Remember early Jib Jab cartoons where you’d manually upload your own photo and that of your friends? Now, it’s much easier with just a few clicks to Facebook Connect.
Last week, I had dinner with Chris Pan (linkedin, twitter), Head of Brand Solutions at Facebook, who pointed me to a new social interactive marketing advertisement for a video game called “Prototype”. Upon accessing the site, Prototype Experience, (try it for yourself) you’ll be prompted to login with your Facebook account. After a rather lengthy loading period (it’s worth it, hang tight) you’ll watch a short teaser trailer.
This isn’t a normal trailer, as it uses your own social information in Facebook from your profile picture, your profile information, and photos from your friends. Here’s what I saw, see screenshots below.
What’s going on here? This is an example of more contextual ads based off social profiles, which is a trend as you can see my coverage of VW’s Twitter and Facebook campaign). These are early examples of the era of Social Context, where content, media, and ads will be personalized in the future based off your social information, learn more about this in the future of the social web.
User Experience: Screenshot Storyline
Here’s the blow by blow, with my thoughts.
Above Image: First, users are encouraged to login with Facebook Connect –a few clicks. If you’re already logged into Facebook, it’s just a few clicks –all without entering a password. Expect more people to interact as there’s less commitment and up front investment than finding photos and uploading them –Facebook already has the inventory you need.
Above Image: Promo video includes my profile pictures –making things a bit more interesting and personalized. As this evolves, imagine how your face and profile info will populate other experiences and content –we’re instinctively drawn to look at ourselves.
Above Image: “Is that me?” Yes it is, this promo video includes information from my profile –I’m right in the game. In consideration of my friends, I didn’t include their photos –which you’ll see in your own trailer video. Expect future ads where friends ‘promote’ or even sponsor content –some opt-in, some not.
Above Image: Participants are ‘hooked’ into the registration form in order to win in the sweetstakes, a good example of gathering leads from an engaged audience. Facebook isn’t a great way to generate leads, while you can get users to be ‘fans’ of your Facebook page, getting their true identity and email is often limited –as dictated by their Terms of Service.
Above Image: The participants are encouraged to share the campaign with their Facebook or Twitter friends, thus staring a “Viral Loop”. It spreads.
Key Takeaways
- This is clearly a trend, expect many interactive and digital agencies to offer this social campaign to their clients.
- Consumers will initially ‘freak out’ and be concerned that big brother is watching them –then will accept this as mainstream media over the next few years.
- At some point, nearly every campaign will have social content influencing the content –hitting a saturation point that disinterests users
- Expect site wide Facebook Connect initiatives to happen, allowing all of the media, content, and ads to be socially contextual. Expect media sites and eCommerce sites to launch this first.
- Expect recommended products and ads to appear from your friends and those connected to you in your social network.
hi,
We really appreciate your article Mr Owyang.
And if there is any of your readers interested by meeting us, two of the guys behind this job, will be lost in NYC from 25th june till 5th july.
This is amazing. All I can say is WOW. A customized, personalized experience for every individual. I felt personally connected to the experience…I have never felt that way with any marketing or advertising or promotion before to this level. And this was for a game that is basically an end of the world scenario. What if this was created for a baby product, art product, music (album, songs, collection), movie, etc…the possibilities are endless.
Thank you very much for communicating about this.
Bert DuMars
http://www.socialmediaecosystem.com
WHOA! That was a little insane.
Yes Bert, let’s see how this can impact your corporate websites –each of your websites can now be customized to individual needs.
Wow! That was way Awesome… and appreciated indeed. Thanks Jeremiah I understand now 🙂
Jeremiah, just five minutes after reading your post, I happened to receive this article by eMarketer: ‘The Controversy over Personalized Ads’. Thought this contributes to your key takeaways… http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007153
Compelling shock value, for sure. Entertainment value, questionable in long run (i.e., past novelty). Utility value? Will it really lead me o the XYZs I want? That’s the true litmus that will determine how “social context” can/will really hold and engage audiences, and thus prove itself as a marketing reliable. Otherwise looks to me like just another social media gimmick.
Clearly, if users are accessing this site from work, indeed, big brother is watching. Anybody who is playing games and not getting work done should be subject to reprimand. I’m sure these are significant bandwidth resource hogs thus depriving others from performing their on-line jobs tasks. How secure are the applications? Whatever steps are taken to made the code secure is no assurance that the systems can’t be compromised. It becomes a double-whammy of risk (abuse and malware) when these kinds of activities are sanctioned in a work environment.
Clearly, the Internet advertising market doesn’t make a distinction between home and work. Prospects are prospects and they’ll do pretty much anything they can to thwart enterprise security measures. It’s the game we all play: put up a barrier and sit back and watch everyone try to maneuver around it.
why is it so hard to get in to facebook nowadays
After reading your Forrester reports, and thinking through the massive implications of the opportunities that lie in digging into the social data, this seems quite a minor integration of the social network.
I guess you gotta start somewhere, and this definitely has tons of cool factor. But, you’re right that this is a very early example of what’s to come.
I’m not sure I got more than I gave up, though. It’s a lot of personal info to give to Activision, and in return I get a personal trailer? Does my face become one of the avatar options in the actual game? Now THAT would be worth giving up some data for!
Where Your Facebook Pictures and Friends are Featured, Prototype Experience Provides A Social, Contextual Video Trailer « Web Strategy by Jeremiah Owyang | Social Media, Web Marketing great article thank you.
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Who created this video? Does anyone know the agency or company?
Thanks for the fantastic info!
I like your article. It’s really a deep analysis.