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Discover the Online Mysteries of "Nancy Drew"

CAMPAIGN INSIGHT: The Nancy Drew diaries have come a long way from the blue-bound "Carolyn Keene" Stratemeyer Syndicate kids series. Warner Bros. has dusted off old scripts and revived the beloved nosey girl detective, added a pop-punk soundtrack and a flashy online campaign to bring the stories to a new century.

"Tweens" are sure to love the movie, and Warner Bros. made sure to target this demographic when developing the campaign. You can be Nancy Drew's friend on MySpace (duh!), read her blog or have personalized messages sent to your cell phone. The soundtrack is also getting a big push online. You can play music from Nancy's cell phone on the site or be redirected to a page where you can purchase the soundtrack. Click a little button on that page and you're redirected to the MySpace page for the soundtrack.

The site offers downloads in the form of photos, desktop wallpapers, buddy icons and posters and has video journals of the movie for fans to enjoy.

Warners Bros. really understood their audience and how to get them excited about the movie, and with 175 different stories in the Nancy Drew series, they may have created the next "Harry Potter" for the tween set.
-- Krisserin Canary, associate editor, iMedia Communications

REVIEWS:
Creating a site for "tween" girls is always a challenge, and I think the site designers have done a nice job on the official "Nancy Drew" movie site, using existing movie assets and developing some original content for online and mobile. It appears that they had a sound strategy on how to create an online space for the film and developed unique video content with the movie's star, Emma Roberts.

The site design captures Nancy's style and the "Nancy Drew" brand. Nancy isn't about the latest trend, but about the classics; I think if the design here was more "MTV," it would not accurately portray Nancy's character. That could have been a temptation, as sites designed for this audience can be all about Attention Deficit Disorder.

Adding interactivity and content for the mobile space is a must for this target audience. The personalized phone call from Nancy is well executed, and I can see how visitors would be motivated to return and send different messages to friends. (I must say I did send them to everyone in the office.) The text game is quick and the questions easy to answer, though I would have liked to see the questions involve a bit more sleuthing of the site and a reward at the end of my time spent.

The video journals are fun to watch, offering substantial peeks behind the scenes, and show the tween girls what it's like to be a star in a movie. Creating original content for online rewards the fans and makes the cast seem very accessible and real, which again relates back to the Nancy Drew brand.

The Draycott Mansion game is easy to play and quick to get to the secret room. I like that it didn't require a commitment of time from me or have complicated directions, but I was looking for more mystery and adventure. I really wanted to see more things to play with in each room, more rewards for mouse actions, sound effects, maybe a 360-degree view. I wished for a special download for getting to the secret room, a ringtone or buddy icon that you could only get by playing the game. The audience is very sophisticated when it comes to gaming online, so spending more time on the game to increase interactivity would have been great. Also, the only way to get to the game is the first time you come to the site, so if I went first into the downloads or blog sections, I needed to refresh to get back to it.

Overall the site matches what I've come to expect in a movie promotion site: trailer, photos, cast, downloads, et cetera. One trick I think they missed was to include more social sharing on the site; the phone call does some of that, but including more ways to get their friends involved would have been an easy way to increase traffic to the site. In their solution they have not pushed the site design or technology into any groundbreaking new areas, but I think the choice to keep it simpler is appropriate for the tween age group.
-- Kalie Kimball-Malone, VP, creative director, Worktank