You heard this first from ActiveWin. "We have another intriguing Messenger campaign from our Buzz team and we would love to have your help! It’s really helpful when beta members take an sneak peak at our promotional campaigns. Your early thoughts help us gauge the projects effectiveness on design, entertainment and ease of use, as well as any other areas possibly overlooked. And of course if you like the campaign share it with a friend!

The campaign we want to share today is titled ESPBilly and is part of our newly created Messenger Film series. The idea of the campaign is to use the Messenger client in an entirely new medium to push engagement. Our first short film is about a psychic, ESPBilly, (Played by Ricky Jay, James Bond, Boogey Nights…) of questionable aptitude and a young college student, Travis, who looks to Billy for advice. Their entire relationship takes place over IM and our psychic prefers to deliver his readings through a ‘not always clear’ set of images. Each film involves the viewer in the humor by allowing him/her to make a key decision on behalf of the Travis at some point during the story; it’s a modern day choose-your-own-adventure. As an example the pilot episode sets the tone for what the espbilly is about. In each following episode the user will get to decide between two possible endings, at which point the user can go and check out the other ending or continue with the series (i.e. on to episode 2, etc)."

This campaign can be accessed from a few different entry points. The first is www.espbilly.com. This website hosts the Pilot episode and can be accessed by all. But a person can only watch the episode from this site. (If a person wants to watch any of the episodes he or she will be asked to add espbill as a contact). Simply add espbilly@msn.com as a contact and send him a message to view the successive episodes (1-3) along with the multiple endings. We make it easy for you to add Billy yourself and have him help guide you through the films. (After adding Billy as a contact you will need to sign our and back in for him to show up). Finally, you can share the experience with a friend by simply opening a conversation window, clicking on activities, and then clicking on espbilly. We had a lot of great feedback when we shared on previous campaigns and are grateful for the enthusiasm (positive as well as constructive criticism) that everyone shared.