2017 – Pullstring
Persona Synthetics: Product Recall
Multimedia / ARG
Immersive, interactive ARG for the promotional campaign of Channel 4 UK’s television series, Humans.
As part of a stealth marketing initiative, the show’s fictional technology company, Persona Synthetics, conducted a nationwide product recall campaign. Their Synthetic Humans (Synths) were experiencing technical difficulties.
The large-scale, multimedia campaign drove people to a Facebook Messenger channel, supposedly run by Persona Synthetics Customer Relations Team, to receive product support for their faulty Synths.
On the other end of that chat service was the Persona Synthetics: Product Recall bot that I designed, wrote, and built using a conversational AI tool, Pullstring Author.
Narrative Designer
Lead Writer
Systems Designer
Collaborated with 4Creative and Channel 4 to coordinate and execute multi-channel marketing strategy.
Crafted full narrative arc, plotted story beats, and created original characters.
Wrote scripts, including all character dialogue, print media ads, and live TV interviews.
Designed and built branching dialogue tree using proprietary narrative design software, Pullstring Author.
Coded conversation architecture, implemented web services, and trained NLP Intent suites.
The marketing campaign attracted over 6 million viewers to the show’s first episode, and was nominated for a BAFTA in 2017 for Exemplary Digital Creativity.
“It was a really good example of how we pushed the boundaries of social, as a medium, to a whole new level. The execution was also outstanding.”
— David Abraham, Channel 4 CEO
“The best thing about this campaign was the attention to detail in the story construction. Their approach crafted a story that was detailed and cohesive, bringing it to life for fans.”
— Nicola Brown, Think Forward Communication