NBC Universal Digital Studio has teamed with human-powered answering service ChaCha for a unique mobile engagement initiative for NBC’s new “FCU: Fact Checker’s Unit” series.
The series, based on a short film of the same name, follows two overzealous fact checkers employed to confirm or disprove various statements made in articles scheduled to be published by a magazine. Viewers and fans can participate by joining the show’s mobile alerts and “Check Your Own Facts” by texting ChaCha on the show’s site and engage more deeply with the content by experiencing a live feed of fact checking questions.
The partnership offers viewers several ways to interact. Users can check any fact by texting FCU (space) followed by the fact/question they want to check to 242-242, or opt in to a “FCU: Fact Checker’s Unit” VIP mobile list via ChaCha to get show reminders, breaking news, updates, etc by texting FCUVIP to 242-242.
“ChaCha has grown to be the ‘smart friend’ people turn to for all their answers, about anything,” says Scott Jones, ChaCha’s CEO. “Powered by over 50,000 people called ‘Guides,’ we are able to deliver superior answer quality and response times. This new show from NBCU was an ideal opportunity to leverage our fun content and clever answers from our Guides for this creative comedy show launch.”
Mobile interactivity is beginning to find its way into a lot of programming these days, and ChaCha’s service was a perfect fit for NBC’s new interactive series. ChaCha has grown significantly in recent time, and adding high-profile partnerships like this will only help its cause. It should be interesting to see the viewer response to this once it’s all said and done.
