SAN FRANCISCO (Map, News) - Each week, The Examiner showcases an advertising campaign by a local company.

Client: Livescribe

Job: To build awareness and gain social networking contacts/leads for the Livescribe smartpen through viral marketing efforts. The Livescribe smartpen is the only smartpen that links audio to what you write.

Agency: Traction. San Francisco. www.tractionco.com

Principals: Adam Kleinberg, Theo Fanning, Michele Turner, Paul Giese, Russell Quinan.

Other clients: Bank of America, CeasarStone, Dolby, LightFull Foods, SAP, Sun Microsystems, Sue Fisher King, ZoneAlarm

Creative Team: Theo Fanning, creative director; Renee Crawshaw, associate creative director; Jon Stepping, art director

The plan: Seed a target-specific viral video on community media websites, such as YouTube, to drive traffic to a campaign microsite. The strategy enables the target (primarily college students) to engage with both the Livescribe brand and product. A key element of the campaign included driving our audience to the social networking site, Facebook, where they can enter a sweepstakes to win a smartpen.

The theme: Restless Mind Syndrome

The concept: We created a fictitious medical issue, RMS, to help illustrate the pain that many college students experience when it comes to taking notes. Our viral video showcases a student suffering from RMS and unable to pay attention in class. The viral video, which features a talking tattoo and a g-string, leads the viewers to a microsite that explains.

Theo Fanning

Age: 33

Position: Creative Director

Background: Prior to co-founding Traction in 2001, Theo held senior creative positions at Tribal DDB and Think New ideas where he helped such brands as Clorox and Avery take their first successful steps into the interactive space. He is an award-winning creative director and his client credits include Apple, Bank of America, Virgin Mobile and Zone Alarm.

What drove your development of the concept: Today’s college students are some of the savviest consumers the market has ever seen. We needed something that spoke to them in their language while being entertaining. And we thought a talking tattoo that makes reference to an exposed g-string was something any college student could appreciate.

Working on next: Traction will continue to help Livescribe with their product launch that will span into 2008.