Exploration - New Media & Advertising

The Impact of New Media on Communications and Advertising

New Media technologies have had a dramatic effect on business communications and advertising. An excellent example is the “Get the Glass” advertising campaign undertaken in 2007 by the California Milk Processor Board (CMPB), who previously brought us the very successful "Got Milk?" advertising campaign.

“Get the Glass” was conceived by CMPB’s San Francisco advertising firm, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, as a game or competition revolving around the imaginary Adachi family, a family of criminals who scheme to steal the only remaining glass of milk available in the community. Goodby, Silverstein contracted with Sweden-based creative design firm North Kingdom to develop the idea and produce the digital components of the advertising campaign. North Kingdom designed and developed http://www.gettheglass.com/, an online “ad-game” that features 3D animation, flash, multilayered soundtracks, arcade style “minigames” and a cast of characters whose personalities (and related milk deficits) contribute to the game play. The full advertising campaign consisted of TV ads which introduced the online game and drove traffic to the website, the Get the Glass website itself, plus print and outdoor advertising.

The Communications Objective

Naturally, the objective of the Get the Glass campaign was to extend brand awareness and create demand for the product – a glass of milk. The campaign was directed towards families with children and young adults who would be enticed to engage in the Get the Glass game and competition. The first 8000 players who successfully completed the game would receive a milk glass with the “Get the Glass” logo.

The Game’s Development, Design and Technology

The game’s producer directed North Kingdom to develop an online game with a 1950s board game style and appeal. Character profiles for the Adachi family, including physical handicaps caused by their milk deficit, were developed and can be explored by players in the Adachi crime files. Players navigate through a dark and stormy 3D environment and engage in interactive challenges to help the Adachi’s overcome their physical handicaps and break into Fort Fridge where they can steal the glass of milk. A seemingly sinister police force is in constant pursuit and the player inevitably lands in jail – specifically, in “Milkatraz” – where more games challenges lead to escape or the player can choose to contact a friend via email to aid escape by joining the game, a clever viral marketing idea.

Because the producer wanted to create a 3D environment where players would feel immersed in the action, North Kingdom began development with an actual scale model of the game environment. Once the physical model was built, a special HD camera shot video to create a “green screen” of the landscape. The video was then digitally rendered into a 3D animation which was further enhanced with layers of motion and animation for the sky and water surrounding the island using Adobe After Effects. For the user, this treatment created a cinematic camera effect, allowing the user to “hover” above the environment. Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop were used to create elements such as game cards. Multi-layered sound effects bring the environment to life with music, voice, sirens, helicopters, squealing tires, car doors and the sound of rolling dice. Adobe Flash was the enabling technology used to compress the huge 3D video files and allow progressively downloaded files. Developers used the Flash Action Script to organize and synchronize playback of animation, text, graphics and sound so that the rich, animated environment was a reasonably sized download.

Results

The Get the Glass campaign resulted in ten million more gallons of milk sold in a three month period when compared to the previous year. The website had 6 million visits and 650,000 players actually finished the game.

More information

For more details on the development process, you can visit these websites:
(1) for a video presentation by the producer (skip up to 13 minutes to get to the meat of it), visit http://labs.boulevart.be/index.php/2007/11/24/gettheglasscom-the-making-by-jorge-calleja/;
(2) for a blog with pictures from the cofounders of North Kingdom, visit http://dchpl.blogspot.com/2007/04/making-of-get-glass.html;
(3) for information on the video shoot of the scale model, visit http://www.dreamfield.se/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=133&Itemid=133;
(4) for a technical case study by Adobe, visit http://www.adobe.com/showcase/casestudies/gettheglass/casestudy.pdf; and
(5) to get an idea of the size of the team involved in this caliber of projects, see http://www.dandad.org/awards08/entry.asp?entry_id=18858.
-Lori Travers