Put on a stripy outfit, turn on your webcam and dance.
Gap has created a new online plaything to promote sales over the Christmas season, and this is the simple premise behind it.
Built by Kiwi web-design company Resn, Play Your Stripes is an interactive website that allows you to ‘play’ the stripes on your shirt as though it were an instrument.
Resn managing director Rik Campbell says Gap’s current creative agency dreamed up the concept of playing stripes as an instrument, and then approached Resn to take on the technical challenge of making the idea reality.
Campbell says he hopes to see more of these “brave and creative” ideas brought to life in the future.
“The more of these types of ideas there are out the (executed to a high level) then ideally the more inspired and less refrained brands will be to make the advertising playground more dynamic and enjoyable.”
On the website, indie artist Blood Orange first demonstrates the joy of stripes in an intro music video, and then it’s your turn.
The great thing is that the site will not launch unless you have put your stripes on. You get told off with a “Stripe Error” and instructed to find a friend in stripes – or buy some – if you’re not wearing them.
After putting on stripes and allowing web-cam access to the site you can dance to Blood Orange and remix his song by tapping on different stripes on your tee, or you can just freestyle to a tailored made track by Kiwi artist Disaster Radio.
Behind the scenes, Resn worked hard to achieve seamless “stripe detection” and “hand detection”, matching the movement of the user’s hands to the audio samples and stripe highlights.
There are five different sounds you can create on your outfit, and no matter what you play they all seem to integrate into the music seamlessly, so you sound good.
You’re not going to be creating a unique masterpiece on the site, but it’s still very fun.
Gap also allows the user to record and share their own efforts, but not before first signing over the ownership of the audio-visual performance to the company, allowing it to use the recording for its own promotions.
So far no user videos have popped up on the interweb, which is a relief for me but perhaps a disappointment for those hoping to be spotted for the next Gap campaign.
Play Your Stripes is just one aspect of GapGiftGuide.com. It also features a holiday gift catalogue – featuring lots of stripes – and peppered with ten videos of creative things to do with clothes apart from wear them on your body.
Bet the creatives had fun with these:
The site is part of Gap’s current ‘Dress Normal’ campaign by Wieden + Kennedy New York, which attempts to redefine how we view the word ‘normal’.
“Finding your own version of ‘Dress normal’ is an art,” Gap global chief marketing officer Seth Farbman says.
“My normal is different from your normal, and that’s the essence of the campaign.”
The campaign uses celebrities to show how they are doing their own unique ‘normal’ including Anjelica Huston and Girls star Zosia Marmet aka Shoshanna.