GOLD: Endgame gets personal online
Endgame Interactive is a transmedia episode created to extend the Showcase television drama Endgame online. The audience plays an interactive mystery where they take on a main role in the narrative, which is populated with information from their Facebook account. Fans interact with the cast, search for clues, question suspects and unravel the mystery in a cinematic and personal experience.
Endgame is an original series centred on brilliant chess master Arkady Balagan. Traumatized by the murder of his fiancée, Balagan has become a prisoner in his luxury hotel, terrified to step outside. To pay his bill, Balagan starts solving mysteries using an unlikely band of hotel employees and chess fanatics to do his legwork.
Secret Location wanted to create an online execution that had the same high production values as the show and create a direct interaction with the show’s charismatic star.
To carry the show online, they conceived of an original episode where viewers join Balagan’s band of investigators and participate in putting the pieces together to solve a mystery.
The episode places the user’s Facebook friends at the centre of the kidnapping mystery. The online experience is built on a platform that integrates social media directly into the story, posting cryptic messages to viewers’ Facebook accounts and building the need to share the content right into the story narrative.
The Facebook integration was continuously tweeted and blogged about around the world. The traffic numbers were very good for a show on a specialty channel, with over 300,000 page views and 100,000 visitors. The site won several prestigious online design awards including a Favourite Website Award (FWA).
Credits:
Client: Showcase, Shaw Media
Created By: Secret Location
TV Production Company: Thunderbird Films
Executive Producers: James Milward, Alan Sawyer
Producer: CJ Hervey
Creative Director/Lead Designer: Pietro Gagliano
Technical Director/Lead Developer: Ryan Andal
Writer/Director: Steve Cochrane
Site Developers: Gino Fazari, Michael Phan
Facebook Developer: John Callaghan
Director of Photography: Samy Inayeh
Editor: Dev Singh
Sound Design: Lodewijk Vos
Production Manager: Roman Hul
Production Co-ordinator: Ashlee Lougheed
Starring: Shawn Doyle, Patrick Gallagher, Katherine Isabel, Amy Montemurro, Mark Acheson
Thunderbird Credits:
Created by: Avrum Jacobsen
Head of Production: Alex Raffe
Shaw Media:
Head of Online Content: Chris Harris
Producer: Zach Feldberg
BRONZE: Swiss Chalet’s Rotisserie Channel drums up interest
To push Swiss Chalet’s iconic product even further into the public consciousness and drive sales, BBDO created a world media first. It bought an entire channel on Canada’s largest cable provider that just broadcast one thing: six chickens turning continuously on a spit. To drive interest and viewership they shot teaser videos that launched on YouTube and Facebook.
Once the channel launched, promotion codes were intermittently featured that gave deals on the rotisserie chicken viewers were watching.
BBDO broke the campaign to online media outlet (and strategy sister site) Media in Canada. The word spread and “Swiss Chalet” and “rotisserie” both became trending topics on Twitter. The agency then used what the public was saying about the Rotisserie Channel to create a new online video, showcasing quotes from actual tweets. Next came a TV, newspaper, online and billboard campaign.
The goal was 10,000 coupon downloads over three months, but in week one, there was 13,707, and 32,546 after three months. There were over five million “likes” on Facebook, more than 28,000 new friends, 8,224 downloaded screen savers and chicken delivery orders went up 30% almost immediately. Overall, it has earned over 36 million free media impressions.
Credits:
Company: BBDO Toronto
Client: Cara Operations Inc.
SVP, ECDs: Carlos Moreno, Peter Ignazi
Writers: Kurt Hagan, Frank Macera
Art Directors: Doug Bramah, Sungho So, Alice Blastorah, Johnny Pavacic, Jonathan Guy
Account Management: Brent Rivard, Michael McGee, Jordan Lane
Planners: Dino Demopoulos, Josh Hansen
Agency Producers: Tracey Azzopardi, Nicole Poon
Production House: Radke Films
Executive Producer: Miriana DiQuinzio
Director: Craig Brownrigg
DP: Ticko Poulakakis
Editor: Gord Koch
Editing Company: Ricochet
Music/Sound: Ricochet
Flash Development: Zingbias, Edward Ayoub
Media Company: MEC – Niall Mulholland, Deborah Aldridge, Jenny Crosswell
Client: Mark Daprato, Chris Boyce
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