Animal Planet
Hillbilly Handfishin' - Rich Media
In a world ...where catfish, have developed a taste for human a flesh, humans have become the bait! Well OK, not really, but this is TV so that sounds more interesting - right? The truth is these fresh water beasts lurk in the shadowy depths of deep water rocks and crevices and when threatened they defend themselves the only way they know how which is to CHOMP down on any intruder with the force of a spring-loaded vice grip and not let go. This was a lightbulb moment for someone who thought "hey... let me catch one of these things by sticking my toes and fingers down there" - brilliant! And just like that a new sport was born.
So given the importance of fingers as bait, the rich media campaign really was a no-brainer. Use the web link finger as the "finger food" (sorry but you knew that was coming). The user rolls over as challenged by the sign and BAM that sucker chomps down and take you for a virtual death roll. After a few seconds we emerge from the muddy water wrestling our beast into submission and then cut to sneak peek highlights from the show. By experiencing the show first-hand we created a memorable, shareable experience for a show that would have taken much longer to explain. We told the story of the show with the user as our main character. Participatory storytelling = highly shareable experiences.