Australian end of the world movie These Final Hours is teasing audiences with a campaign which shows users what their friends might say to them on social media if the apocalypse was imminent.
Once consumers grant These Final Hours permission to access their Facebook data, it creates a series of personalised feeds, apparently from their friends.
The campaign – The Countdown – has been created by digital agency Soap Creative in collaboration with the film’s writer and director Zak Hilditch.
The film is released at the end of next month.
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The site draws on the user’s friends list to create an online experience complete with e-mail, chat interactions, Twitter (aka ‘Tweeter’) and news.
While the use of Facebook personalisation is not a new one in campaigns, the execution is 0ne of the most detailed yet seen for an Australian campaign. Soap Creative has built more than 900 pieces of unique content, including over 20 minutes of video, to create the countdown experience.
Michael Hughes, creative director at Soap, said: “The opportunity to create interactive content beyond the traditional two hour film format highlights the potential of cinema and digital working together.”
Visitors to the site are are greeted with a news broadcast featuring a fictional Australian government minister revealing that an asteroid may hit the earth in five months’ time.
The site continues to a desktop display where users can interact with a series of social media feeds personalised for them.
Complete with chat windows, Tweeter, email and news sites, the user is immersed in an online world which is reacting to the news the world is approaching catastrophe. It also provides some of the background to the film.
The email account even sends meteor-themed spam.
For more information on the impending disaster, the news application offers news updates.
The Ministry of Science’s application allows the user to monitor just how many days are left until the asteroid hits.
Calls to the Ministry of Science Asteroid Hotline – on the above number – are met with a recorded message.
And the desktop experience is completed with the end-of-the-world themed Flappy Rocket.
Miranda Ward