When Dr. Evilofthaug announced his sinister plan to poison the world and hold the only antidote ransom for $100 billion, there was only one thing to do: a league of extraordinary popular characters banded together to save the day.
That’s the plot of a fictitious movie created by the local branch of the real company called Trace Associates. Trace, an environmental consulting firm, does not generally see itself as a major movie production studio. Instead, it was all part of a larger effort to capture some social media attention and help out a worthy cause at the same time.
Darrell Haight, co-founder and president, said that they decided to grab a piece of a new marketplace by launching several social media sites.
“We just see that as the future to engage with your clients and your potential staff and your peers really. We wanted to be at the forefront of that, and also incorporate a little bit of fun and creativity and uniqueness into our business and marketing.”
And so the environmental company that normally cleans up spills and reclaims contaminated land posed all 60 of its employees across its five offices with the idea.
“When we wanted to release our Facebook page and LinkedIn and all that kind of stuff, we came up with the idea to launch it with this social media contest.”
Staff members were allowed only a day or two to develop, script, shoot, edit and produce an end product. Six videos were produced in total but ‘SNEAK PREVIEW Apocalyptium 2013’ received the most number of hits.
The winning video was produced by the St. Albert office. It’s a pop culture pastiche featuring the likes of Mary Poppins, a Stormtrooper, Katniss Everdeen, James Bond, Superman, Mrs. Incredible, Dr. Evil, Harry Potter, Princess Leia and a Mighty Morphin Power Ranger.
The group not only won bragging rights but also received $1,000 to give to the charity of its choice. The team members chose to give it to the St. Albert Food Bank and Community Village.
Haight said that the contest has proven to be a huge success for all of the attention it has been getting.
“It exceeded my expectations, vastly. When I go to conferences … it probably takes up 10 to 15 per cent of my conversation time.”
This was the second year for the contest. Last year’s winner was called “Team Trace Funky Fresh”, a parody of rap music videos. Despite the low budgets and amateur actors, the end results aren’t bad. Does this mean that Trace might look to Hollywood in the near future?
With tongue in cheek, Haight said that Trace is strictly for the environmental, not entertainment.
“There’s no business opportunity for us. We’re pretty focused on what we’re doing. We might expand it some day to include suppliers just to raise a little bit more for charity. Right now we just want to keep it internal and just have fun with it and donate some money to some good charities along the way.
All of the entries can be viewed on Trace’s Youtube channel at www.youtube.com/user/traceassociates/videos.
“There’s some pretty funny ones there.”
People can check out the company’s other social media sites on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
