Model/Actress Brooklyn Decker's photo is on the cover of this month’s Esquire, in case you hadn’t noticed. I didn't didn’t notice it right away, since the arrival of the February Esquire with its rather sexually provocative cover was strategically obscured. Someone other than me (and there's only me and my wife in the house) placed it under the current Bloomberg Business Week with its rather textually provocative cover, “Apple without Jobs.”
The Challenge
Perusing the table of contents, Esquire features a special flap on how to “read” the issue, including a blurb for fans of scavenger hunts. The paragraph describes the interactive strategy Esquire has concocted to allow readers to find more Brooklyn Decker photos beyond those in the physical magazine. The interactive steps involve:
- Downloading a free app from iTunes
- Going to a Barnes & Noble store
- Locating the magazine aisles
- Triggering the app, and
- Pointing the phone around the store until additional Brooklyn Decker images (suitable for taking your picture with) appear on-screen, where they can be easily shared and tweeted.
In print, it seems like a lot to do, and very counter to earlier Brainzooming posts on not creating an interactive strategy that places undue burdens on your audience to engage with your brand and the how attractive simple interactive strategy can be. Five steps, including one step each in visiting both virtual and physical stores, seems onerous, even to interact with photos of Brooklyn Decker.
Is It Worth It?
Interestingly enough though, when you convert the instructions to video, as Esquire did on the video below showing the scavenger hunt in action, it just doesn’t seem like as big of a deal to clear five hurdles for a personal Brooklyn Decker photo to show your friends.
The number of hurdles aside, this interactive strategy from Esquire has several things going for it:
- It’s born out of an intriguing retail co-branding opportunity (which should drive at least some in-store traffic).
- It uses the ”personal interest/emotional intensity/brand as enabler” formula for creating memorable experiences (and memorable content) very well.
- Presenting a video version of the directions make the cumbersome interactive strategy seem a lot more reasonable.
- Once someone gets past all the hurdles, the app does deliver a pretty novel experience - at least as depicted in the video.
From what you’ve seen, what do you think about this? Would you jump over five hurdles to get your picture taken with a virtual Brooklyn Decker? Maybe you've gotten your photo taken with Brooklyn Decker already, so how was it? - Mike Brown
The Brainzooming Group helps make smart organizations more successful by rapidly expanding their strategic options and creating innovative plans they can efficiently implement. Email us at brainzooming@gmail.com or call us at 816-509-5320 to see how we can help you define a brand strategy firmly tied to business yet recognizing the impact of social networking on your customers.
