Michael Jackson uses social media tactics to promote ‘Thriller’ 25th Anniversary Celebration!
April 16th, 2008 by Andy Merchant
Liberate Media is always on the look out for different/innovative uses of social media, and this one caught my attention the other day.
Sony BMG has teamed up with Big Stage – a media company whose technology allows users to create and integrate a life-like 3D avatar of themselves into everything from famous movie scenes, TV shows and video games, to music videos, short video clips, virtual worlds, still images, user-generated content, instant messages, emails, social networks and more – instantly. Nice idea!
The idea is for fans to easily create a life-like 3-D version of themselves that literally replaces the role of Michael Jackson in the Thriller music video – the video then gets uploaded to YouTube and you receive a link to view it. Your Thriller reincarnation can then be shared with friends by email or by posting on social networking sites such as MySpace or Facebook.
This is what J.J. Rosen, Executive Vice-President, SonyBMG Commercial Music Group has to say about the project: “Michael Jackson is an innovator and a pioneer in the music industry and so it only makes sense, as part of our anniversary celebrations for Thriller, to give fans worldwide a new way to experience the video in a way not even Michael could have imagined 25 years ago.” How true!
Looks like they have a had a little but of sucess with the idea too. A fan generated video reached the Top 25 viewed Entertainment videos on YouTube, MTV liked the My Thriller Video tool, and produced a piece with their own people staring in the video for a showcasing piece on MTV.com NewsBlog.
Check out the My Thriller video here
And view some of the YouTube videos here