Digital Marketing & Publicity for ScopifyROM

In the fall of 2013 I worked on a user-acquisition strategy, digital marketing and publicity for a new mobile app produced by Kensington for use at the Royal Ontario Museum. The new mobile app is called ScopifyROM, and it allows museum visitors to explore objects in ways never possible before with a smart phone. Now the ROM’s visitors can ‘scopify’ objects behind a glass case and use an Android or iphone to see what it would look like if it was magnified, x-rayed, or animated. As a basic form of simulated reality (although not true augmented reality), app users can perform curatorial investigations and scan QR codes throughout the museum in order to unlock app features. There is also a subtle layer of gamification in the app, whereby after ‘scopifying’ 5 objects, users unlock extra games.

As part of this project I took photos and we released a series of short videos on instagram to tease the app content. We created a trailer, posters to share, and a website with download links and information. We were creating and introducing a new brand, since ScopifyROM is intended as the first of its kind in a series of museum apps. 

I organized an influencer event during the ROM’s popular winter Friday Night Live series, where adults have a late night party at the museum. Some photos are below, in which bloggers and journalists are seen trying the app with us. In addition to showing them the app I created contest using twitter and a unique #scopifyROM hashtag to generate more interest in the app.

My publicity efforts directly resulted in stories on BetaKit, Tech Vibes, and CBC TV’s “Our Toronto” show. A summary of our publicity and online PR, in collaboration with the ROM’s publicist, is below.