Euro RSCG Worldwide Launches a Twitter First -- Holiday Elves Who Know if You've Been Naughty or Nice

NEW YORK, Dec. 14, 2011 /PRNewswire/ --

As the year end encroaches
And the festive season approaches
The doors of Elf Office open.
With a smile and some cheer,
Bearing gifts they appear,
Bearing joy to all who are chosen.

As the holiday season kicks into high gear, Euro RSCG Worldwide, Socialistic (a Havas equity share agency), and the Philter Phactory have come together to create the festive "Elf Love Project." Through the "Elf Love" initiative, Twitter users can nominate up to five of their favorite followers to receive holiday cheer and special treatment from a group of festive elves by visiting www.elflove.com.

Created by a team of copywriters, art directors, technologists, and academics, the elves are composed of a team of human writers and their code-based digital companions. These digital companions are a world first for a social media campaign—through their digital companion construct, these elves exist independent of their creators. Their elfish behavior is all thanks to the creation of a predetermined digital narrative, which the elves act out as they learn about and interact with the participants.

"Euro RSCG are always experimenting with new ways to use social media platforms to engage users," said Lee Garfinkel, Co-Chairman of Euro RSCG New York and Chief Creative Officer of Global Brands Euro RSCG Worldwide. "Whilst the Elf Love Project is fun and playful on the surface, it's the amazing digital technology behind it all which is groundbreaking. The capability of the digital companions to interact with users is quite simply extraordinary, and points to the near-future of social marketing."

Once nominees receive a tweet from a human greeter elf letting them know that they have been selected to receive VIP treatment for the day, the rest of the elves, including Dazzle, Crankle, and Dots, come out to play. Operating in the local time of the participant and using the participant's social media profile to learn their personality and interests, the endearing elves then get to work delivering customized content using a combination of the Hunch API and narrative algorithms. Some may write original blog posts, fun holiday songs, holiday posters, and recipes for participants to read; others may connect participants who are like-minded, keep an eye on the latest celebrity Foursquare check-ins, and, most important: make charitable donations on the participant's behalf. After all, spreading joy during the festive season is serious elf business.

With a simple opt out command from the nominee, in the form of a "shoo" reply Tweet, the Elves will say goodbye and wish the nominee a "Happy Holiday."

"'The Elf Love Project' is a fascinating piece of R&D for Socialistic. In partnership with Philter Phactory, we have developed a piece of advertising technology for Twitter that can be used to localize language for global brands, retweet relevant news for a brand audience in partnership with a Brand Community Manager, or offer customer service interactions for retailers, automotive dealerships, or CPG Companies," said Colleen DeCourcy, CEO & Founder, Socialistic. "Developing things like the elves, creatively and technologically, helps us to offer more tangible ways forward to our clients working in the social media space."

The Elf Love Project is brought to you by Euro RSCG Worldwide, written and designed by Socialistic and built by Philter Phactory.

About Euro RSCG Worldwide
Euro RSCG Worldwide is a leading integrated marketing communications agency and was the first agency to be named Global Agency of the Year by both Advertising Age and Campaign in the same year. Euro RSCG is made up of 233 offices in 75 countries and provides advertising, marketing, corporate communications, and digital and social media solutions to clients including Air France, Charles Schwab, Citigroup, Danone Group, IBM, Kraft Foods, Lacoste, Merck, PSA Peugeot Citroen, Reckitt Benckiser, Sanofi, and Volvo. Euro RSCG Worldwide is the largest unit of Havas, a world leader in communications (Euronext: HAV.PA) (Paris: HAV.PA).

About Socialistic

Socialistic is a content design and social media studio that helps people and brands interact socially with the things they care about. Socialistic delivers a unique approach to social media modeling which allows the design and deployment of accountable programs that harness mobile and social technologies in support of a clear, single, focused goal. The Socialistic studio crafts unique applications for mobile, social media platforms, socially connected digital OOH, retail environments, and publishing, and houses a newsroom of writers and journalists whose expertise in content marketing  and community management will keep brand content relevant and visible across the social ecosystem 365 days a year using its proprietary brand publishing process and tools. Socialistic works with clients such as Fast Company, Showtime, and Clinique to build the social experience. 

About Philter Phactory

Philter Phactory is a software company experimenting with a range of possibilities enabled by the discovery of the infomorph species. The elves at www.elflove.com are a custom-built species of informorph - they have been nurtured to understand Christmas in an elvish way. Infomorphs are virtual bodies made of information who re-purpose and remix Social Media streams through a process called Narrative Filtering. Using public Web APIs and custom data filter designs (a mix of narrative techniques and statistical probability) these autonomous software agents produce a stable emergent personality. They live through social media sharing and sometimes synthesise new media by themselves. More than simulations of humans, infomorphs demonstrate that shared social data can have emergent proprieties that humans can play and interact with. Visit www.Weavrs.com to experiment with your own alter egos.

Contact:

Lisa Gruber
Global Communications Manager
Euro RSCG Worldwide
T +212.886.2018
[email protected]

SOURCE Euro RSCG Worldwide