Amazon Prime:

The Jack Ryan Experience

LEAD CREATIVE / EXPERIENTIAL / NARRATIVE WRITING / WORLD BUILDING

BRIEF

This is one of those projects that I lucked into. Our lead sales rep came wandering into the creative floor and asked the creative next to me if he had time to go to the Amazon Prime Video office to hear about a new show called “Jack Ryan”.

“Jack Ryan? Did you say Jack Ryan?” I shouted at the poor salesperson.

I grew up reading all of Tom Clancy’s novels, so I knew the lore of the famed CIA Analyst turned hero Jack Ryan.

And that folks, is how you trick your way onto a project.

When I got put on the project I called my mother to tell her my good fortune. “Joey, you’ve trained for this!” she said.

Prime Video wanted to make a big splash at Comic-Con that year, and had a 60,000 square foot parking lot to turn into a massive experience to drum up excitement for Jack Ryan. Our idea?

This was my biggest pitch ever and at the time, the biggest budget for a single project MediaMonks had ever produced. We were on the phone with the client, and then she said “Joey, call your mom. You’ve won the pitch.”

Now we just had the small manner of creating a massive installation in 90 days.

Roles: Creative Copywriter, Narrative Lead, Creative Lead

Responsibilities: VR Narrative, Narrative Design , Social Assets, UX Copywriting, Creative Copywriter, Client Relationship

Winner: FWA Site of the Day, Adweek Experiential Awards

EXECUTION

Partially due to my enthusiasm, and because my Creative Director ran into Visa trouble and was marooned in Mexico, I became the creative lead for the entire experience.

For 3 months straight I worked in tandem with our office in Sao Paolo to help flesh out the physical world of the Jack Ryan Experience and with our office in Amsterdam to perfect the VR narrative.

For a truly immersive experience, we made sure that once you walked into the Jack Ryan Training Field, it felt different. Brand Ambassadors would treat you like you were new to the CIA. We had a Bazaar set up in one corner of the experience, complete with vendors giving away prizes (and to the careful onlookers, a few shopkeepers that would drop secret clues to special prizes). Several CIA “Case Officers” were planted around the experience, tasking new recruits to take part in small mini-missions like locating dead drops, learning fake identities, or even sniffing out rival sleeper agents.

We also had street teams canvassing San Diego, handing mysterious recruitment packets inviting fans to visit the experience.

But my baby? My baby was the newspaper, The Prime Observer.

This is one of those creative dreams that everyone else didn’t quite understand, but I just kept talking quickly and got a sign-off. I had an incredible and dedicated team of designers and creatives who went on this wild journey with me, and we ended up printing over 10,000 copies of an 8-page newspaper, complete with a crossword (take that Will Shortz!) that when solved provided a secret code that people could use to get an Amazon Fire stick.

At the same time, I also worked with the Amsterdam office to create a full 10 minute VR experience where participants:

Rappelled out of a helicopter

Crossed a balance beam virtually between two buildings

Tased enemy operatives

Ziplined 90 ft to safety (all while wearing VR goggles)

And escaped behind the wheel of a custom BMW.

Writing a narrative experience for VR was a challenging and difficult exercise in creativity, but incredibly rewarding.

RESULTS

When Comic-Con 2018 arrived, the hype was real. For four insane days, I wrangled and led a team of over 140 Brand Ambassadors. By Day 2, we had people camping outside our experience, some starting as early as 10 PM to be in line for opening doors the next day to get through the experience.

All 10,000 newspapers were snatched up, and over 15,000 new CIA recruits visited the experience over 4 days. We won headlines, awards (FWA SoTD, Adweek Experiential) and helped catapult Jack Ryan onto screens across the globe.