My Flickr
Jan
21
Yes, I am Precious
Filed Under Copywriting, LIVESTRONG, Personal Projects | Leave a Comment
YESIAMPRECIOUS.COM was conceived by BREAKFAST NY as a way to follow Precious the bike as he traveled across the USA in 2010. They built Precious a real brain, and while I wasn’t involved in the concepting or design of the site, my job was to fill that brain with the thoughts (above) that ended up on Twitter. Actually, if you think about it, I really powered the site. Literally! With my damn legs! HA!
This project did what I think any good digital project should do for any brand – tell a rich and compelling story. I essentially wanted to tell the story of my trip through my own blog and twitter, but then have Precious give a different POV and experience of that story. BREAKFAST sure took care of that wish. At the same time, we wanted to raise some dough for LIVESTRONG along the way, and that worked out pretty well.
Brief summary of the pieces and my involvement:
THE BRAIN/SITE
The brain, inside a box that sat in a bag under the bike seat, was loaded with bunch of sensors. These sensors measured things like temperature, speed, gradient, location and heading. All of this data formed the basis for readings on the site, while certain manual things would be ‘pinged’ in by me as I saw them (roadkill is a good example). I would also upload a new photo from the road every day to keep the background fresh and the site looking awesome. If you want to know how the brain worked, there’s a case study by BREAKFAST, and I also made an ‘on the road’ video talking about how it worked and what I did every day.
When certain criteria were met – a certain temperature, a GPS position – the system would would reach deep into the brain, find a thought that matched that criteria and send it out to all Precious’s followers on Twitter. I wrote all those tweets well in advance (examples above), and created the personality of Precious (more examples here). In essence, I was the copywriter and brand manager. :)
THE CAUSE
The site provided a direct link to donate. Milestones were also set up in the system to send out donation-based tweets when certain financial goals were met, as a way to encourage followers to get involved. During the course of the ride, Precious raised over $7,500 for LIVESTRONG and also got a shoutout from Lance on Twitter. Not too shabby. (It should be noted that this was a PERSONAL project on behalf of LIVESTRONG. They didn’t have anything to do with it, beyond Lance giving it a tweet after it was live.)
THE OTHER STUFF
Precious has essentially become a brand in his own right. As part of my Kickstarter Project, I made a ‘book of Precious’ for backers. The “Yes, I am Precious” book is now available to buy for anyone who became a fan of Precious during the trip, either on Twitter or on his Facebook page. He still tweets – mostly about how I don’t take him out of the house very much.
This is the book below. Buy it!
FREE FLAT RATE SHIPPING offer codes (expire Jan. 31, 2011)
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