Tuesday, January 24, 2012

How Sweet It Is: New Twitter Followers Activate U.K. Agency's Rube Goldberg-Esque Gumball Chute

In the marketing profession, we see a ton of innovative, clever, and creative ideas (after all, that's at we're paid TO DO, right?) every day. Now, admittedly, some are much better than others. Hey, just because we said they're innovative or creative doesn't mean that they're quality, or that they hit the mark! :) In any case, this is one of the more on-target creative concepts we've seen in a while.

As reported in this piece on Adweek's AdFreak blog, U.K. brand communications agency Uniform has created a fun...and rather elaborate and whimsical...gumball machine  dubbed Sweet Tweet ― which spits out a sphere every time a user follows the company on Twitter. The machine, which is activated when the user clicks "follow," then sends a jumbo gumball down a winding chute complete with twists, turns, drops, jumps, ramps, and even multiple 360-degree loops directly into the agency's studio. In return, Uniform automatically sends out an @reply to the new follower with a link to the following video of the machine in action.

According to Uniform's future director Pete Thomas, "We wanted to create a physical app that connected our studio to our Twitter followers, raising awareness and alerting us all to each new follower." The agency specializes in creating real-world Internet-enabled experiences, so the Rube Goldberg-esque contraption seems to reinforce that positioning and expertise.

Give Sweet Tweet a whirl by checking out the video below of the gumball machine as it goes to work:

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