The launch of 20th Century Fox’s latest blockbuster X-Men: The Last Stand is being supported by the studio’s biggest global online campaign to date, developed by emerging Sydney digital shop Soap Creative and featuring a world-first website innovation, online TVCs and roadblocks of major online portals.
Soap Creative’s global X-Planet mini-site, www.xplanet.net, finally launched today ahead of the film’s Australian release on Thursday May 25.
The site for the third X-Men film acts as an online hub for worldwide X-Men fans who can upload their profiles and pinpoint their exact locations using Google Maps’ technology.
The website is believed to be the first film site to integrate Google Maps, enabling users to move around the world and zoom into any location, right down to street level.
The Google Maps feature also allows users to develop “mutant” profiles and locate or “pin” themselves to any location on the map, which can be found by other site visitors.
When creating their profiles, users can choose to belong to the (good) X-Men tribe or the (evil) Brotherhood tribe.
They can also include a link to their personal website or blog within their profile and add other users to a planet-wide buddy list of X-Men fans.
The site is being supported by banners, online video ads, roadblocks on major portals on the day of the film’s release, as well as a promotion on uber blog site MySpace—representing 20th Century Fox’s biggest investment globally for an online campaign in support of a film.
Beyond the social networking features, content from the first two X-Men movies and new material from the latest film will be also planted within the X-Planet site, encouraging further exploration and interaction with the site and other fans.
20th Century Fox Online Marketing Manager Julian Lai said X-Planet steered away from traditional online campaigns that are competitive in nature, such as entering first, collecting puzzles and solving problems to win.
“What we are doing with X-Planet is completely different: we are encouraging our audience to actively share, rather than compete with other users to create interactivity with each other and the movie,” Lai said.
“X-Planet gets people to connect with the key questions asked in the movie’s plotline, plus it provides a themed setting for people building their own personas and communities, both within and outside this world.”
X-Planet was the brainchild of Soap Creative’s executive producer Leonardo Zamboni and his team including senior producer James Koefoed; creative director Robert Dennis; senior designer Ron Kurniawan; Flash lead Shane McCartney and senior developer Brett Peacock.
Soap worked closely with Google to seamlessly link its maps functionality into the site.
“We had to develop our own navigation tools and a way to add the layer of user profiles and location bookmarks,” Zamboni explained.
“It was a challenge, but lots of fun for the team and it’s great to see a locally produced site being used in a global campaign. We’re very pleased with the result, and hope people enjoy themselves on the site.”
The X-Planet website can be viewed at www.xplanet.net.
X-Men: The Last Stand opens in cinemas nationally May 25 and will also be supported by an integrated campaign consisting of TVCs; print; outdoor; interactive bus shelters; online video ads and polls; and a PR stunt during the upcoming State of Origin match in Sydney, where a section of the stadium will also be branded.
