Company: Symantec
Agency: Night Agency LLC
Timeframe: April to May 2006
Nobody likes to be lectured at, particularly when it comes to safe behavior online. For Symantec, the challenge in spreading a message of computer security is like a
digital double-edged sword: Trying to raise interest in the subject without coming across as a self-serving advertisement for its Norton brand of security software while trying to
connect with a seemingly stubborn audience that insists (incorrectly, of course) online security problems cannot happen to them.
Rather than go the traditional PR route, Symantec opted for something different from its usual promotional efforts: Buzz marketing in a Net-exclusive environment. The resulting
effort was the company's first venture into the realm of microsite promotions: SafetyTown.
For Scott Cohn, creative director for Night Agency LLC in New York, the genesis of SafetyTown culminated from a variety of seemingly unrelated concepts. "We were in
touch with Symantec for a couple of months and we had a number of different incarnations of an idea," he recalls. "Symantec wanted something entertaining to get buzz online; they
were not trying to tout a particular PR item. They never did online buzz marketing before and they wanted to take a crack at it."
According to Erin Hintz, Symantec's vice president of consumer marketing, the delivery of the message was critical. "We wanted to do more educating of consumers on the threats
out there," says Hintz. "But it is tough to engage people on security issues unless they are reacting to them."
Hintz and Cohn initially toyed with an idea dubbed "Gridlock Patrol," which turned the hunt for computer security intruders into a 007-style action game. But when that concept
didn't earn its license to kill, a radically different approach was taken. Instead of creating an online game, it was decided to create an online community.
As its name suggests, SafetyTown is a town - or at least it is a town in the making. The first part of this new virtual neighborhood, located at http://www.safetytown.com, is a cinema showing an original four-part movie serial called "Phished." In this production (written and
directed by Cohn), an average Joe discovers the Net-based miscreants went on a phishing trip and hooked his crucial identify information. For the course of the film, the harried
hero tracks down the villains into a series of wild and frequently weird situations.
As with the movie serials of yesteryear, "Phished" is broken into chapters that leave the audiences in cliffhanger situations. But in keeping with today's digital environment,
audiences are now part of the story - viewers have the option to determine which course of action the hero should take in his quest to stop the identity thieves from running amok
at his expense. And DVD addicts will appreciate the planting of so-called Easter Eggs on the site.
Beyond "Phished," SafetyTown's cinema also provides access at its concession stand to a sweepstakes promotion, MP3 downloads from the songs in the film, wallpaper and a link to
Symantec's software. The latter comes about in a somewhat leisurely manner, as the company and its agency specifically did not want to use SafetyTown for hard selling.
"Our goal is creating a destination site and people should not feel anything duplicitous is going on," says Cohn. "Nobody wants subliminal marketing messages."
Y'all Come Back
Cohn notes SafetyTown will evolve over time into something much more than an online movie house. "We see the concept of a scaleable town as a metaphor for the microsite," he
says. "We plan to build locations into it and grow out of a map for future marketing projects."
But don't think the movie house won't have a change of fare - another episodic film is already in the works and more are planned.
However, while future SafetyTown construction projects are still on the drawing board, a more immediate challenge was to roll up audiences for the premiere of "Phished." Night
Agency also took on the PR duties for the project and Cohn made the decision of eschewing traditional PR channels in favor on a Net-exclusive buzz.
"The PR is all online - there's no offline initiatives or media purchases," says Cohn. "We tapped into our network of 'influencers' - blogs, social networks, entertainment
sites, video aggregators and friends we made creating video content for the Web."
Night Agency's pitch was playfully off-beat, with requests to send the SafetyTown link to such opinion shapers as "your college roommate that you haven't spoken to in awhile,
your high school gym teacher with the bad breath and polyester shorts, your work friends on the floor above you that you wish you saw more, your shrink, your electrician, your
childhood penpal from Lisbon, your day-to-day buddy lists and your favorite local bartender."
Of course, some bloggers have lives beyond the Net. With that in mind, Symantec hosted a special premiere for "Phished" at the Anthology Film Archives, one of New York's
major art house cinemas. "We had hundreds of bloggers and Net influencers who saw the film in all four of its segments," says Hintz.
SafetyTown went live on May 9. Hintz reports that within two weeks the site chalked up 115,000 page visits.
"This is a really good start, right in line with what we are expecting," says Hintz, who adds visitors to SafetyTown surfed the Net from distant neighborhoods in Brazil, China,
France, Italy and Germany.
On a linguistic note, Hintz also achieved a PR understanding relating to Symantec's semantics - the project was not to be referred to as a viral promotion.
"We call it buzz marketing - since our business is based on anti-viral things," says Hintz, with a laugh.
Contacts: Erin Hintz, [email protected]; Scott Cohn, [email protected].
Lessons Learned: Maxing Your Microsite
If you are planning to create and maintain a microsite, here are some tips for directing Web traffic your way:
- You're in it for the long haul. Unless the microsite is for a short-term happening, such as a sweepstakes or a promotional tour, you will need to think of the
microsite as if it was a baby. And as with any baby, it needs constant care, attention and guidance. If the microsite is not updated continually, the intended audience will grow
bored by the stagnant contents and drift away.
- Spotlight on the microsite. At the risk of stating the obvious, the microsite needs some sort of a PR push. It could be an effective Net-exclusive viral PR campaign,
along the lines of Safetytown, or it can be a full blown PR effort going out to all major media (such as 2005 push for the microsite for Ameriquest's sponsorship of the
Rolling Stones' American tour). And don't forget to mix some search engine optimization into that mix.
- Don't go bonkers with advertising. This is especially crucial with sponsored microsites, where the companies financing the efforts demand too much visibility. If people
perceive the microsite to be little more than an advertisement, they won't come back.