Muppet me wears a gi
One of my co-workers sent around a link to FAO Schwartz’s Muppet What Not Workshop earlier this week. And what did I do? I immediately created my personalized muppet.
I didn’t go as far as to purchase it, but I thought of about five different people I wanted to design a muppet for. They’re fun to “design” and they make unique, customized, personalized gifts. Wouldn’t my nieces get a kick out of them?
Of course, if this had been my project, I would’ve taken it one step further and offered users a chance to 1) add their personalized muppets to a “storefront” so that other people could see and/or purchase them; and 2) I would’ve included a “send to a friend” and “social networking toolbar” so that creators could show off their muppets on Facebook, MySpace, etc.
But I applaud FAO (their interactive team and/or interactive agency) for creating such a fun tool. This is an excellent example of how to exploit the unique capabilities of online media.
All too often I find myself having to explain that the interweb is a different and unique medium. It’s not TV, it’s not radio, it’s not print.
When the news media first began using television, they had a reporter stand in front of a microphone and read the latest headlines. In the first television news broadcast Kolin Hager just read the news and weather reports in front of a microphone on camera. (TV History).
The first documented TV commercial ran in 1941 was a bit smarter. It was a 20-second spot featuring a picture of a clock and a map of the United States, with a voice-over proclaiming, “America runs on Bulova time.” (The History of Bulova).
Then one day they realized, “Hey we could put like moving pictures and sound and stuff on the news.” That’s right, they stopped shoveling radio content over to TV and started exploiting the unique capabilities of television.
Over the past five years, marketers have finally begun to exploit the internet’s multimedia capabilities using combinations of text, sound, images and video in their online brochures. The next step, of course, is it capitalize on the internet’s ability to engage an audience. Everything from UGC (user generated content) to applications and tools for mining and manipulating data and real conversations about likes and dislikes.
I encourage marketers to consider the internet as a platform for engaging your audience and providing them an immersive experience with your product or service. Because in 2009, the world of shoveled brochureware is sooooo 1940.
