The fiber broadband provider ume.net offers one of the world’s fastest internet connections. Meanwhile, many have accepted delays, never-ending buffering and other symptoms of slow connection (also called lag) as an inevitable part of their online life. We needed to remind people of just how frustrating slow connections can be.
Our target audience, tech and gaming enthusiasts, are active internet users that can be found on various gaming and tech sites across the internet. And they aren’t afraid to share things they find interesting. But to get their attention we had to create something unique and relatable. So we combined a recurrent problem in their online life with state-of-the-art technology to illustrate how reality would look like with slow internet connection. Four volunteers were equipped with a custom-built lag machine that could adjust video resolution and simulate real-time buffering and delay. The never-before-seen experiment demonstrated how everyday tasks became extraordinary hard with real-time lag. It also featured the unique option to switch views so that users could experience the experiment through the eyes of the volunteers, giving a palpable demonstration of just how frustrating slow connections can be.
But with virtually no media budget, we had to find a way into the social feeds of our target audience. So when the experiment premiered on YouTube, we gave it a push by posting it on carefully selected sites where they spend a lot of time, and lag is a recurrent topic.
Just hours later, Living with Lag was trending all over the world. Within its first week the experiment had generated 5 million+ views in 230 countries, 74 million impressions and 333,000+ social actions. It’s been featured on major tech, gaming and news sites resulting in an earned media value of $4,2 million, exceeding the media investment by 21000%. Living with Lag is now one of the most viral ads in Sweden of all time.
For full experience, see www.livingwithlag.com