Project+Overview

=**Apple vs Blackberry comic spoofs **=

A) What is our topic/idea? The topic is based upon the current competitive culture of loyal mobile handset users, namely Apple’s iPhone, Research In Motion’s Blackberry, and Google’s Android platform. These three are the most dominant players within the hotly contested and constantly changing climate of smartphones. Each company has a large and loyal userbase. As such, comparisons are constantly drawn against each of the platforms capabilities, strengths, and weaknesses, thus, providing an ample amount of content to draw upon. We believe there exists an opportunity to create viral content, distributed through print and/or digital mediums, to create a buzz and participatory engagement within the population. Larger issues surrounding consumer culture, such as culture jamming, and commodity fetishism could be explored to create an original critique of the Blackberry vs. iPhone war resulting in a spoof of previous ad campaigns that have used this idea.

B) How will it go viral? The changing role of technology and the integral role that it plays in our lives today cannot be stressed enough. People seem to be enthralled by new gadgets. Moreover, brands such as Apple, Blackberry and Android have created a wave across the world. They have managed to establish a brand loyalty like no other. These technologies have a great contribution in changing the trends. It is therefore, no surprise that they are always the topic of any discussion. We base our content on the belief that the popularity of these devices and its strong brand loyalty will invoke public reaction. In addition, consumers tend to incorporate products into their identities (your personality is defined by the clothes you wear, the technology you use, the car you drive, and the music you listen to) which encourages people to share a video that is relevant to who they are as a person as represented by consumer choices.

C) Possible hurdles for viral efficiency? Considering the rapidly changing trends in the world of technology and the fact that this topic is relevant only to the current culture, it may not be considered viral in future years. We must also take into consideration, the possibility that the medium of distribution may shift (Facebook may be replaced with the next ‘big thing’) as a consequence of which, people may not participate enough in spreading the content on Facebook. Also the fact that similar products or campaigns may currently exist takes away from the originality of the content that we aim to create. Both Blackberry and the iPhone have been around long enough that there is a possibility consumers are becoming disillusioned with the products resulting in decreasing interest in content created around the two brands. However, personal devices are steadily becoming more important so the broader topic is still highly relevant.

D) How will we execute it? Overall strategy or Action plan We will execute this idea in the form of a one or more comics, which would be made viral through social networking sites such as Facebook and YouTube. The act of posting onto each user’s Wall on Facebook tends to spread content quickly throughout their infrastructure. Also, the action of “liking” particular content assists in its broadcast and distribution.

For a period of two weeks, we will monitor the content we’ve created from it’s inception to the designated production cutoff date. We will take measures to see whether our content has created a buzz and whether users have freely re-distributed our content within the Facebook ecosystem.
 * Analysis of success **

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