The Premise
So this year my medical animation company — Scientific Animations — started an app division to develop consumer and custom apps that leverage our 3D graphics and our healthcare expertise. We scoured through the app landscape and a lot of crowdfunding sites like kickstarter and indieGoGo looking for ideas of things we could do better in the healthcare space.
What we found was an industry of cool explainer videos. After days of crawling our app dev, one of our animators and our digital marketing manager decided to take a break and create a fun little explainer video as a spoof for a fake app called AutoPilot that allows you to control your own and other peoples minds.
see the auto pilot spoof below: (make sure the HD toggle on FB is turned on)
The Problem
Over 50% of the first 100 people thought the app was real. This is being generous, because we prefaced most of our communication with words like spoof video and fake app. We tested further: we asked a programmer who used to work for us to share the video and he got five congratulation phone calls. One of the people who saw the video actually asked us what “our funding situation was” and whether there was an “open round”.
SO NOW WHAT?
We’re trying to figure out what this means and what to do with the info. We brainstormed a list to start. Would love to know community thoughts.
What insight one might be able to draw:
- People think technology can solve absolutely anything
- There is a bubble in crowd funding for apps
- We’re not up to date with the latest in mind control technology
- People don’t pay attention to content (specially written and even spoken) when there are moving pictures
- Our mind control app video worked like the app itself
- There is no insight. it doesn’t mean anything.
What do we do now?
- Change the video to make it more of a spoof ?
- Release on crowd funding and see how much money we can raise (we’ll give it back of course)
- Shut down the app division because the space is too crowded; maybe start an explainer video division.
- Take the experiment further somehow to see how far it can go.
- Use this as a recruiting tool to excite potential talent who wants to work on challenging projects.
- Let it go, it’s just one of those things.
Thanks in advance.
Girish
asha chaudhry
my first reaction –
“People don’t pay attention to content (specially written and even spoken) when there are moving pictures”
in the sense, there is an overload of content that sometimes we really don’t pay as much attention as we should!
i’ll let others react to this curious case of fake app spoof video!
but pls don’t do a crowdfunding campaign – the damage to your image will be irreversible (even if u return the money) – it’s not worth the lafda involved!!!
Pallavi Chowdhry
This is so cool…just hilarious. Great spoof.
I think it will be really funny to do it as a fake crowd funding project, but yes I also have to agree with Asha on the flip-side of it.
Maybe, you should reach out to IndieGoGo or Kickstarter for it, to do it as an April fool’s spoof. That could be brilliant.
I think its the continuous leap in technology which may have made a lot of people think this is real. Its like with technology anything is possible, and with the explosion in the apps space, its more like with apps you can do anything and everything…
Girish Khera
Thanks Pallavi
Girish Khera
So the joke is on us !
We spoofed technology and it spoofed us right back! Turns out there is a wearable tech mind altering app and it has raised 13m from Vinod Khosla no less.
http://www.thync.com – for those that are interested
Alok Rodinhood Kejriwal
But I think you can do anything with your mind?
Seriously !!
Haven’t you watched Yoda?