Can Wheat Thins’ Carl get smarter? What to do…

The video below is my first foray into showing a rich media execution online - this time for Wheat Thins.

After going through the video, I bang you over the head with the fact that the banner shown has two problems: poor rich media coding & an open question field that doesn’t really help consumers with the brand experience. Though the banner didn’t entice me to click through to view the Wheat Thins site, I have a couple suggestions:

Provide a few (3-5) entertaining & informative choices for closed-ended questions
- Though having questions to pick from isn’t ultimate freedom, it does keep the focus on the brand message
- Less questions means higher production value for the video answers Carl does end up providing
- Less questions also enables more controlled, useful and informative answers that may help communicate product benefits
- Less production work (both the video production & copywriter!)
- Less time required for brand team’s approvals

If open-ended questions are desired, then solicit questions from consumers that “Carl” could answer in the future
- The open text entry could be captured to learn what consumers really want to know
- Data captured = another interesting/useful data point… track # of questions, # of interactions, depth/type of responses, etc
- Promoting future interaction could create interest for the brand and the product (and even Carl)

Maybe you have others? Maybe this format’s not so great? Let me know…