I’ve just been researching games, or playing them. Well. The same old… war. Focused on branded content I stumbled upon the most obvious… Clone Wars on miniclip.com and I have to admit that this particular disappointment overgrows any previous ones. Somehow Star Wars has one of the poorest brand and user experiences ever. Maybe it is because they have raped themselves so many times that it doesn’t look like an act of brutality any more. It is rather a masochistic wank, that finishes, in most unanticipated moment, on the end user(customer for those dinos in adland).
I don’t think there is much to say apart from the fact that to this section, pictured above, there are some pretty dumb forms leading. And then, with aching fingertips, once you think you can play a game… it asks you to install it and restart the browser? Not to mention double checking that you agreed to T&Cs and asking you to say yes twice! Next time maybe an interactive form that you have to shout at loud enough would tick the box once and for all.
That gives actually one good idea for a live UX experiment: pop in to my place for a tea. Any time you wanna pour more tea to your cup you’d have to go outside(in winted would be even more fun, getting dressed etc.), come back, clean up the cup and then top it up. How does it sound? Like 100k experience? Or like being fucked?
Logged in with Facebook Connect and… not much, actually haven’t seen the point till saw it 2nd time and still it was plain silly. And then, suddenly and obviously at the same time: “replay the experience“! I loved it. Not the experience because that was a cheap joke, overused tactics to get something famous(how long it’s been? 30 years!)and then rape it. I do now want to write about whores of adland nor about piggy-backing strategies in backwards creative industry. I want to just say that if one could replay an experience I would be selling my balls for it. Although the whole thing, being like a big replay, the end of it got me thinking of the word “experience”. I remember few years ago when I was using it to address issues with the lack of user/customer in communication. Just couple of people would listen and not many would care since that was the client’s wish to make it selfish and “on brand”.
This Adidas Star Wars campaign reminds me of those days when web was used as a huge speaker that brands would use to announce… well actually I mean mostly wank in public. It was great status quo for those with large budgets and speakers. They were deciding what happens on a web and how it is pronounced. Today they have to pay a man back in his own coin. It may look like social media heaved the brands back into their place. Coca-Cola drops campaign sites in favour of social media. Many understood recently that one has to be the speaker as well as a mic in order to make oneself reliable and likable(salable in other words). And now it looks like power of the speaker shifts very rapidly. User is in a centre… well actually that is the political term for something that seldom happens. Giving the user/customer too much freedom would mean that they can choose and they can be less predictable. They would wonder around having dangerous thoughts and it is easier to hit something static. Controlling them is the key and moving into social media does seem on the surface like the brands want to say: “we’re here to help”. It actually means that being there, having a piece of it, brands are be able to be closer in order to influence, peek and control behaviors.
Facebook may be saved, like all trends on the web I thought it will be replaced with something similar. This model so far works and, I think, presence of major brands will put Facebook’s head in a noose. Will make it dependent. Any decrease in user count on Facebook would mean decrease in profit through access to users. Worst case scenario: brands won’t keep the balance, masses would got bored and migrate elsewhere. Best case scenario: people got so much dependent on the platform that they wouldn’t be able to communicate otherwise, brands will get a chance to rape them all one by one. None of it is going to happen, fortunately. Something else is going to happen and it is going to be another great day and we won’t be able to replay that experience. Would a lemon like to be repeatedly squeezed?
