This session was co-presented by Joseph Corr and Mathew Ray, both from Crispin Porter + Bogusky. Joseph and Mathew shared with us what they call the "100 foot experience" of large, interactive installations in places like Europe's largest billboard in Liverpool, geodesic domes in Dubai and video on the Grand Tower in Jakarta.
One of the campaigns the duo touched on was the "I'm a PC" project which allowed end users to upload video of themselves explaining how they use their PC. These video clips were then posted to billboards in Time Square in New York City. Users who submitted a video could SMS their username to a short code, which would pull up their clip on demand so if they were in Times Square, they could show their friends their video on the city's largest digital billboard. A street team also gathered 10,000 photos PC users on the street and those photos were added to a collage of users on another billboard across the street from the UGC videos.
In total, over 30,000 people submitted photos or video saying why they used a PC with no incentive other than being part of the commercial billboards or TV ad spots.
There were some interesting challenges with this project -- namely testing the project in secret, using low quality webcam video for television broadcast and pre-moderation of such an enormous amount of content. However, they both felt the challenges were worth the payoff, as the campaign attracted impressive media attention. Engadget posted this now famous photo of the PC campaign posters displayed on the corner of an Apple store.
The team's major takeaway from the massive "I'm a PC" global marketing project was the difficulty to get all the pieces together when you're working with 20+ vendors in multiple countries. Fortunately, their solution was simple: get everyone in a virtual room via web conferences regularly to talk about the big picture of the project and what part everyone plays in it.
The pair highly recommended getting into interactive displays now -- both expected to see more and more of them as consumer response has been positive. They stressed that cost to entry isn't as high as one might think, as the $2 multitouch video demonstrates.
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Want to learn more? Check out this video presentation of multiple large scale video projection installations:
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