• by Richard Whitman , Columnist, March 28, 2016

This is a bit silly. Then again, silly is exactly what ad agencies do when they have too much time on their hands. This week's silly time waster posing as real platform development comes to us courtesy of Giant Spoon, which made an app that works with Amazon's Echo. The agency created the app to  educate and entertain clients, marketers, and industry influentials. The result is ridiculous silliness.

Anyone with an Amazon Echo can simply add the Giant Spoon Skill and trigger the app with their voice. According to the press release: "With voice being the new frontier of interactive experiences and with an open platform like Echo, brands have a major opportunity to play in a new environment with a revolutionary creative canvas."

Once the Echo app has been downloaded and the Giant Spoon Skill activated, users can ask, "Alexa, ask Giant Spoon for an idea" or "Alexa, ask Giant Spoon for advice" or "Alexa, ask Giant Spoon for help brainstorming."

The questions will cause Alexa to spit back one of 50 advertising and marketing idea that have been developed by the agency. The agency admits the ideas are one part insane, one part out of the box -- but of course, boatloads of fun.

Some of the ideas include "Just tell your agency you want something like the ice bucket challenge, or batkid, or the Call Me Maybe lip syncing craze. Good luck with that" and "Just call Shingy. He’ll know what to do" and "Hire the Damn Daniel guy. But first build a time machine to go back to the one day that was relevant." 

The agency tells us they will be sending a notice to all of its clients showcasing the Echo app and -- making something real out of a stupid joke -- offering to build customized, branded experiences on the platform. So, yeah, Echo is the new Snapchat.

Apparently, this silliness is a continuation of an intelligence series Giant Spoon provides for clients. In addition, Giant Spoon will create social content around the app on Snapchat, Twitter and Instagram.

Introducing the Giant Spoon Amazon Skill from Giant Spoon on Vimeo.