Not wanting to detract from the online goodness that is Wikipedia, but Wiki technology has now been put to a potentially even more exciting use. Imagination, London, have launched Meet the Joneses, a highly interactive online comedy sitcom, with Ford as the key sponsor.
Episodes are posted daily, with a variety of web 2.0 worthy ways for viewers and collaborators to get involved. The series follows Dawn and Ian, daughter and son of a prolific sperm donor, on their quest around Europe finding a potentially infinite number of siblings. Episodes are hosted at www.wherearethejoneses.com where comments can be posted to the blog, or for the more intrepid, a wiki site (http://wherearethejoneses.wikidot.com/) allows would be script writers to add, remove and edit content online, in a giant user-generated, collaborative project. Flickr, Twitter, MySpace and Facebook all provide access points to the story and characters, as well as blogs on Wordpress.
Imagination teamed with production company Baby Cow, established by side-splitting comedian Steve Coogan and writer / comedian / poet Henry Normal,
who developed the story’s key components. Suggestions posted to the
site include scripts, character treatments, and sketch ideas. The
footage makes use of the Creative Commons Licence,
which will allow bedroom-based producers to mess and mash the content
before re-uploading it to YouTube. Henry Normal, managing director of
Baby Cow Productions commented: ‘This is an exciting challenge,
exploring new ways of delivering and targeting comedy in a totally
original, interactive format. We have a great team setting out on this
adventure. We don’t know know where it will end, that’s quite literally
up to you (the Public).
Despite Ford’s involvement, most obviously through providing an S-MAX
for the Joneses to traverse the continent, the series features minimal
branding and Ford has no specific involvement in the project’s creative
output. Mark Simpson, Ford’s European director of
marketing communications commented: ‘Increasingly, consumers are
expecting to participate as creators in their own media space – WRTJ’s
gives the web community the opportunity to do this, and we are pleased
to be associated with it.’
Damian Ferrar, digital comms director at Imagination, believes: ‘WRTJ is an exciting format. We’re marrying great comedy with its audience through the innovative use of web services and consumer driven media to create a new dimension in digital experiential marketing. It’s a truly collaborative approach enhanced by an open, transparent relationship between Baby Cow and Imagination, plus Ford as our lead sponsor.’
