To promote KFC’s new Flavor Station, which allows customers to have their chicken wings dipped in the sauce of their choice–say two wings that are Sweet & Spicy while the rest are Fiery Buffalo or Honey BBQ–creatives at Foote Cone & Belding (FCB), Chicago, have created ChooseYourSauce.com.
The home page of the site features the view from an office cubicle with the traditional accessories: the standard PC, phone, Post-its and calendar. But, in this scene, the Post-it has a note that says “I ♥ Chicken” and the computer’s screen rotates still images of people from a story that is about to unfold.
Clicking on the monitor allows the site’s visitor to start his adventure and the story begins. The characters in the videos are office workers and the tone is not unlike the television show The Office or the film Office Space. But, in this comedy, you are a character in the action because you choose the path the story will take like the old choose-you-own adventure books. With a target audience of 18-30 year old males, this main character is, however, a man.
The camera moves about from your point of view and people talk directly to you (at the camera). You choose your path by selecting one of three options as the story progresses: the solid choice/Honey BBQ, the daring choice/Fiery Buffalo or the wild card choice/Sweet & Spicy. “Choose a flavor and choose your destiny — You’re in charge now,” the instructions explain.
THE DRAMA UNFOLDS
In the first scene, the boss, Mr. Waldowitz, comes by your cubicle while you are chatting with a co-worker to dump some work in your lap. After that, you make your first choice in developing the story. Continuously making the solid choice is the quickest way to “die,” art director Alex Zamiar explained using a video game reference. Though he said this site has elements of a short film, sitcom and video game, he points out, “I didn’t want it to be like a video game. I wanted it to be an interactive sitcom.”
Kohl Norville of Z Group Films, Chicago, directed the 70-plus scenes showcased on the site over a weekend in FCB’s offices. “What we basically wanted to do was give the illusion of infinity–that there is an infinite amount of choices and there kind of really are. There are certain places in the story where it will take you all the way back to the beginning and then the choices you make are going to be different this time,” Zamiar noted. Group creative director on this project and executive creative director of emerging platforms David Jones said the storyline board was without exaggeration 17 feet long.
“Every time you make a choice, you split off into three different alternate realities so it was incredibly deep and rich and terrifying and intimidating as far as the size of this idea and the randomness of where it goes. So they went a little nuts and I kind of dug that,” Jones said. Jonathan Richman and Larry Koplow served as copywriters. In addition to Zamiar, Stephen Spring was also art director on the project.
As the story progresses, participants may encounter two viral elements. One is an e-mail that you can send to a friend with components from the site and the second is a Mad Libs-style document. The latter allows you to fill in the blanks in a script and have a computerized voice call a friend and read that custom-made message to him. The last feature can also be accessed by clicking on the “I ♥ Chicken” note once you have begun your adventure.
THE RIGHT APPROACH
From a practical standpoint, the office setting was ideal; it worked well with the agency’s limited budget and tight timeline. From a creative standpoint it was clever because the environment is likely to be similar to many of the Web site visitors’ own surroundings. “We knew that the people using this were going to be at work — how funny is it that you’re at work not doing work watching someone at work not doing work,” Zamiar related.
Besides its entertaining qualities, Jones explained that this project is about empowerment. That concept is reflected in the product as well as the platform. Both put the customer, or Web surfer, in control.
On why Norville was the right choice for the project, Zamiar commented on his enthusiasm while Jones pointed to the helmer’s experience. “[Kohl] was at the perfect moment in his career, in that he was young enough and therefore foolish enough to think that this was possible to pull this off and old enough and mature enough to actually get it done once he committed to doing it,” Jones humorously related. “An older, more seasoned director would probably, rightly so, say you can’t possibly get this done for the time and for the money. A younger one would promise us everything and then be unable to deliver; he was at the right moment.”
Though there are approximately 70 scenes on the site, Norville shot an estimated 90 in a matter of days. Additionally Jones related that the director’s prior experience working at an agency gave him a deep understanding of the client’s leap of faith with this endeavor.
Norville also makes an appearance in the live action while wearing a chicken suit. This surely is a testament to Jones’ comment that the helmer embraced the “randomness and fun of the project.”