Work for Will
AT&T Lumia 920
Issue 27 | June 2013
Agency
BBDO Atlanta
Creative Team
Chief Creative Officer David Lubars Executive Creative Director Jeff Spillane Heather Gorman Associate Creative Director Rick Williams Marcel Yunes Senior Art Director Chris Cavalieri Copywriter Jeremy Postaer
Production Team
Agency Producer Diane Hill EVP, Director of Digital Strategy Mark Himmelsbach Director of Digital Strategy Rebecca Nadilo VP, Director of Digital Production Matt Silliman Senior Strategist Harley Jebens Interactive Design Manager Thao Damiano Interactive Producer Andre Heckstall Production Company Caviar Producer Geoff MacLean Director Jonathan Krisel
Date
November 2012
Background
AT&T wanted to launch the Nokia Lumia 920, a new Windows 8 Phone.
The new interface had Live Tiles you could customise to bring you everything you need right when you needed it. It was, in short, like the ultimate personal assistant.
But in the age of iPhone dominance, getting people to switch to the Lumia 920 was not going to be easy. In order to sell it, people needed to try it.
Idea
Work for Will was a demonstration of the phones capabilities disguised as the ultimate job interview. The gig: to be the real assistant of celebrity actor, Will Arnett.
To get the interview, all visitors to the site had to do was build a phone. The experience generated a personalised interview, based on the Lumia 920 the visitor customised. Since the phone was an extension of their personalities and interests, Will used it to decide if they were worthy of the job.
Results
Work for Will was an enormous success. Nearly a million visitors spent over 32,000 hours engaging with the site – which was essentially a virtual phone demo.
Though only one lucky applicant got the job, the real winner was AT&T. The Lumia 920 became AT&T’s topselling Windows 8 Phone, media traffic was nearly 4x the average, and social share rates were double the benchmark making the Lumia 920 almost as famous as Will.
Our Thoughts
The site is already down, which is a pity because the real joy of this idea is in the deftness of the writing. It may well be an interactive, online experience but there was a copywriter at work here, who had a lot of fun.
“I’m Will Arnett, international slash regional superstar…”
“When I say I’m gonna let you take this puppy out for a test drive, I don’t mean a puppy…”
This is just ‘The Apprentice’ but funny. And with nicer people.
And when I say ‘just’, I don’t mean to be remotely patronising or disparaging because this is a great demonstration of old-style craft skills, which are still essential if you want to capture the imagination and hold the attention.