Three Minds On Digital Marketing @ Organic

Sony Pictures recently announced that they're tapping into the current Twitter mania to help promote their upcoming Terminator Salvation : Resistance 2018 movie that hits cinemas on May 27.

They've designed a pretty complicated engagement strategy...

1. You follow @resistance2018 on Twitter.
2. You register on the Resistance 2018 site where you can log in to track your points and help John Connor destroy Skynet and the machines.
3. There are resistance assignments sent out periodically every day via Twitter and a range of different Twitter messages that require different types of responses:

• Resistance Assignments - word mix, trivia, partial transmissions, etc. that require you to reply with the correct answers with the appropriate hashtag


• Skynet Warnings - informational messages related to the war between humans and machines


• Terminator Salvation Updates - information about the film. The updates may also reinforce the instructions and provide tips on how to earn more points.


• Status reports - direct messages that update you on your points and rank in the game.

(Please note that for this post I only researched accelerometer-based apps on the iPhone; time permitting I'll post again soon on how accelerometers are being used on a wide range of other devices, vehicles and buildings)

The recent "Baby Shaker" iPhone app controversy drew attention not only because it highlighted possible issues with Apple's app approval process, but also because the realistic "shaking" interaction, via the iPhone's accelerometer, produced such a negative and visceral response among an online group far wider than those that purchased it.  It's a good example of how strongly people can react, even if negatively, to motion-based user experiences.

As anyone who has used a Wiimote (also accelerometer-enabled) or an iPhone/Touch knows, being able to make precise, minute motions (tilting, sliding) or more physically immersive, realistic ones (shaking, swinging) can be an extremely engaging interactive experience. 

Could motion-based interaction be a significant trend in user experiences? And if so where do brands fit in?  

With a little research, I found a growing variety of innovative accelerometer-based apps, including some interesting marketing and gaming entries by major brands that indicate this may be so.

Here are some of my best finds, including those apps from brands, but please leave your comments below on other apps you feel have used the accelerometer in interesting ways.

A colleague sent me this interesting article by a Beatles fan who was shocked to discover that the Beatles' original mono recordings of Sgt. Pepper actually sound much better than the stereo recordings most of us know. Now, even as a Beatles fan, I was ready to write him off as one of those purists who will only play original vinyl records on vintage turntables etc., but this line caught my eye:

"...Gone was the separation of instruments in the right and left channel too, which now feels so artificial. It was artificial, since stereo was a novelty back then: Most people still listened to music in mono and stereo was the "new thing." As a result, producers overused it, just for the sake of it..."

Which leads me to think... hm... A new technological development gets overused and misused at first until its true utility is discovered... where have I heard this before? Oh yeah. Manipulating digital type. Drop shadows. Flash intros. (And some would argue that Guy Kawasaki's current blunderbuss approach to Twitter will serve as tomorrow's example). I've always associated this pattern entirely with the digital age, but I was surprised to see how far back it went.

So with every new campaign brief seemingly asking for a social media/mobile/Twitter component (I call it the "Web 2.O-dorizer") agencies are presented with an interesting challenge: are we using these new technologies in ways that provides value to our clients and their customers? Or just because we feel we should? And how do we know the difference?

One way is to look back to (more recent) history: in very early days of URL bidding in the '90s: everyone scrambled for "furniture.com" because... where else would you look for furniture online? Eventually we all remembered that "Oh yeah, it's the brand, stupid". That lesson still applies. For a consumer, a brand represents an implicit promise -- value, quality, performance, whatever - so if you're using social media or any technology in a way that feels inauthentic to your brand promise, well, you're just putting horns in one speaker and guitars in the other for the sake of it. The big difference is that your audience doesn't take 40 years to figure it out. They just move on.

Which brings us back to Guy Kawasaki and the way he's using Twitter: For me, who's valued his thoughtful and entertaining opinions for years, his lack of focus cheapens his brand. Kawasaki says he likes the 140 character limit, but really he's sending me 1400 characters a day divided into tiny random pieces. Whether you eat an entire pie in tiny little slices or all at once, it's still a whole pie. It's just not the best way to eat it.

Elliott Smith

Its really funny
-St.John Oneil-Dunne, Global Business Development

I think its great for attention. I don't know enough about the film to know how well it integrates the appeal.
-Chad Stoller, Executive Director, Emerging Platforms

So I risked my facebook "reputation" and did all those challenges. I must say. I'm very disappointed. I really like how they utilized the functionality of Facebook to create these challenges: updating my status with link to the site, and videos, upload images and tagging...etc. Unfortunately, the content of the challenges is not that impressive in my opinion. Maybe this is the tone of the movie, but this is not what I remember with their first movie, nor from the new trailer. I was hoping the challenges would be more about achieving some missions or more sneak peak about the movie, rather than telling all my friends who I "hook up" with, and what kind of STD I've got.... NOT GOOD... Or am I just lacking a sense of that kind of humor??
-Euphenia Cheng, Designer

As a fan of science fiction, it pains me to see the latest in rebranding and marketing genius from my beloved network--a switch from the sensible truncation of "Science Fiction" (Sci-Fi) to SyFy, a name that doesn't really mean anything. It's not an abbreviation for anything, it eschews the well established roots of the genre and well, it just seems plain silly. I'll need a reason to watch this network after Battlestar Galactica ends, and this is not it. I don't get it. Here's a link: http://redesignrelated.com/post/87022865/sci-fi-syfy-rebrand-redesign

Gary Nelson

I quickly and easily decorated my "studio" with furniture, brick walls, a faux-panda rug, a couple of turntables and a "maneki neko" lucky cat statue. One thing I found annoying was its auto-notify feature telling my Facebook network as I added each item. Overall, though, I was very happy with my decorating results and the ease of use selecting items and moving them around the isometric sandbox.