We wanted a huge online impact for Pendulum’s second single from ‘Immersion’ so Facebook was the obvious platform of choice.

The very talented Ste Thompson from Powster was called in to pitch ideas for this project.

The result is The Witchcraft Experiment. An impressively creepy Facebook application that was fascinating to any Facebook user, hopefully converting them into Pendulum fans if they weren’t already.

After launching the app, users were presented with a recreated version of their Facebook profile. While reading comments on their wall from concerned friends, things started to unwind. Their profile picture would flicker as glitches appeared on the page. Finally a creepy looking animated eyeball replaced their profile picture before black goo engulfed the page and the ‘Witchcraft’ music video burst through to be revealed.

The project was further complimented by a YouTube teaser video and a promo image that fans could set as their profile picture on social networks.

The app had an amazing response from Pendulum fans. Comments are still visible here:
https://www.facebook.com/pendulum?v=wall&story_fbid=137947759565840

It gained a lot of attention from other branches of the Warner Music Group. My favourite quote is: “This has to be one of THE BEST viral tools to come out of any label, anywhere, anytime!”

The app was so successful that within a few months Facebook changed their API’s terms of service to specifically disallow the functionality that the app demonstrated.

The Witchcraft Experiment went on to win a BT Digital Music Award as well as being nominated for an Adobe Max Award.