Wish List Monday, May 10, 2010 MTV’s “The Buried Life” is a program aimed at getting viewers to ask themselves “What do you want to do before you die?” At the corner of Fifth Avenue and 43rd Street in Manhattan this past winter, consumers had the chance to answer that question and broadcast their responses across a variety of digital platforms. This killer interactive street-level experience showcased three main areas of engagement fused together to create a highly customized display. In one section, participants used a control panel consisting of touch-sensitive digital screens on which they were able to type in one of the goals they wished to accomplish before they die. They then submitted these goals to MTV’s master list (which appeared on a linked LCD screen) and could also post to their Facebook accounts. “We decided that we would bring the experience to the streets of New York and allow people to share their thoughts with MTV’s website and the display on the street,” says Monster Media ceo Chris Beauchamp. Monster had used the location before, and returned because it’s ideal for high pedestrian traffic. Using a giant touchscreen keyboard through the wall, users entered their name and what they wanted to do before they pass on. The biggest challenge was in filtering the submitted content. “In this instance, we only felt comfortable manually filtering those answers. But the delay time from entering it on the street to showing on the website and the screen was minutes, not hours,” Beauchamp says. Positioning the video wall in the right window so that it was legible and readable was also a challenge. Monster leveraged touch-reading technology so that people could enter their info even with gloves on, as the display was live during a particularly harsh winter. The link to Facebook just made sense, Beauchamp says. “If we put a Facebook icon on one of our [installations], over 70-percent of the time people will touch that icon, which is extremely high. Make sure you give clients the ability to share that socially through portals like Facebook, because people will do it,” he says. In 19 days, 14,000 people stopped and played video clips from the show at the location, and over 5,000 wishes were submitted. “We knew we had a homerun in the first few days. It was 22-degree weather, it was miserable outside, and there was a line of 15 people lining up to have their 15 minutes of fame. The number one wish selection was pole dancing, which was interesting,” Beauchamp says.   With installs such as this, instant gratification is key, because people now expect it. “You need an experience that’s memorable enough to share with people that takes place in under two minutes. The goal is creating a bridge between out-of-home and online, seamlessly and very quickly,” Beauchamp says. If you can do that effectively, you change the way media is perceived and what clients expect.
Main Office: 10 Norden Place Norwalk, CT 06855 Tel. (203) 854-6730 Fax (203) 854-6735 © 2010 Red 7 Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved. | Privacy Policy | Contact Us