The Phonebox Experiment - A Good Theory

The website reads (http://phoneboxexperiment.com/): "There is a phone box in the middle of nowhere. Rob's camping next to it for as long as he can hold out, just so we can see who calls. This is the Phone Box Experiment".

Rob Cavazos, a 27 year old, who is fluent in English, German and Spanish, was selected from a host of applicants to become the ‘Wilderness Man’. From the little introduction clip, he appears to be a normal guy who just wants a bit of adventure, and Skype are looking to give it to him. As well as a bit of publicity and free PR for themselves no doubt.

Great idea right? A 24/7 live feed when people can call this random guy using Skype and talk about whatever they want for as long as they live. You can also watch him stay within the frame of the camera and listen to his side of the phone calls. So all is good yeah? No.

Orignally, I thought that this was a really cool concept and a great piece of viral work. However when you actually interact and go on the website all you see is this:
There Rob is, chatting away to some random person, it happens to be in French now which is completely useless to me. Also I can only hear his side of the conversation. And what is the conversation going to be about?
Hi
Hi, where you from?
Russia!
Excellent, I've already spoken to a couple of people from Russia.
Oh cool... I probably don't know them.... So what you up to?
Just sat on my sofa chatting to loads of random people, many of which I don't really care about.
Oh right... isnt that abit boring?
Um... yeah.

It can't be that much fun for poor old Rob! It probably sounded exciting, and for every great conversation he has with a random person, there's got to be at least fifty mundane, pointless conversations.
Unless you ring him and have a short, random chat, you just sit there and watch him. Great. It's not the sort of brand experience that you can really get involved in and immerse yourself as a consumer.


I admit that if I was in the room when this idea was being pitch, I would've thought, this sounds amazing! Its online, its viral, its original, consumers can get involved; perfect!
In reality: not so much.