Unbore Grandpa: Webcam Marketing

We were just introduced to ‘Unbore Grandpa‘, a fun site and campaign for Swedish drink ‘Festis’, in which visitors are challenged to rouse grandpa from his boredom. A live webcam features grandpa, and invites visitors to turn on their own webcams and do something – anything – to entertain grandpa. They that succeed are given – you guessed it – Festis.

The contest, which runs through the first of May, was developed by Swedish agency Åkestam Holst. The funniest moments of visitors performing for Grandpa will be archived and showcased on YouTube. Unbore Grandpa is also complemented by Unbore Anything, which is linked to Festis’ Twitter account and which promises that ‘Festis can and will unbore anything! Just tweet what you want to #unbore and we’re on it…’

It is this last part that seems to fall flat for us, as Festis isn’t really offering any original content personalized to the user’s request (at least none that we can see at this point in the campaign). They’re simply linking to a video of ‘Grandpa’ challenging the audience to unbore him. This may change with additional participation (we hope).

W+K and Old Spice’s personalized YouTube video responses have definitely set the bar for brands asking fans to challenge them with questions & participation. It’s hard NOT to expect a personalized response back.

Unbore Grandpa