Versatility and understanding of the online landscape can give marketers a huge advantage when it comes to positioning your brand.

I recently read an article on Mashable! about the resurfacing of the Konami Code. If you ever played an  8 or 16bit “tv game” you would know exactly what I’m talking about. For those that don’t, the code was punched in on the controller to unlock special features, aka easter eggs, within the game. These varied from special skills and weapons to hidden stages that were unlocked.

How does this apply to marketing you might ask, its quite simple, once someone slaps you in the face with it. A great example of this is the Ford Fiesta Movement. The concept is simple, you give a couple of people some cars, give them tasks to complete and have them blog, tweet, stumbl, digg and go on an absolute social media tangent. Easy enough, too easy actually. Its the stock standard “online strategy”. But with a bit more understanding and planning it can be great. In the end it is the little things that make the experience so much more awesome. So getting back to the konami code…

The team from Ford spoke to the developers at OMPOP about a multi player online game that they wanted part of and after, I assume, some tricky negotiations, the team from Ford could up;up;down;down;left;right;left;right;b;a and voila. No longer are you driving the stock standard hovercart, but instead you are tearing up the track in a lime green Ford Fiesta.

Ford is not the only brand using the code though, it can be applied to any app / game or even website, Facebook and Google Reader have the code, so its just about having the right marketing message, ensuring that you have a viral strategy (to get the code out there) and to make sure the easter egg is worth the hunt.