Ok, so I'm a pimp

My friend Jenne's husband, Steve, who works here at Barkley, cobbled this photo together.  And not because I'm talking about another Barkley client on this blog.  But the suit seems to fit, and I thought it was a funny picture.

Well I wouldn't be talking about this client unless I thought they were doing something interesting.

If you've never seen the Sonic Drive-In commercials we do, they're great.  I say that without hesitation.  Not because they've won a bunch of awards (they have) or because they set new creative standards (they did).  I like them because they've produced results for the client.

Everyone knows Sonic commercials because of Pete and TJ, the odd dudes who sit in a car in a Sonic stall talking all manner of nonsense.

Since coming up with the Pete and TJ concept, we've not used them in a web application...until this year.

Our team just launched a very funny, very sticky interactive site called "Make TJ Drink."  (TJ is the blonde guy).  Users can select any of 168,000 + drink combinations, and then make TJ drink them.  He and Pete then comment on the choice.

I asked one of our creative team members why we built the site:

"The two guys have been wildly popular on television, but they've never made it online. People either love or hate these guys, but they absolutely love to talk about them either way. Online was the perfect channel to give people more time with them - actually have them interact with the two guys a bit. Beyond that, this is in support of the Ultimate Drink Stop message Sonic is using this summer. They have new capabilities at Sonic - a new drink machine that can make more flavors or combinations than ever before. We combined the two and hilarity ensues."

Our success measure here, according to our creative team, is time spent on the site.  We want people to spend more than 2 minutes per visit.  It seems to be working; current visit times are averaging 6 minutes.

Other than that, our success measures are a little bit squishy, but we don't have any history with something like this for Sonic, so they're bound to be.  What I like about it is that we have a solid-enough relationship with Sonic that they're letting us try something new. 

I do wish there were other things we could do to interact with them, like a "Make-TJ-Chug" button (I see him slamming the drink, spilling it all over himself, then getting a massive brain freeze).  Or it would be cool if we could type in commands, a la Subservient Chicken. 

"Throw the drink on Pete" would be a funny one.  Or "scream out the window at the Carhop" would be cool too.  Of course, we'd open ourselves up to some things I'm sure the client wouldn't want TJ and Pete doing (use your imagination).  But we could just default those types of commands to a certain action (like TJ and Pete finger-wagging a "no, no, no...that's not nice," kind of reponse).

But I wasn't involved in this project at all, so it's easy for me to throw out ideas that someone has already vetted.  Anyway, I'm predicting people, and the client, will like this project in the end.

I'd love to hear what you think.

Comments

[Jodie]

Love the pic! I played around with the site. My fav. was when TJ told me "slap the rhino and ride this baby home!" My son missed around on it for about 10 minutes but he thought it needed something else you could make them do. He is thinking....

[John Wagner]

Jeff ... love the pic.

The Sonic commercials are great. But my favorite couple is the man and woman. They are hilarious.

I wrote about the one with the phrase "meat-based dressings" here:

http://wagnercomm.blogspot.com/2005/07/memo-to-new-sonic-cmo-keep-couple.html

[Jeff Risley]

Glad you guys like the commercials. They do get a lot of attention...more positive than negative, I think.

[Wendy]

I had fun mixing the drinks. Fun stuff. This is a great extention, I agree.

And the photo of you is awesome!

[Cammicam]

i love your comments and thoughts...very cool site...wish i could watch the first commercial that aired on tv, though! :)

[LandonSandy]

Is there anywhere to get the commercials on-line. I saw the one about moms being the only fan of blogs, hit close to home, and I would love to know where i could link to it. Great make TJ drink site by the way.

Landon