Channel 4’s ‘The Plane Crash’ – an interactive ‘Life or Death’ social media success!

[vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]A great example of social media in action. The Channel 4 programme Plane Crash – a dramatic new documentary following an international team of scientists, experts and elite pilots as they deliberately crash land a 170-seat Boeing 727 passenger jet to provide a once-in-a-generation chance to study the mechanics of a plane crash in real time.

The documentary recreates a common type of crash – a serious, but survivable ‘forced landing’ – in order to study the crashworthiness of the aircraft’s airframe and cabin, examine the impact of crashes on the human body, and look for possible means of increasing passenger survivability….and it let us get involved via a very innovative social media campaign on Facebook.

By crashing the plane, the programme also aims to answer key questions – such as whether sitting at the front or the rear of the aircraft, wearing a seat belt, and whether you use the brace position – can make the difference between life and death…and through Facebook, everyone had a chance to ‘choose’ a seat where they felt the impact of the ‘accident’ might help them survive the impact of the crash landing.

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]Logging onto the Plane Crash page on the Channel 4 website or via its Facebook page , it allowed you to become a ‘virtual’ passenger and pick a seat ( in my case – Seat 28 C at the back of the plane).. you then ‘sit back’ and wait for the crash landing!! watching it on TV, you couldn’t help think that, on impact somewhere in the Mexican desert, anyone in Rows 1-10 and we’ll include the crew in the cockpit, would be hard-pushed to survive, given the cockpit separated quickly from the main fuselage and some of the seats sprung from the impact were found 50 yards away.

Fortunately, I survived! What was more telling though, was the social media campaign got millions of people interacting with Channel 4. Each person logging on to their Facebook page ‘advertised’ the programme for Channel 4 by their very participation in the exercise and afterwards folk were telling their Facebook friends of their fate!.

Great work Channel 4 and a fine example of an interactive and robust social media campaign via Facebook.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]