For the release of John Wick 2, Lionsgate Films wanted to step beyond the standard movie trailer to get audiences buzzing.
In the John Wick universe, assassins are contacted by text message, so it made sense to create an SMS-based experience that drew people into the world of the film.
Since the chatbot was SMS based, the design elements were minimal. Photos, videos and gifs were colour treated and sized in proportion for mobile devices.
That said, things like image recognition and geolocation were integrated to give the whole experience a “how-did-they-do-that?” component.
And because the whole experience took place on a phone, Lionsgate could keep in touch with fans with screening times and other info as the launch approached. You can’t do that with a typical trailer.
Knowing that people like messing with bots, extra effort was taken to embed lots of easter eggs and “secret” content into the bot. Predictably, some of this stuff showed up in Reddit, where the Wick fan universe is large and rabid.
My roles: creative direction, copywriting, wrestling bot logic flows