Terminate a Mate
Virgin 1
Issue 7 | July 2008
Agency
20:20 London
Creative Team
Matt Bennett – Copywriter;Will Battersby – Art Director;Peter Riley – Creative Director
Production Team
Incentivated
Other Credits
Jo Szpunar - Account Director;Mark Riley - Planner
Date
February 2008
Background
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles is a high adrenaline, special-effects action series based on the story from the Terminator 1 and 2 movies. The star of the show is still the iconic Terminator and the relentless path of destruction caused as it seeks out John Connor and anyone else deemed to be a link to the future. To promote the show in the run up to the UK premiere on digital channel Virgin 1, the campaign needed to reflect this action and give the audience a real taste of the future.
Idea
20:20 London created a mobile campaign that allowed users to 'send' a Terminator to a friend's mobile that searches them out and pinpoints their exact location using the mobile network's global positioning system.
Rich media banners and overlays drove users to www.terminate-a-mate.com, where they could activate the Terminator to locate their friends. Users could send a personalised video message, warning their friends that the Terminators were tracing them. As the film plays, a Terminator hacks into the phone, using its GPS technology to pinpoint the recipient’s exact position, in real time. It even shows you your name. Via a WAP site, recipients could then send on a personalised mobile message to the Terminator’s next target.
Results
More than 20% of visitors to the site went on to send the mobile film and 'terminate-a-mate'. The campaign generated comment across fan sites and forums and videos were uploaded to YouTube, Yahoo! and Google. The first episode of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles became Virgin 1's best ever audience, helping in its move to position the channel as the number one male channel in pay TV.
Target Audience
Mostly male target audience of 16 to 39-year-olds. Hard core or mainstream fans of sci-fi and the Terminator franchise, as well as early adopters of new technology.
Our Thoughts
Another great bit of work from one of the UK’s most innovative agencies. Peter Riley never uses technology for the sake of it. It is always subservient to the idea and here the idea is that the Terminator knows exactly where you are. You have been warned.