Following the creation of 2008’s Telecom Tree Microsite, TOUCH/CAST were tasked with creating a new online platform for 2009, but challenged to help take it to the next level in a way that rewarded consumer engagement.
Working with a passionate Telecom team, TOUCH/CAST created a new website that not only facilitated consumers Christmas wishes to Santa, but also enabled consumers to create their own animation sequence and send it directly to either of the giant trees in either Auckland or Wellington, where it would play across the streams of LED lights at a scheduled time; a feature that helped the initiative transcend digital and physical worlds to magnify it’s footprint across multiple touch points. To ensure consumers had a memento of their few minutes of fame on the Telecom Tree an automated camera system recorded the live sequence, then the websites database matches each user with their picture, and distributes directly to both the Telecom Tree website and a dedicated FLICKR page sorting by date and time for viewing.
For TOUCH/CAST’s technical lead on the site, Jamie Ferguson, it was an intense few weeks of development;
“The Telecom Tree was a challenging project from a technical perspective in regard to getting the ‘Design a tree’ functionality working. The designs had to travel between quite a number of different processes before finally ending up on the tree at the correct time. Matching up the designs from the website with the trees proved very complex, as we had to create the animations without knowing how they would actually look on the tree – but the team on location were great at taking our designs and recreating them to work on the trees themselves.’
TOUCH/CAST’s design team also had a huge part to play in the platforms success, making Andrew Hawley, CD and Managing Director very proud; ‘ Mark created a fantastic design solution end to end in record breaking time, with Martin and Jo working around the clock to stringing together the various FLASH components. A huge team effort!’
The sheer volume of pictures on FLICKR literally illustrates just how successful Telecoms Christmas campaign has been, and the number of wishes and submitted animations demonstrates how the engaging interactive platform drove this.
