Brandon Generator: A Super Cool Crowdsourcing Concept for Microsoft
Posted by David Smith on Wednesday, April 25, 2012 · Leave a Comment
I’m jealous.
Two weeks ago, my friend Tommy Lee Edwards and his family came over for a cookout. Tommy is a renowned Marvel and Lucasfilm illustrator who lives in nearby Pittsboro, NC. Through his work on classic comics like Batman, Hellboy and Daredevil and an original creation, Turf, with British talk show host Jonathan Ross, he’s attracted a huge following in the US and Europe.
His following is about to get a lot bigger.
After dinner, he showed me the beta site of a new project he’s working on with Edgar Wright, co-writer and director of Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. It’s called The Random Adventures of Brandon Generator and it just may be the perfect mix of animation, short film, product demo and interactive, crowdsourced storytelling ever created.
The idea is this.
Brandon is a moody writer suffering from a bad case of writers block. After falling into a caffeine-infused coma, he awakens to find his Dictaphone, PC and notebooks filled with messages, prose and ideas he doesn’t remember creating. Where did all these ideas come from? From you, of course. Visitors to the site are invited to help Brandon finish his story by submitting illustrated characters, storylines and voice messages to a gallery on the web. The best ideas will be incorporated right into each episode – moving the story forward in the most unpredictable and entertaining ways.
The audience, in essence, becomes a surrogate for Brandon’s broken creative mind. Participants become an uncontrollable font of ideas that quite literally take over Brandon’s life and threaten his identity. This Twilight Zoney-Noir interactive experience is not only an entertaining ride, it’s a great vehicle to demonstrate Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 9 and what it can do for HTML5.
Kudos to Tommy and Edgar executing the hell out of this idea and to Microsoft and 3 Monkeys for letting them do it the right way. Check it out - The Random Adventures of Brandon Generator.
David Smith is an integrated creative director with over 20 years of experience developing multi-channel branding campaigns for B2C and B2B clients in a wide range of industries. Before founding Immortology, David was the Executive Creative Director of Carton Donofrio Partners in Baltimore where he helped the 47-year-old agency retool its creative and strategic offerings. Previous to Carton Donofrio Partners, he was co-founder, CCO and EVP of The Republik, one of the first true performance-based agencies and Web 2.0 pioneers. His on and offline work for the agency has been the subject of dozens of articles, broadcasts and case studies.
Brandweek named his campaign for Palladium Shoes one of its 12 Best Guerrilla Campaigns of The Year in 2006. Not bad, considering, Palladium had a microscopic budget compared to the other brands recognized. His contagious videos for Triumph Boats have been seen by millions of people around the world and have been covered by The New York Times, Inside Edition, and truTV. In a seven-page feature on Triumph’s advertising, Boating Magazine said, “Triumph makes the best commercials in boating.” Time wrote a feature story on his branding campaign for Fayetteville, NC and most recently his online movement, stoptheadness.org, won the 4A’s most transformative idea of the year for Carton Donofrio Partners.
Unlike his name, David Smith’s career has been anything but ordinary. During his 20+ years as a copywriter and creative director, he’s had the pleasure (and pain) of working with celebrities like Bruce Willis, James Brown, Robin Leach, Gary Coleman, Tom Jones and an unruly 1,500 lb. grizzly bear named Koda. Before founding The Republik, David was Group Creative Director, Senior Partner at J. Walter Thompson’s flagship office in NY. While there, he won the coveted Bermuda Department of Tourism account, brought Lipton Brisk back from the dead and launched Smirnoff Ice, the most successful new product introduction in United Distillers and Vintners’ history.
At legendary agencies Ammirati & Puris and BBDO, he created groundbreaking and award-winning work for Nikon, Pepsi, Aetna, RCA and Frito-Lay. The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, LA Times, Adweek and Ad Age have all written articles about his ads. Time called his launch campaign for RCA’s Digital Satellite System, the most effective new product launch of 1995. His TV spots have been featured stories on Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood, and CNN/FN. His website concepts have been selected multiple times by Communication Arts as their Web Picks of the Week. From Gold Clios to a One Show Pencil, David has won virtually every creative award the industry offers. The Museum of Modern Art included one of his Lipton Brisk commercials in its permanent collection, Graphic Design USA selected him as one of their “people to watch in 2003” and he recently judged the One Show’s 2011 international radio competition.
David lives in Chapel Hill, NC with his wife Zuzana and their two children, Isabella and J. Allen.
