Best Entertainment Interactive Application

James Patterson, the worlds #1 best selling author continued his prolific book production with 15 books releases slated for 2010. While his sales continue to be strong supported by a TV and radio marketing presence; reaching his predominantly female audience became more and more difficult as time online for that group diminished in favor of digital and social media channel’s. To compound the marketing challenge his latest book “Don’t Blink” was being released around the 2010 holiday season, making competition for consumer attention even greater. The agency developed a Facebook-integrated social game to support “Don’t Blink” that captures the target where they live and play, and drives secondary viral engagement through the extended social graphs of game participants. The application, which lived on both Facebook and the James Patterson website, was literally a staring contest pitting Patterson fans against a video of the Mafia villain from the book. Using a web cam, facial recognition software and a custom video we were able to create a true-to-life staring contest. Players were given a “Mafia score” based on how long they could last without blinking. Users could challenge and share scores with friends, and they could tracked their standing on a leader-board. In the first four weeks, the game received 9,000 unique players with an average of four plays per user. It also earned 1,000 Facebook likes of the game.

Contributors:

Partner/Creative Director:	John Gellos
Partner/Creative Director:	Gregg Wasiak
Associate Creative Director:	Tyronne Schaffer
Art Director:	Iva Zugic
Copywriter:	Ashley Vienna
Interactive Director:	Matt Plavoukos
Lead Developer:	Isaac da Silva
Flash Developer:	Ben Paddock, Michael Xue
Director:	Greg Lord
Project Manager:	Rachel Barbarotta

THE CONCEPT FARM

Location: USA