Eric is the CEO of Break Media Group
If all those great sorority-slasher horror movies of yesteryear were remade today, they would surely involve smart phones and the villain stalking coeds Facebook status updates announcing “So excited to be alone at the lake with Billy.”
Laughable B-movie schlock? Not so much. Facebook privacy and security is such a hot topic right now that a a customized horror movie starring “a lovely Facebook stalker” is the runaway viral video hit of the week.
The spooky just-in-time for Halloween video starts when you visit www.takethislollipop.com. At the site you are asked to do what every single young child in North America is warned not to do, you guessed it…take a lollipop from a stranger. After you’ve done the unthinkable, the application mines your Facebook account, pictures, updates, news feeds and uses them all to create a cyber-stalking horror movie with you (us!) as the hunted. The stalker, a twitchy computer letch, gets increasingly agitated as he reviews our information and then finally pulls up Google Maps and finds directions to where we are from geographic data contained in our profile. He tapes a profile picture to the dashboard and off he goes – after his next victim…you or me!
It really picks at that great unspoken scab of fear about online privacy and misuse. The proof is how quickly and broadly it’s gone viral: 30,000 Facebook “likes” in the first 24 hours. The app, which has been live for just a few days, has been shared numerous times across social networks. On Twitter, a word which commonly pops up in connection with the app is “creepy”.
Jason Zada, a television and music director who developed the video thinks the site is generating so much traffic because it plays on people’s insecurities. “When you see your personal information in an environment where you normally wouldn’t, it creates a strong emotional response,” he said. “It’s tied into the fears about privacy and personal info that we have now that we live online.”
“Take This Lollipop” is an interesting concept and highlights other social media, marketing and gaming uses. “The format itself is a great showcase for the potential of socially-enabled, seamlessly interactive video as genre entertainment. Here it’s horror, but the device would work in another context and genre. Of course if this is meant to be a public service message about privacy, it may be a little counterproductive–the video does nothing so much as demonstrate the entertaining upside of making your life an open book,” said Fast Company‘s Joe Berkowitz.
The potential applications for user-inclusive marketing and gaming is literally endless. Who wouldn’t want to watch themselves in their own custom video?
There’s more uses out there. There always is.
What message would you want to shout to the world?
What campaign could you see your brand involved in?