In its first branding campaign since its inception, msnbc.com proves consuming the news doesn’t have to be boring. An online game, interactive screensaver and first ever branded in-cinema motion sensor game comprise the campaign, along with broadcast, print and banner ads. New York-based SS+K created the package.
Sam Mazur, associate creative director at SS+K, said the goal was to show what makes msnbc.com unique compared to other news sites. He pointed out that it provides more of a fun experience than other news sites. While it features all the hard news that the other sites have, it also captures the softer side of news. Throughout the campaign a color spectrum is used to illustrate the rich variety on the site.
“Msnbc.com inspires consumers to explore the ever-unfolding human story,” said Catherine Captain, VP of marketing for msnbc.com. “The ‘Fuller Spectrum’ of news campaign speaks to msnbc.com’s rich consumer experience, an online environment no other news site offers. It’s designed to bring to life compelling, original and even quirky stories, and showcase the diversity of media, sources and platforms consumers can discover on the site.”
Mazur said that the creative team discovered people who visit the site really explore and travel around to different parts of the news. The agency kept that in mind when creating the NewsBreaker game, which was developed with Fuel Industries, Ontario, Canada. “We thought that the game would reiterate that msnbc.com really does have this vast range of news,” Mazur said.
NewsBreaker, which resembles games like Breakout and Brickbreaker, allows consumers to interact with the day’s headlines in an engaging way. Players control a paddle at the bottom of the screen from which they launch a ball up in the air to hit colorful bricks at the top of the screen. In this game, the bricks respresent msnbc.com’s spectrum of stories and when the ball hits them, they break into news headlines. The goal is to accumulate points and knowledge by capturing the headlines broken out of the spectrum and by keeping the ball from falling past the paddle and instead bouncing it back up to clear all the bricks. Players can pause the action to browse the collected headlines further within the game and choose to be directed to the msnbc.com site for the entire story.
The game utilizes msnbc.com’s RSS feeds, as does the NewsStream screensaver, which delivers headlines to consumers’ desktops throughout the day.
Matt Ferrin, associate creative director at SS+K, said that once they had the color spectrum visual locked in for the print ads, it was a natural progression to create this particular game. Each print ad features a full-color spectrum of bricks. Below each spectrum are two differenct colored bricks singled out, each connected to an actual news headline from msnbc.com. The juxtaposed headlines illustrate the unexpected range of content on the site. “We were saying it kind of reminded us of BrickBreaker,” he said, adding that while it’s not a brand new idea for a game, Fuel Industries enhanced it a lot.
First in-cinema game
NewsBreaker was played more than 50,000 times in the first week. It will gain more exposure because it is also appearing as the first branded audience participatory in-cinema game this month and in June at selected theaters across the country. The project came about with the help of Brand Experience Labs, a company that exposes agencies to the latest in cutting edge research, tactics and tools that engage audiences and create economic value for marketers. The staff showed SS+K a never-before-used technology called Magic Mirror developed at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. Mazur explained that a camera is placed behind the movie theater screen, which captures the collective motion of the crowd. In the case of Newsbreaker the audience will move to the left or right to move the game paddle and catch headlines.
“So basically what it’s doing is creating human joysticks out of the audience,” said Mazur. “Everyone has an effect on the control of the game. It’s really a very unique experience. This is already a very captive audience and to give them an opportunity to play something in this way is great.”
Captain said this campaign is intentionally different and unexpected for a news organization. “It’s driven by our consumers who say the site offers them the most variety and a more engaging experience. From their perspective, only msnbc.com can claim this space, and that’s what we’re doing with the campaign.”
CREDITS:
Client msnbc.com Agency SS+K, New York Marty Cooke, chief creative officer; Sam Mazur, associate creative director/copywriter; Matt Ferrin, associate creative director/art director;
Amit Nizan, senior account executive Game Developer Fuel Industries, Ontario Joel Grenier, developer
