Neiman Labs: Tweet to Shoot
October 05, 2012
Nerf guns are very much a part of our agency’s culture. We’re also obsessed with the convergence of the digital and physical worlds. So when we had the idea to take apart our Vulcan EBF-25 and rig it to Twitter, it just made sense.
With a little help from the Twitter firehose and a couple of trips to RadioShack, we got our feet wet with microcontrollers by re-engineering the classic NES game, Duck Hunt, but with a modern social twist.
On September 13th, we launched our latest Labs initiative, Tweet to Shoot. Leveraging word-of-mouth and targeted media outreach, we saw the following results in just 2 days:
- 2,800+ people visited tweettoshoot.neimanlabs.com
- 1,600+ shots were fired using the hashtag #tweettoshoot
- A total of 52 countries participated
The project was covered by many industry publications and influential blogs including; PSFK, Creativity, The Creators Project and Agency Spy.
While the playfulness of this experiment is a fun way to demonstrate our agency’s culture, our exploration with this technology can provide some real opportunities for brand marketers.
Imagine the ability for a consumer packaged goods brand to deliver a coupon in-store, only to consumers who mention that they use the brand. The hashtag “ILoveBRANDNAME” would trigger a coupon to dispense from an end cap display. Would that differentiate a brand at the point of purchase? Would giving up margin in exchange for an endorsement, testimonial or ad be more palatable than giving a discount to everyone? Essentially the brand would be paying individuals media dollars in the form of coupons, which are only redeemable if they purchase. Sounds like a potentially promising ROI model.
Harnessing Twitter mentions is familiar territory for the Labs group. Last October, Phillies Phever monitored and displayed volume of Phillies player mentions during their short 2011 playoff run.