In an effort to tap into the vampire frenzy that began with the Twilight saga, Verizon Wireless partnered with MTV to launch a cross-platform murder mystery miniseries about students at Valemont University who turn out to be (spoiler alert!) vampires. A girl's brother is murdered at Valemont, and all she has is his old Verizon Wireless phone conveniently packed with tons of video footage, text messages, and emails to help her solve the mystery.
Mini episodes of Valemont play each week after MTV's The Hills and The City and are then posted on MTV's Valemont Web site. You can help solve the mystery by signing up with Verizon to receive text clues to your phone or by "enrolling" on the Valemont University Official Web site where you can send and receive messages with the show's characters on a virtual Verizon Wireless phone.
You can also interact with characters and other fans on the Facebook page, character Twitter pages, flikr page, blog, interactive forum, and more. For the few hundred or thousand people that are interested, these Web sites and social media platforms offer lots of opportunities to get to know the characters and get involved with the story.
According to the 2008 Multiscreen Cross-platform Media & Advertising Engagement Study conducted by MTV Networks Research in collaboration with Harris Interactive and MauroNewMedia, viewers of The Hills who interact with the show both on TV and online are more responsive to the products advertised across those platforms. They found that "advertising retention and associated value increases as a user is more engaged and experiences more platforms. Advertising across platforms results in exponentially more interest in buying or considering the product advertised." (slide 20)
You can also interact with characters and other fans on the Facebook page, character Twitter pages, flikr page, blog, interactive forum, and more. For the few hundred or thousand people that are interested, these Web sites and social media platforms offer lots of opportunities to get to know the characters and get involved with the story.
According to the 2008 Multiscreen Cross-platform Media & Advertising Engagement Study conducted by MTV Networks Research in collaboration with Harris Interactive and MauroNewMedia, viewers of The Hills who interact with the show both on TV and online are more responsive to the products advertised across those platforms. They found that "advertising retention and associated value increases as a user is more engaged and experiences more platforms. Advertising across platforms results in exponentially more interest in buying or considering the product advertised." (slide 20)
According to this research, fans of The Hills and The City who engage with the shows across platforms (TV and online) will be more receptive to the Valemont advertising across platforms. So the cross-platform fans of The Hills and The City may be engaged, interested targets for the Valemont Verizon campaign, but I still do not think the Valemont miniseries is an effective strategy to sell phones.
This miniseries is pretty cool (and I can't wait to find out what happens!) but I do not think it was very strategic of Verizon Wireless. As Al Ries said in his article, The TGIF Revolution is Nothing Without a Marketing Strategy, on AdAge, throwing social media at a communications problem does not always fix it.
Do people buy phones because they are prominently featured in online murder mysteries? Will this Valemont miniseries actually lead to a shift in consumer behavior? I find the Web sites and episodes entertaining, but I am not going to buy the Valemont Verizon Wireless phone or change my cell service provider, and I do not think many people will.
Do people buy phones because they are prominently featured in online murder mysteries? Will this Valemont miniseries actually lead to a shift in consumer behavior? I find the Web sites and episodes entertaining, but I am not going to buy the Valemont Verizon Wireless phone or change my cell service provider, and I do not think many people will.
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