the challenge
Prove the brand promise that Intuit helps small businesses in ways beyond accounting software, and communicate this in a fun, engaging, and viral way.
how?
We decided to use a song called “Your Love” by The Outfield as the main backing track for all jingles, and wrote loads of lyrics based on common business types — blogs, grocery stores, etc. Somehow, we (and Rock River Music) found a singer who sounded exactly like The Outfield’s lead, and re-recorded the song with all the new lyrics.
After loading the site and watching a funny intro video explaining the concept, users chose a small business type, and the type of message they’d like to create — text or voice. If the former, they were asked to enter their business details and wait for the jingle to be constructed; if text, they were given a toll-free number to call, where they’d speak their business details.
Our systems were connected to Oddcast in real-time. While user were on the phone, Flash would poll the vendor’s server to determine when the user’s phone call was complete; upon disconnection, Flash would instruct the back-end to connect to Oddcast via HTTP and download three wav files. The user experience would loop in a “please wait” message while the full jingle was constructed:
- Based upon user selection, a wav with blank segments at user-content points was split into segments (ffmpeg).
- User-created wav files were spliced together with the above segments (sox).
- The entire jingle was normalized and converted to mp3 (ffmpeg).
- Album art was created based on business name and saved (gd).
- An autographed image was created and saved based on business type (gd).
- A zip file was created containing the finished jingle, art, and image.
The final zip file was transferred from one of two load-balanced webservers to a content server, upon which the Flash interface would play a (generic) video with the user-created jingle as background music, and prompt the user to download the zip.
If the user chose text, the same process would occur, but the sounds received from Oddcast were text-to-speech audio files based upon user input.
By the way — I’ve heard our version of the song so many times, I find it odd that The Outfield isn’t singing:
So you’re looking for a brand new home today
Well, the markets made for buying
I’ll show you houses made just your way
The square footage is a little bit larger
I just wanna find your house today
(Business Name)
I just wanna sell your house today
(Business Address)
Well, they say location’s everything for sure
The school districts are pretty rockin’
You know I’d like to give you a tour
Of a beautiful subdivision
I just wanna find your house today
(Business Name)
I just wanna sell your house today
(Business Phone Number)
key technologies
Flash AS2 for site structure. PHP, Bash scripting, ffmpeg, sox for audio/video creation and encoding. GD for image creation.
team
- Jason Zada, Executive Creative Director
- Michelle Spear, Director of Creative Services
- Geno Burmester, Art Director
- James Beikmohamadi, Copywriter
- Husani Oakley, Director of Technology
- Ziv Marov, Flash Programmer
- Abe Dieckman, Motion Designer
- Jason Jobe, Motion Designer
- Jill Honig, Producer
- Ryan Toland, Account Manager
- Did I forget someone? Probably, and I’m sorry. Let me know.
Please, Bring back the jingle generator!!
It’s realy, realy cool! But i can’t access it anymore! I’m in Brazil.
Thank You!