Excellent marketing on a plane!
So, this afternoon I received a voicemail message from Samuel L. Jackson, about his upcoming motion picture “Snakes on a Plane.” Sam appeared to know a good deal about me, including my occupation, hobbies, and method of transportation.
Of course, it wasn’t really Sam Jackson. It was a message my friend created with a Web application on the “Snakes on a Plane” Web site, that allows you to customize the message to the person you’re contacting, such that it talks to them in a more personal way. You can specify a lot of information about the friend you send this message to.
I’m not going to link it, because I feel a little weird about it, but I really have to congratulate the people who created this–good idea, and good execution.
Update: I looked around the main Web site for the film, and was impressed by the way it actively encourages fan involvement–sponsoring a contest, encouraging people to make the movie part of their MySpace pages, etc. I notice that the site and the phone message application have been generating a lot of interest among Web marketing people, but it took the phone message to get me to actively look around for content about the movie.
Second update: Somehow I missed the Metafilter discussion of this very thing; most commenters seem to enjoy the application as much as I do. However, there is as always a strong anti-marketing contingent.
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I think it’s a brilliant idea. Which house has the SoaP campaign? It seems very kb and under the radar. I received a call from Sam just this weekend. I suppose if I were 16, I would have Jackson calling me all day long.
Matt, Googling does not reveal an agency per se, but there is a lot of information about the site floating around out there. The application that creates the voice message was created by Varitalk, which was apparently contacted directly by New Line. This article has more about the ad; the writer was just as impressed as I was.
It’s really well executed. Two of my favorites touches: (1)It masks the caller id as the sender’s, and (2)Sam-ell’s editorial comments as you fill out the form — “looks like you’ve got snakes on your internet”. One question though — is this regulated? Are they allowed to use the phone numbers you give them for marketing purposes later?
Dave, I checked out the site again and the privacy policy allows Time Warner (the parent of New Line) to use the information to market to you. Which is lame. But, given how well they are playing to a lot of Internet-savvy people, I think they know they would face a big Internet backlash if they were to misuse the information.