new interactive literary novel

There's a new interactive novel out today--not from a game publisher or vimeo artist, as you might expect, but from old-line, mainstream, behemoth publisher, Random House. The writer is the award-winning Marisha Pessl, author of Special Topics in Calamity Physics. Night Film is her second novel, a thriller that she's made into an immersive storyworld with website screen captures, old media clippings and photos that link to cyber content. But wait. How can a hardcover novel formidably grounded in the ILR world – the tome weighs in at a 600 pgs. and 1.75 lbs – be "interactive"? Yep, you guessed it – there's an app for that. In the back of her book, just before the acknowledgements, Pessl invites readers who want to continue the storyworld experience to download the free decoder app from itunes or elsewhere. The app is a scan app that lets your smartphone or tablet "read" a bird image that appears on some of the pages. Like a next-generation QR code, the bird jumps you to bonus content. Pessl isn't the first novelist to provide her readers with "extras" in cyberspace (ahem!) but she's the first one I know of to do so from the confines of an analog book. Kudos to her and to the Random House digital team for having the vision to do so and the chops to carry it off.

postcards from sxsw

Greetings from Austin where SXSWi campers have descended in unprecedented numbers. Hugh Forrest, director of the festival, maestro of orchestration, estimates via email there are 16,000 digital attendees this year--a increase of about 25% since 2010.

themed campuses
To accommodate surge in attendance, conference sessions are, for the first time, divided into "campuses." My session was (curiously) assigned to the Future of Journalism campus which I was dismayed to realize is 11 blocks away from Convention Center hub. I was afraid not many would make the hike but was gratified to arrive to the SRO crowd pictured. SXSWers are intrepid. Thanks to Austin Chronicle reporter Belinda Acosta for writing it up.

walking shoes
are necessary. Campus locations can be a mile apart.

truck food

Some of the best food can't be had in a restaurant, but ordered from the windows of parked lorries or airstreams with names as memorable as menu items, like Man Bites Dog and Electric Cock.

bacon

Where ever there's food, it seems, there is bacon. Even in waffles.

pedicabs
Taxis are scarce. Hotel line-ups long. People-powered transport is the fasted, most refreshing alternative to walking. No meters, though. Pedal-pushers work for tips. Going rate is $5 a head...er, derriere. Now you can even call one with your smartphone.

'pile of legos' is a foursquare location. of course

miracle on 29th street: adland gets digital

It was 8:30 am and I arrived to the Boulder Digital Works conference at the Art Director's Club on W 29th a bit bleary-eyed. But encountering a slide from organizer (uh, experience-architect) Edward Boches woke me right up: Coding is more prized than copywriting. This, in essence, encapsulates how the shift in the advertising business has affected me and legions of fellow creatives. Used to be copywriters and art directors felt our key-tapping, marker-wielding fingers held the power to instigate massive shifts in consumer behavior--but now that power is shared (lion-shared) by those who are conversant in a language that's binary.

Faris Yakob (MDC's eminent Digital Philosopher) opened his talk with a request for show of hands from anyone who knew how to code--few arms went up. Following was a collective groan of frustration from survivors in an industry that for decades was a haven for the liberal-arts-minded. If only, instead of that seminar on Virginia Woolf we'd had the foresight to take a class in the computer lab! No one told us that geeks would inherit the earth, or at least the most profitable part of it. (See entire preso/performance--complete with juggling--here.)

Making Digital Work is a two day conference for agency and client partners looking to learn from some of the smartest minds in the digital business--emphasis on business. You know how digital conferences can be full of hot air, with "ninjas" waxing eloquent on mindsets and theoreticals? This isn't just a think-tank, it's a practical approach to how digital is propelling viable business models. Matt Howell, President of Modernista, described how losing Cadillac sparked an agency reboot which enabled the shop to evolve from making messages to building platforms. Chloe Gottlieb, ECD R/GA shared their formula for success in new(ish) creative collaborations: visual designer + copywriter + interaction designer + creative technologist. Saatchi's Michael Tabtabai showed inspiring examples of "stuff that doesn't suck" and Tim Malbon, Founder of Made By Many, led us in attempt to make stuff ourselves.

However. "We're not in the business of making cool stuff," Faris reminds us. "We're in the business of making money by influencing behavior." Good wake up call for us creatives. A title that applies to anyone working at an agency still in business today.

Making Digital Work, Introduction to the Workshop

View more presentations from edward boches.

adland redeems itself with campaign you wish your campaign could smell like

For readers who aren't twitterholics like me, you may have missed the latest extension of the brilliant Old Spice campaign. I'm not talking about Man on Horse now swandiving off a waterfall, but about his masterful rocking of the social mediasphere. Sure, lots of brands use social media to engage with consumers, but Old Spice made major waves this week by delivering personalized messages to individual fans via youtube.

In a move that seems destined to reshape the way brands interact with consumers, W + K creatives (CD Jason Bagley, digital strategist Josh Millrod, interactive producer Ann-Marie Harbour) holed up in a studio with spokehunk Isaiah Mustafa, writing, recording, editing and producing video responses to tweets and comments in quick succession, posting almost 200 "commercials" in the course of 2 days. What makes the work genius isn't only the concept but executions: spot-on writing and Mustafah's flawless deliveries ensure the spots are entertainment even if they're not directed at you.

Some of the first videos were addressed to Twitter magillas including Ashton Kutcher, Biz Stone, Ellen Degeneres and George Stephaopolous-- Mustafah answers his question about how Obama can attract women voters.



But plenty of responses went out to non-celebs; one of the most memorable was to a tweeter who asked Mustafah to propose to his girlfriend.



Apparently, it worked. @JSBeal's twitter profile is now "Happily Engaged." Then, the campaign extended even to voicemail.

As of this writing, creative content on the Old Spice channel has elicited over 61 million uploads and almost 16,000 comments. (Recent response videos viewed over 11 million times, stats graphed by interested party here.) Will sm success translate into Old Spice sales? Yet to see. Just because it's digital doesn't mean it's direct response. As with any branding campaign, time is required to assess true impact. But I trust an effort that breaks through doldrums of summer to jazz so many consumers and press. (Although I agree with writer for UK Telegraph--sales numbers might be better if scent was a bit less, um, potent than its marketing.)

What most impresses me are two things:

1. Viral campaign wasn't "crowdsourced", but curated and crafted by those who knew not only how to elicit feedback from irascible internet audience, but how to ensure feedback was mostly positive (and civil)---not always the case when brands venture into social media. (Hi, Nestle!)

2. The campaign that is being hailed as groundbreaking use of digital was created by a traditional ad agency. Ironically, launch coincides with the revival of MadMen. Who says all Adland is Lost in last century?

Thanks, W+K for giving pundits on social media circuits something to deconstruct besides Subservient Chicken.

on the internet no one knows you're an ad

No wonder we have to spend government funds to alert our kids to advertising's ubiquitousness. Imagine how many Facebook readers mistake this landing page for a news site, as I did for a moment, until noting links to "the most credible and trustworthy supplier on the market." And mice type citing "Advertorial." (Just try to find it, Waldo.)

The "expose" states that the amazing concoction helped a News 7 reporter lose 25 lbs. Hilariously, that's not all it reduced. Elsewhere in the piece, she works for News 6.

When will DDMAC discover the interwebs?

dispatch from the twittertainment frontier

Being a Mad Man on Twitter provides unique opportunities to explore the frontiers of twittertainment. So while AMC was whipping up impressive frenzy for the premiere of Mad Men's Season Three last week, some of us Mad Men on Twitter got together to prepare a "tweaser": a fan-produced event in a parallel universe: a twitter show in which Mad Worlds Collide.

Mad Worlds Collide was a first in twittertainment. A dramatic improv produced, created and aired completely on twitter, it bridged the divide between dimensions by offering tickets and real-world Mad Men-era prizes.

The concept was this: in the hour before the long-awaited Mad Men premiere, our new twitter character Radio City hosted a virtual premiere for 1963 film "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World", preceded by a variety show in which @Jimmy_Barrett appeared "on stage" with stars of the film, @_EthelMerman and @EdieAdams. It was a scenario that allowed for the participation of all Mad Men on Twitter as well any fans game to get in on the fun.

We issued tickets. Prepared the venue. Sent out the word via tweets and Betty's blog. Even lined up some snazzy door prizes.

As showtime got closer, we drew up a timeline so that we could synchronize our (winding) watches:

9:00- 9:10 People hurrying to Radio City, waiting for show to begin or schmoozing in the lobby or backstage. Theater always gets started late.

9:10 Curtain goes up and Rockettes open the show. Lots of opps for tweeted thoughts from the crowd.

9:19 Curtain goes down.

9:20 Curtain comes up. A variety show is "supposed" to feature a lot of actors from the film. But @Jimmy_Barrett (pissed that Stanley Kramer didn't cast him) takes over the show.

9:30 Curtain goes down.

9:30 - 9:45 Intermission. People mingle in lobby. Door prizes are announced.

9:45 People go back to their seats, anxious for the screening to start .

9:50 Lights go out, in preparation for screening. Everyone posts scrowler which turns viewer screen black.

We crafted posts from RadioCity to act as MC to provide narrative structure, carefully timed and pre-posted to a third-party application which would send out the tweets at just the right moments. What we'd overestimated was distance between 1963 and 2009 technology. Pre-posted tweets from @_RadioCity didn't post. Why isn't my speaker system working tonite? (If we were IRL actors, perhaps we'd have known better than to put all our faith in the production crew.)

Without an MC, the "stage" turned into a free-for-all, truly experimental "theater": not only marvelous improv from @Jimmy_Barrett (see it here) but also fun, fast-paced, unscripted, completely organic and sometimes hilarious entertainment from the crowd. Which you can see here. Appropriate, we decided, to a madcap heist film. And to ground-breaking television drama. The audience certainly seemed to enjoy it.