Find The Force Of Silence
- Brand
- Rowenta
- Year
- 2011
- Objective
- Sales
- Industry
- Tech & Telecom
- Mechanic
- Puzzle
- Platform
- Web
Objective
Rowenta was launching its new Silence Force Extrême line and needed to break a stubborn assumption: that a powerful vacuum has to be a loud one. The brief was to prove power and noise were no longer the same thing, and to build buzz ahead of a supporting TV campaign by seeding the game across YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and blogs.
Solution
On findtheforceofsilence.com, players are given under two minutes to match the exact noise level of a running Silence Force Extrême — by shouting into their computer's microphone, or drumming on the keyboard if they don't have one. A meter tracks the decibels as they make noise, and the challenge is to hold it steady at the vacuum's real level. Overshoot, which most players do, and the site cuts to one of ten deliberately absurd videos instead of letting the attempt continue. Anyone who does land on the correct — and surprisingly quiet — level is entered into a draw to win a vacuum.
- 1
The game opens at findtheforceofsilence.com with a loading screen, then an intro that sets the challenge: find the exact sound level of the Silence Force Extrême vacuum to try to win one, built around the campaign's premise that power does not equal noise.
- 2
Before starting, the player picks an input method: the microphone, to shout at the target volume, or the keyboard, to tap at the matching tempo if no microphone is available.
- 3
A countdown leads into a timed round of under two minutes, during which an on-screen noise meter tracks the player's volume or tapping tempo as it rises and falls.
- 4
Staying too loud makes the background scene warp into exaggerated comic imagery, such as wailing babies, and each wrong guess plays one of ten deliberately silly videos in a dedicated player screen.
- 5
Working the level down eventually lands the player on the vacuum's actual, much quieter operating volume, delivering the game's central surprise.
- 6
Players who land on the correct sound level are entered into a sweepstakes for a chance to win the Silence Force Extrême vacuum.
