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My final love letter to Scott Pilgrim. I promise (maybe).

Friday, August 13th, 2010

A little over a year ago, I posted my first blog entry here—about an atypical comic book hero named Scott Pilgrim who was in the process of getting a movie. Now, today, that movie hits theaters. I feel like this is all coming full circle.

Scott Pilgrim attempting conversation with the girl of his dreams, Ramona Flowers.

During my annual pilgrimage to the West Coast, I was fortunate (let’s not kid ourselves—I was beside-myself-excited) to see a special advance screening of the movie. San Diego’s Balboa Theater was packed, every level, every seat filled with someone who was already invested in this movie, one way or another. Seeing a movie you’ve been excited about for over a year, with a theater-full of other people who have also been that excited for the same movie? It’s unlike any other movie-going experience I’ve ever had. Especially when the director and cast are on hand to introduce and close out the experience. A surprise performance from Metric doesn’t hurt either.

Anyway, this is an advertising blog, right? I’ll bring this around, trust me. If there’s a marketing textbook out there looking for examples of fun, non-traditional approaches to marketing a movie—please pay attention to the following…

Scott Pilgrim dominated Comic Con. Dominated. I mean look at it… Scott is literally towering over the convention center.

Scott Pilgrim VS Comic Con (Via SpacePirateQueen @ Flickr.)

The Scott Pilgrim panel closed out the first full day of Comic Con, with the infamous Hall H filling with fans. Edgar Wright moderated his own panel, introducing his cast, fielding questions from the audience and showing new clips from the movie. Nearing the end of the panel, he asked the audience to look at the buttons they were handed at the start of the talk. If they had buttons with a 1UP on them—they were to follow him to the screening. And I mean it—follow him. Edgar jumped off the stage at that point and like the Pied Piper, led the lucky 1UP-ers 6 blocks up San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter to the Balboa. Those who couldn’t get into that first screening would be given two more chances over the following two days. I kid you not, as I passed the Balboa on my way to Day Two, there were already people in line at the theater. This was at 7:30 in the morning, the screening wouldn’t be until 6 that evening.

Across from the convention center, there was Pilgrim pandemonium in the courtyard of the Gaslamp Hilton where the Scott Pilgrim Experience was being staged.

The Scott Pilgrim Experience the day before Comic Con opens (via Rkbentley @ Flickr.)

This was your one-stop for all things SP. Like anything at Comic Con, there was a line to get in (for the Fire Marshal’s sake). The first stop in the Experience?

Pick your shirt, pick your design...

Custom Scott Pilgrim t-shirts. You pick your shirt size, color and the design you want screen printed on it while you wait. This was one of the coolest promotional ideas ever. And have I mentioned that everything in the experience was free? Yeah, all free.

My Ramona doodle shirt getting the once-over with a swipe of electric blue ink.

After that, you could star in your own flipbook. Act out a little scene for a few seconds in front of a camera, the video was turned into pages and this awesome little machine printed and trimmed your own flipbook with a Scott Pilgrim cover.

Another flipbook is brought into the world.

Ka-pow!

There were faux-sets from the movie to pose in front of, a kiosk to send a greeting to your friends on Facebook, a wall to sign or doodle on, live music and places to try out the new Scott Pilgrim video game (which is a must-have for any old-school gamer. River City Ransom, anyone?).

And then there were the chances to meet the cast. Not only were there signings…

Edgar Wright, Michael Cera and a mustachioed Jason Schwartzman.

…but cast members were also out in the Experience mingling with fans, helping to make t-shirts or guest starring in filpbooks.

Brandon Routh takes a break from screenprinting to take a pic with a Superman fan.

There was also a STUFF booth outside of the experience that gave away swag bags to passers by and was also the home-base for a special iPhone/Droid app promotion. For those who had downloaded and explored the recently released Scott Pilgrim Punch Out game for their mobile devices, they might have uncovered a special Comic Con section—instructing them to show a secret image to the folks at the STUFF booth for a special prize. Those who followed the instructions were rewarded with a full set of pins, featuring all the different characters in the story.

If there’s a better way of igniting excitement for a movie, I don’t want to know about it. Wait, maybe I do.

What about the folks not at Comic Con? Well, the SP crew has been on the road, hosting screenings in other cities, getting the word out via Twitter and Facebook. In Atlanta, stars Michael Cera and Jason Schwartzman did the weather (note Cera’s SP Experience shirt)

And then there’s the interactive trailer. It’s like if a video game and VH1’s Pop Up Video had a baby made of pixels and awesome— a trailer with it’s own DVD features built into it.

And the regular trailers are everywhere.

I want this movie to do well, I feel invested in it despite having nothing to do with it—which may be some side effect of all the stuff above this paragraph . It’s fast, fun, hilarious and above all, a love story. Like it has from the start, it pays tribute to all the things I love: music, video games and comic books. It breaks the comic book movie mold, from the story to the style in which it was shot. It’s a movie shot in Toronto where the city’s playing itself and not standing in for New York or some other metropolis (my music nerdiness went into overdrive seeing Clash at Demonhead play at Lee’s Palace). The soundtrack is killer with songs from Beck, Metric, Frank Black and Broken Social Scene to name a few. The creativity behind this movie, from the source material to the film is the only thing that dwarfs the innovative approach of the marketing that has gone out into the world to support it.
Go see Scott Pilgrim.

Other awesome Scott Pilgrim things in our universe not mentioned in this post (until now):

Scott Pilgrim series by Brian Lee O’Malley

Scott Pilgrim Avatar Creator

Lucas Lee Posters

Mondo Screenprinted Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World poster for the Alamo Drafthouse

Tags: awesomeness, comic books, comic con 2010, edgar wright, fandom, Movies, scott pilgrim vs the world
Posted in Advertising, Comics, Cool Websites, Current Events, Innovation, Inspiration, Interactive, Media, Movies, Music, Pop Culture, Social Media, marketing | 1 Comment »

Social Media Meets Real Life

Thursday, April 29th, 2010

Okay, let me set this up for you. I used to be mayor of Dixon Schwabl. Then a terrible thing happened: my smart phone broke and I was thrown back into way-back-ness of 2008 to the days of a cell being capable of internet but not “smart.” Lack of “smart” casued me to be thrown out of my Mayor-ship by Will.

He may have been excited.

He may have been gloating a little.

See, then Ian had to work over the weekend and the extra time at the office gave him an advantage. He’s now our reigning mayor.

He didn’t tell Will until Monday.

It got a little tense in the interactive suite.

But that’s okay, now I have a BlackBerry and I’m on a quest to get my seat back.

If you’re not sure what the heck I’m talking about, I encourage you to try out the latest in social media channels – FourSquare. Using your smart phone and the lovely powers of GPS you can use your FourSquare app to “check in” to places that FourSquare tells you are near by. By entering venues into the system, users have built quite an extensive database of “places to be” and after checking in you can “shout out” your location to your FourSquare friends, Facebook friends, and Twitter followers so everyone knows where you are. (Or you can not, your choice.)

So what does this mean beyond creating yet ANOTHER online distraction to our everyday? Well, there’s a list of venues that are playing the brand-loyalty game by offering “Mayor Specials.” There are swarms and festivities, bridging the real-life/cyber-life gap. (See Gram, I do actually go to see my friends in person.) There are business encouraging friendly competition between their regulars to make mayor a bigger deal than buying the place.

As the App movement of this decade increases the integration of our online self with our actual self, I’m sure there will be more Foursquare and things like it. New games, new forms of socializing, and new opportunities for marketers to leverage the fun of the medium to sell product. It’s up to us to take the tools the geeks give us and think “what can we do with this for the benefit of our clients and how can we increase the brand experience for their consumers?”

Brand experience is so fascinating. If you would have asked me 3 years ago if I’d be battling a coworker for a seat at Mayor of Dixon Schwabl, I would have looked at you funny. Now all I can think about is, “What if we offered this to mayors of *** client?” or “What if we gave this to every person who checks in 10 times at ***?” or “What if a consumer checked in at *** and were greeted by the special ***?”

New technology and new tools – so exciting! And when you check in to Dixon Schwabl say hi to our current mayor and take a twirl down the slide to say that you did.

Tags: Dixon Schwabl, FourSquare, Mayor
Posted in Brand Experience, Innovation, Interactive, Social Media | 6 Comments »

Blake & TOMS

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

Who is Blake Mycoskie? Some may identify him as a former participant and almost champion of CBS’, The Amazing Race. Others might know him as the creator and CSG, or Chief Shoe Giver, of TOMS Shoes, Inc. If you’ve never heard of TOMS shoes, it is company founded in 2006 that uses a one-for-one business model and gives a pair of shoes to a child in need for every pair bought. In theory, this is a great idea; however, you need more than just a good idea and a big heart to start changing the world. How can a for-profit company survive while giving away a pair of shoes with each pair bought?

The answer is with a great marketing plan. With young adults, ages 17-28, as the target market, Mycoskie has been able to use social media to expand his business. On a limited budget, he was able to get his message out and spread his vision to millions through use of YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and word-of-mouth marketing. If you watch his story of how and why he created TOMS shoes, you can not help but be won over by his vision. The videos are done so well that not only will you be won over by what you saw and want to buy a pair of shoes, you will also feel compelled to tell all of your friends about the company.

Through casting the vision behind the business, Mycoskie has been able to promote his shoes while deflecting attention from the premium price charged for these canvas loafers. This is because people know that buying a pair of TOMS shoes is more than just buying shoes, it’s making a difference. All in all it can be stated that Blake Mycoskie is not only a former competitor on The Amazing Race and the founder of a socially responsible for-profit company, he is also a marketing genius.

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About Author: Liz Thrush is currently a Spring Public Relations Intern at Dixon Schwabl. “I am a senior Marketing and Spanish major at Roberts Wesleyan College. In addition to being an RA and the Vice President of our SIFE (Students in Free Enterprise) team, I love to travel, snowboard, and help others. After graduation I hope to be able to spend a year in a Spanish speaking country working in marketing or public relations.”

Tags: Amazing Race, Blake Mycoskie, TOMS Shoes
Posted in Social Media, marketing | 1 Comment »

Pay ‘em with a reason

Monday, December 14th, 2009

If you subscribe to Wired magazine, you’ve probably seen the cover article in this month’s issue about Evan Ratliff and his intriguing experiment to try to vanish off the digital grid. Here’s a bullet point snap-shot of the plot:

Writer-boy goes on lam for one month
National mag post his disappearance online
National mag offers reward for the first people to find him ($2,000 their cash, $3,000 his)
All sorts people go nuts trying to find him
Challenges are issued to step-up game
Someone wins; either writer-boy or hunters (no spoilers here!)

(Find the article here. Though you really should go buy a printed issue of Wired to read it; it’s really good. Pretty please?)

I happened to stumble upon issue 404 while off to grab a tissue from our bathroom (Yes, welcome to some of our dirty laundry – you can find tech/ad magazines in the employee bathrooms) and I thought to myself “How fantastically fascinating!” and then quickly “Who the heck has time for this stuff?”

But the cool thing is, people do! People found the time to hunt down a person they’ve never met, who is spending 24/7 moving, and is being rewarded for not being found. And people did it in 17 days. 17 DAYS! It takes me longer to get my cable installed, to get a doctors appointment, to close on a house, or to get my tax return? (Side note: why does it take so long for professionals to find criminals and amateurs only 17 days to find a boy-writer? I know, I know – it makes no sense to me either.)

I bring this up because I’ve hear this line uttered so many times by clients “Who the heck is going to read my blog? I mean, who really has time to read blogs?!” I present to this question Evan Ratliff experiment – evidence that people have time.

What they need from you is a reason to give up that time. Maybe it’s a contest/prize, maybe it’s coupons, maybe it’s a puzzle/game, maybe it’s an insider peek into your-day-to-day, or maybe it’s just really good content. Just remember that time = money. So the justification your audience needs is your explanation how they’re going to get paid.

Tags: Evan Ratliff, Social Media, Wired
Posted in Interactive, Social Media | 4 Comments »

True Blood Money (for a great cause).

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009

Okay, World, I’m going to interrupt all the Edward v. Jacob madness for a second to call some attention to the Twitter ingenuity of another kind of vampire (and no, they don’t sparkle).

Vampire Bill Compton and waitress Sookie Stackhouse from HBO's hit series, True Blood.

About a year ago, fans of HBO’s True Blood created a Twitterverse of the show’s fictional setting of Bon Temps, LA. Twitter accounts for the characters of the show (and books), such as @SookieBonTemps, started popping up and interacting with each other. Instead of a cease and desist —HBO has embraced these tweeting fan-made homages to its characters and now HBO is putting its money where its fanged mouth is.

Recently, the Twitterverse True Blood characters announced an awareness drive, Bites for Blood; asking followers to donate drops of virtual blood to a vial in hopes of raising awareness for the Red Cross. In exchange for donating virtual blood, followers will be tweeted back with a virtual bite or kiss from the character of their choice. It’s like an online kissing/biting booth. No monetary donation is required, it’s simply an awareness campaign that hopes to reach a goal of 500k drops of “blood” from Dec 3-5.

For Trubies, it's all about Eric versus Bill.

But, this virtual fundraiser has the potential to be an actual one —HBO has offered to donate $10,000 to the American Red Cross if Bites for Blood reaches it’s 500k goal. HBO is not only supporting a good cause, but the dedicated fans of its show that initiated this Twitter event.

Bites for Blood starts TODAY! So if you’re of the tweeting sort —donate a “drop” for a “bite” and help the True Blood gang reach their goal and support the Red Cross.

And Twilight fans, don’t be afraid to help out. I know we may have had our differences in the past, but a good cause is a good cause. Get “bit” by a Trubie vampire… I promise, I won’t tell Edward.

Bites for Blood starts on Thursday, December 3 at 9pm CDT and ends on Sunday, December 5 at 9pm CDT. Get more information here.

Tags: american red cross, awareness, fandoms, fans, fundraising, true blood, Twitter, twitter campaigns, vampires
Posted in Pop Culture, Social Media, Television | 2 Comments »

Social Media Why

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ivanwalsh/ / CC BY 2.0

If there was a buzz word in the biz world in 2009 it would be social media. I talk about it a lot. It’s what I do. I sit in client meeting after client meeting talking about it because every client’s hot to get some social media action. You know what I wish I would say to every company that tells me that they want to be on Facebook, to have a YouTube channel and to start a blog?

I’d like to ask them why.

Now, don’t take that as snarky, I truly am interested in the answer to that question because what we all have to remember in this line-blurring trend of social media is WHY we’re doing it. What is our goal? What do we hope to achieve, and how are we going to measure it?

The hard part is all in that why. It’s downright easy to open a Facebook fan page. It’s even easier to post a video on Youtube. If you can’t seem to get either, you can always ask your 5 year old nephew. But what your nephew can’t tell you is what to say, how to say it, or even harder – who to say it to. If you have 300 fans on Facebook, do you know how to engage the ones that are likely to buy? Do you how to say-a-sell to them in the way they want to hear it? Harder yet, do you know how to talk about your service in a way that doesn’t do damage to your company’s brand equity. One wrong status update and you could turn off more fans than you turn on.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/timpatterson/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

Now, I don’t mean to scare companies away from thinking about social media. But sometimes in the heat of a business trend we do a little less thinking than we really should. In the end, social media is a tactic like all the other tools in the marketing departments toolbox. And it should have a game plan. You wouldn’t send off a 300,000 piece direct mail just because the New York Times told you too, now would you? The same rules apply to social media that have always applied to a successful marketing campaign – strategy.

Those of us that play in the social media profession playground can attest to mistakes we’ve seen made (or made ourselves). We know the house rules and which jungle gym works best for which message. When thinking about your company’s leap into the sandbox of social media, consider “why am I doing this?” And then head for your agency-of-choice and ask to talk to their interactive strategist, who can help you put together your social media strategy before you open that Squidoo account.

And if your agency-of-choice doesn’t have a interactive strategist on record, my contact info is really really handy ;]

Tags: Facebook, Social Media, Social Media Stratedgy
Posted in Interactive, Social Media | No Comments »

Something new on heaven and earth — a way to stay closer to your dearly departed

Sunday, November 1st, 2009

We try not to use our blog to “toot our own horn” directly – although we hope that by reading it you’ll see that we are fun, knowledgeable people!

However, we recently launched a client site with a feature that is just too cool to NOT tell you about. The client is Holy Sepulchre Cemetery and the feature is the “Lifebook.”

The Lifebook idea arose from discussions during our Discovering the WOW 2.0^TM process, as we worked with HSC to find a way we could not only create a new website for them, but how we could use 2.0 technology to give it real relevance to the community.

One of the clear outcomes of that discussion was the fact that current generations are not really the grave-visiting types. They feel their losses no less than previous generations, but with today’s hectic lifestyle there isn’t time to make regular visits. And with the proliferation of social media, there are growing numbers of people – in every age group – with a broader idea of what it means to be “present” to friends and loved ones. Once you accept that you can use Twitter, Facebook and other digital means of staying connected to a wide circle of friends, without necessarily expecting a two-way conversation, it’s not a huge leap to imagine using the same tools to keep our dearly departed close and connected in the same way.

In practical terms, this train of thought led us to the Lifebook – which uses HSC’s database to automatically generate a home page for every person who’s ever been buried there, and allows friends and loved ones to post messages, stories, prayers, etc. All posts go through an approval process before they go up, and registered users can even get an email alert when someone else makes a post to the same “wall.”

We feel it is an example of using technology to not just replace a real world activity (visiting a grave), but build upon it – in this case, because you can share your thoughts and see the comments and prayers of others… “remembering” becomes a shared, community experience. It seems especially pertinent to think about now, given that today many celebrate All Saints Day, and tomorrow, All Souls Day.

Please check it out at www.holysepulchre.org/locate.

Posted in Cool Websites, Dixon Schwabl, Innovation, Interactive, Social Media | No Comments »

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