Social Hollywood: The Beauty Inside

I think I can speak for us all that at one point or another we have wondered what it would be like to be the main character of a movie. This is the key insight for “The Beauty Inside” a global social film collaboration by Toshiba and Intel starring Topher Grace and Mary Elizabeth Winstead and potentially, YOU! This campaign was brought to my attention by a fellow Temple Advertising student and good friend Holly Furman who strongly believes in inspiring others to do good advertising. It’s one of the things I like most about being an ad major here are Temple, we are a group of young professionals giving advice, getting advice, and sharing inspiring ideas. When she sent me the link to this social film I needed to investigate the topic a little more and this is the amazing story that I found “The Beauty Inside” campaign had to deliever.

Starting from the beginning I really wanted to understand what is a social film is. So I broke it it down. The “social” part refers to the projects presence on social media outlets, in this case Facebook. When “film” is added in, this indicates the Hollywood-class entertainment that started on August 16th and is brought to you weekly. The concept for this social film follows Alex a guy who wakes up every morning in a different body than the day before. Each day is a completely unique experience filled with new tasks, new people, and new looks. Alex remains the same on the inside but very different on the outside.

Intel and Toshiba are asking the Facebook community to help put together this series of episodes along with Alex’s story on Facebook. Maybe today Alex looks just like you and so its your chance to star as Alex for the day by auditioning via The Beauty Inside Facebook page auditions tab. The launch video explains Alex’s strange disorder and gives a background of his personality letting the viewer encompass Alex’s character traits. Then it’s up to you to bring Alex to life by auditioning with a video diary entry using your webcam. After your audition is received it is judge by Facebook “likes” to see which entries will be selected. Not a video person? They’ve got you covered. You can submit a picture of you as Alex which may appear on the Facebook Timeline as him for that day.

Auditions for Alex opened on July 24, 2012 and end on September 13, 2012 and are reviewed by the very talented director, Drake Doremus and a team of casting directors. By auditioning you are given a choice of  audition outlines which explain an Alex scenario. From there you have to delve deep into your inner actor or actress to record an epic audition straight from in front of your webcam being sure not to forget Alex’s signature last line, “That’s all for me.” I love this idea because it really gets the Facebook community involved rather than just liking a product page. It puts the users in an important role and really gets everyone excited about what Alex’s laptop captures each day.

Alex’s entire creative diary endeavor is powered by his Toshiba Portege Ultrabook which is “Thin enough to go anywhere. Powerful enough to hold a life story.” This tagline is extremely important to the campaign because it outlines the product benefits along with the emotions of Alex’s story. The Facebook page for this social film also allows its Facebook followers to get discounts on Alex’s laptop choice along with details about the computer and how you can own one yourself. The title of this social film also translates well because it in a way mirrors Intel’s tagline of “Intel Inside”. This creates synergy in the users mind that the Intel Processor that powers the computer relates to the “Beauty Inside” of Alex’s true personality despite his ever changing outside appearance.

This campaign is also perfect for its targeted demographic, students who are in school and love the creative aspect of social media and computer projects. It gets them interested and then participating and in the final stages hopefully purchasing their very own Toshiba laptop. If you interested in becoming Alex for a day the auctions are still open and there is still 3 unreleased episodes left! Watch the official trailer and then take a look at “The Beauty Inside” Facebook page to really understand Alex and his disorder!

“Thats all for me!”