For T-Mobile, a pair of celebrity-ridden commercials -- one of them starring ever-overexposed reality star Kim Kardashian -- wasn't enough for Super Bowl XLIX. It also created an online experience to go with the Kardashian ad, one with a cleverly interactive twist.
In the on-air version of the ad, where Kardashian laments the photos of her that will never be viewed on phones that don't have T-Mobile's Data Stash, viewers are encouraged to visit kimsdatastash.com. Once there, a visitor can connect their Twitter account to see a "personalized" video message from Kim herself.
[seealso slug="chelsea-handler-sarah-silverman-t-mobile-super-bowl"]
You see her type out a tweet, hit send and wink at the camera. Right then, the viewer will get a tweet from T-Mobile's account (@tmobile), complete with a selfie from her personal collection and marked with the hashtag #KimsDataStash.
Of course, the whole thing's automated (unless your name's Kanye, the real Kim isn't actually tweeting at you), and you're getting one of 10 different shots that Kim picked out for the promotion. But here's the "aha" moment: In the video, when Kim is about to send off her tweet, you'll see your Twitter handle in a close-up of Kim's phone, shown as realistically as if it had actually been in the shot. According to Tool, the production company behind the ad, the whole thing -- from first click to getting the tweet -- should take less than 20 seconds.
Dynamically generated video isn't new. It's been around since Adobe Flash was the online video standard, but it's gotten less common since then, and has rarely, if ever, been used for a project on this scale: T-Mobile's ad agency, Big Fuel, is expecting in excess of 7 million people to experience the video during the game. More than 5,000 servers are supporting the proprietary software used and the site itself.
Yes, Twitter has been warned and is ready to sustain sending out millions of tweets from a single account. If all goes well, this will mark the second time Kim Kardashian has failed to break the Internet.