• by Aaron Baar , December 1, 2015

With so many well-known and well-funded players in the consumer electronics space, it can be difficult for a brand to break through, even if that brand carries an identifiable name like Memorex. 

Memorex-CE, which licenses the company’s name to consumer electronics (as opposed to the storage products for which it is known), is trying to make a name for itself with a digital consumer-engagement campaign that campily posits a world where choice has been removed from the consumer electronics space.

“What we’re trying to do is make people aware of Memorex and what they have in the consumer electronics space,” George Bennett, creative director at MagicBullet Media, tells Marketing Daily. “Memorex sees themselves as a small brand. What they want to do is champion quality products without spending a lot on marketing [them].”

Thus, the “Memorex Lives” campaign, which, like many of MagicBullet’s efforts (such as Doritos’ “Crash the Super Bowl” and Lays’ “Do Us A Flavor”), engages consumers to help supply content and buzz for the overall effort. For Memorex Lives, consumers are being asked to insert clips of themselves reacting to scenes in a video featuring actor Joey Lawrence (who happens to be playing a Hollywood action star). 

“We have experience in getting consumers to participate, and getting them excited about something that’s out of the box,” Bennett says. “We think intelligent consumers like some mystery. They want to discover something.”

In the video, Lawrence’s character, Brock Firestone (“a super, mega, colossal, octane eating, awesome, action, movie star,”) has received a transmission from a time-traveling scientist from the year 2071, where a “tyrannical” “evil empire” of consumer electronics companies have eliminated choice from the marketplace. Throughout the video, Firestone/Lawrence talk on a satellite phone to an unseen caller about his desire to save the world. At various points in the video, the action pauses to allow consumers to upload their own scenes (of up to 20 seconds) reacting to Lawrence’s character throughout the scene. (In one instance a break occurs right after Firestone declares, “You don’t get any more future than [2071].”)

“We were going for the ridiculousness of an [actor] thinking he is going to take over the world,” Bennett says. “It beckons for you to make fun of it.”

Consumers are encouraged to upload clips of themselves via the site, www.memorexlives.com, through December 10, at which point 10 videos will be subject to consumer vote with the winner landing a walk-on role in a 2016 production from The Asylum production house (and a chance to audition for casting directors and pitch producers on a screenplay). The grand prize winner will also get several Memorex CE products, as will second- and third-place finishers.

“We’re trying to be an agency for creativity and give [consumers] access,” Bennett says. “We’re not going to spend money on big names. We’re going to tty to champion the creative talent this country has.”

The company has been seeding the idea through a partnership with Pandora, with messages from the futuristic professor coming during song breaks. (Lawrence’s character makes a reference to his radio being taken over in the video.) The agency has also been reaching out to blogs and other earned media outlets, Bennett says.