Creative Agency: Lean Mean Fighting Machine
Samsung teamed up with the U.K. agency to showcase the features of a phone that is also a camera, Internet provider and GPS device. Since his journey began on Oct. 22, Turpin has posted a picture a day on The Photographic Adventures of Nick Turpin, a website that documents his adventures and touts the benefits of traveling with a Pixon.
According to Contagious magazine, Dave Bedwood, co-founder of Lean Mean Fighting Machine, says that the campaign aims to spotlight the convenient qualities of the Pixon: "Most camera phones are a bit slow so you miss those unexpected moments. Samsung wanted to dramatize the fact that its 8.0-megapixel camera phone behaves like a real digital camera so you would never miss those moments." Sending a professional photographer to take the photos probably didn't hurt either.
Visitors are invited to "call his shots" by clicking on whatever most captures their interest in the photo. Though they are allowed only one vote each, those votes will determine Turpin's next destination and assignment. The ties linking assignments are sometimes whimsical; for instance, when people clicked on the derriere of a man who was leaning over to pick up packages, Turpin was promptly sent off to Montcuq, which is pronounced the same as "my ass" in French.
Turpin also posts additional photographs on Flickr for browsing purposes. Users can track his GPS location and look at Twitter to see what he's doing in between photos. He even responds to comments left on his Flickr and Twitter activity.
The point of all this is that Nick Turpin is just an ordinary guy with an extraordinary camera phone. Samsung is counting on the fact that you'll use a Pixon to pursue your own adventures, long after Nick's are over. And to make that easy, the site has announced that extras are on the way, including a short film, a Facebook game and a screensaver. Could a sequel be in Nick's future?
-- Emily Chang, editorial intern, iMedia Connection
The Pixon microsite has most of your standard functionality for sharing on Facebook, StumbleUpon and Del.icio.us, as well as the tools for following Nick via email, RSS feed, Twitter and even GPS, courtesy of Google Maps. Unfortunately, it was very difficult to tell where, exactly, Nick was in the course of his adventure from the map. The Twitter feed helped me figure out that Nick was hanging out in Japan and not Western Europe.
From a social media standpoint, I think the campaign functions well, but isn’t overly compelling. Other than a few clicks, there's nothing too "social" about the site. As a consumer, there isn't a lot of information about the phone anywhere on the site, either. You need to sit through a video to watch Nick talk about what he likes about the phone, and click on a few less-than-intuitive numbers below the video to see some different specs. I'd have included a more descriptive menu so I could choose to look at "Lens Specs" or "Processing Specs" or "Memory" rather than just 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
For photographers who might be familiar with Nick Turpin's photos, I think that most of the shots will be a bit disappointing. There isn't much detail or info about the pictures that are being displayed. Show me how to take great pictures with this phone, and I might replace the one I've got right now that takes lousy pictures. I'd like to know more about the backstory, or how a professional photographer like himself might prefer to shoot a scene like he's got. Or what he did to get the best shot he could.
For cell phone photos, however, the pictures on the microsite are clear and crisp and appear to have a nice color balance. Kudos to the quality of the lens, the photographer's eye and whoever may have touched them up in Photoshop before posting them.
Overall, I think there's a lot of potential here. But we didn't squeeze all of it out into the campaign. In an environment where cell phone manufacturers and carriers are competing relentlessly for our time, money and consideration, I think the Nick Turpin microsite will be mostly forgettable, even if the phone is excellent.
-- Corey Kronengold, senior director, marketing and communications, Tremor Media
I'm a big fan of social tools, and this site is a great example of the right way to use them. A tight integration of Flickr and YouTube added the necessary grit to make Nick's travels seem more real. Their inclusion gave an immediate sense of credibility.
The phone’s camera is awesome. Even the largest size on Flickr was impressive. Makes my Blackberry pics seem like a child's scrawl in comparison. Nick has an interesting eye, and the ability to follow his progress through the marriage of Flickr and Google Maps was very cool. Nothing seemed forced and the social tools were never flaunted. There was no subtext like, "Hey everyone, we're the giant company Samsung, but we're really just like you. See, Flickr, YouTube, huh..." Instead, it was integrated, utilitarian and came off with web street smarts and confidence.
Visually, the site was purposefully simple. Blue and white text on a black field helped alleviate competition between vibrant images and stage. Being able to click an image to choose the next subject was a great way to allow participation.
-- J. Barbush, VP associate creative director, RPA