Mentos and Bartle Bogle Hegarty London are capitalizing on the self-love that fuels social media by creating personalized news bits that make users’ Facebook activity look appetizing enough for broadcast television.
As part of the minty candy’s “Stay Fresh” campaign, BBH London has launched a worldwide digital platform that creates individual video reports using an app, on Facebook or standalone, called “Fresh News.”
“Mentos’ core audience are heavy Facebook users, and they are part of a generation that are very interested in using social media to project their sense of self,” explained creative director at BBH London Pablo Marques. “So Facebook is at the center of our strategies when it comes to digital.”
The video bulletins make up a 24-hour news channel that serve up a constant stream of humorous news reports making fun of the new wave of media consumption. The app pulls in material from users’ updates on Facebook as well as other connected social media accounts, including geolocation app Foursquare.
“For that we’ve crossed Foursquare check-ins, Spotify playlists and other APIs that enabled us to really try to be pinpoint sharp on our assumptions about people — it was a fun little exercise in artificial intelligence,” said Marques. “Once that list was ready it was only a matter of writing funny ways to deliver those insights.”
Three news anchors present a satirical show highlighting a user’s recent social escapades, and emphasizing how “fresh” the subject may or may not be, depending on what he or she has been posting lately. And even though the scenes are pre-filmed segments, Marques claims that they filmed enough footage so that “millions of different combinations” are possible.
“The real struggle was to make sure we had a balance of content, content that was focused enough so that it would feel very personal and magical (if your mum posted on your wall and you didn’t reply) but would only be applied to small number of people, and stuff that was generic enough so that even the people without a lot of Facebook activity would still get a full length video made about them,” said Marques.
So here’s your chance people of the interwebs, it’s time to become internet famous.
Source: DigidayÂ
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