This is a website I’ve been working on in work for a while. Those of you who who watch American Idol will be aware of the Chicago Town Ad’s either side of the breaks (or break-bumpers as they are referred to) that our sister ad agency BDH\TBWA have created.

The ‘Humdrum Idol’ campaign for the brand’s TV sponsorship of American Idol is based on the fictional town of ‘Humdrum’, the TV commercial idents feature talentless Humdrum characters auditioning for their chance of fame in front of a gob-smacked three-member judging panel.

To support this campaign, I have concepted, art directed, designed and co-produced www.humdrumidol.com, an immersive site that uses the TV panel members as part of an interactive Flash video homepage which is integrated with all offline activity.

Users can see extended, unseen TV footage and rate the auditions (like on YouTube), but a key feature of the site is user-generated content. I’ve extended the Humdrum Idol theme and set-up and online talent contest where users can upload their own audition via a customised YouTube group, and the winner can snap up a celebrity lifestyle for two in Los Angeles plus the chance to win $1million cash.

To help drive traffic there’s also a customised MySpace page, seeding on forums and talent contest websites, and online media activity using video ads.

I’ve absolutely loved working on this project, particularly the video experimentation and pre-production myself and a couple of colleagues did to work out how the interactive video would work.

It was also great working directly with the BDH\TBWA creative team and producers of the break-bumpers, who all needed direction for the filming of the real panel members in a way that could be used for the video on the homepage and on YouTube. The filming for online was done in America at the same time as the Ad’s.

Filed under: My Work on February 22nd, 2007 | No Comments »