So drones are all over the news lately, whether they’re delivering little bottles of Fireball whiskey (thanks, Deutsch L.A.!) or venturing into airplanes’ flight paths as “government concern mounts” over their use.
It’s almost sort of scary. In a way.
But drones are also doing some cool things. For example, last month New York’s Barbarian Group played the role of DroneMaster for client General Electric, which used the titular flying bots and Twitter’s live video tool Periscope to introduce followers to some of “the most remote, beautiful and badass places in America where the largest machines in the world are made and tested to the limit!”
So yes, @GEDronePilot was real, though the account just retweeted its parent company’s promos and did not follow with a reddit AMA.
Here’s the full recap video:
You have to admit that this was some pretty impressive footage. As one Periscope influencer put it, “bitchin’, man.”
Barbarian did the work on this project in collaboration with Lot112, a new content studio which launched earlier this year and now operates independently of the agency. In discussing the campaign, director/ filmmaker Craig Teper cites the toys’ ability to “deliver unexpected and unique perspectives” while CCO Edu Pou–who joined Barbarian last October after serving as head of creative innovation at W+K Amsterdam–sees it as a sign of his new shop’s ambitious spirit:
“At The Barbarian Group we love new technology that provides new perspective for client stories. For this project, Periscope, combined with the dynamic viewpoint of a drone, was the perfect way to share an open, unscripted look at the world of GE and the amazing things they do and make.”
Now we want to see drones enter, say, active volcanoes instead of factories in our native South Carolina. Hi, Camp Greenville!
Unfortunately, we do not yet have drone footage of The Superdesk.