go ad campaign to challenge people to "fly" across 1,500 websites.

Once would-be contestants have signed up, they all start from the Balloon Race homepage (playballoonacy.com) and race around the web, powering their balloon with pop-up controls and tools embedded in social-networking sites to boost their progress.

The owner of the first balloon past the post wins a luxury seven-night holiday. This is one of those rare digital campaigns: a smart idea coupled with great creative work and some really innovative tools to capture the imagination.