Spawn of the Subservient Chicken!
Some of you may recall ALL THE WAY BACK to 2001 when Burger King launched the Subservient Chicken. This interactive advertising program was created to promote some new BK sandwich as part of their “Have it Your Way” campaign. It was a pretty advanced application at the time. When you went to the site you would find somebody in a dressed in a chicken suit, standing in their living room, and waiting to take direction from you. You can type in commands such as “lay an egg”, “dance”, or “die” and the chicken would do it!  The video looked like it was a live web cam, so it was this AMAZING piece of technology.
Fastforward to 2010 when live streaming video content can happen from your phone and reality TV is a anchor of the broadcast networks and we find “ControlTV“. I got a Facebook invite from series co-creator Matthew Senriech to join the Facebook group and help the show’s star Tristan get a little direction in his life. So ControlTV is a live-streamed, online reality experiment that gives viewers control over Tristan. Subservient TRISTAN! The camera crew will start to document Tristan’s every move on Wednesday October 6th and will allow the online audience to vote on every major aspect of his life. Pick out his clothes, tell him what to eat, or who he should date (insert lyrics to AQUA’s “Barbie Girl”). The show will fun for six weeks. So it’s Subservient Chicken meets the Truman Show meets social networking. The show is presented by Ford and Sprint but that doesn’t mean that Burger King can’t swamp the voting and have him eat one of their Chicken Sandwiches! 😀
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