It’s That Easy: Build a Fictional World Around a Product Demonstration

Read the campaign story

Wix’s January 2015 announcement identifies 7 January as the beginning of ItsThatEasy activity ahead of its February Super Bowl advertisement. The campaign imagined new businesses for retired football players, with associated web and social material. The promoted enterprises were fictional. Their presence in several channels is not evidence that the people had opened those businesses or achieved commercial results through the product.

A May 2015 announcement introduced a Heidi Klum execution as a continuation of the same campaign, not a new family. The production and creative credits are retained at their documented scope. This study examines the relationship between invented business stories and product demonstration; it does not reproduce the comic scripts, claim to have watched the films or infer customer outcomes from the use of recognisable personalities.

Editorial interpretation: the fiction gives a practical software task a narrative reason to exist. A website is no longer an isolated screen; it belongs to a character with an imagined offer and audience. That context can help a viewer understand what the tool produces. The limitation is that a finished-looking page says little about demand, fulfilment, legal readiness or the ongoing effort required to run a business.

Editorial interpretation: a consistent invented world can reward exploration across formats. A viewer who encounters the film and then a related page can recognise the same premise, which may make the communication easier to recall. Consistency alone does not establish persuasion or purchase. The crucial design responsibility is to keep entertainment legible as fiction and make any real product demonstration accurate within its stated conditions.

Give the demonstration a job inside the story

Choose a fictional task that naturally requires the product output rather than adding a product screen after an unrelated joke. Explain what the character needs to communicate and which part of the offer helps with that task. Test whether readers can identify the connection without knowing the celebrity or cultural reference. A strong scenario should remain understandable in a plain written version. If the story attracts attention but obscures the useful output, simplify the premise before adding more narrative detail.

Separate a working artifact from a working business

A convincing website, package or presentation is only one part of an operating service. Avoid letting visual polish imply that an organisation has customers, inventory, authority or a viable model. Mark demonstration content clearly and prevent fictional forms from collecting real enquiries or payments. A useful explanatory note can identify what the prototype shows and what has not been tested. This preserves the value of the demonstration while preventing an audience from confusing a communication artifact with an established commercial operation.

Keep the world coherent without hiding its boundaries

If a concept appears in several formats, maintain consistent names, claims and status labels. Review the journey as a whole, including places where a person might arrive without seeing the original advertisement. A landing page that makes sense after a film may mislead someone who finds it independently. Give each artifact enough context to stand alone. Consistency should help recognition, while visible boundaries keep the fiction from turning into an unintended representation about a real person or organisation.

A small test for another brief

Proposed adaptation: an adult software workshop could create a paper homepage for a clearly fictional plant-swap noticeboard. Compare a feature list with a short fictional task and annotated page showing how the output addresses it. Use invented names and original text. There would be no live website, form, account, real exchange, celebrity likeness or collected contact information.

Ask readers which task the page supports and which operational questions remain unresolved. Record comprehension separately from perceived business viability, platform ease or willingness to become a customer.

Stop if the mock-up invites real transactions, appears to represent an actual person’s venture or implies that producing a page guarantees a functioning business.

• Label the fictional organisation and inactive controls.
• Use the same bounded feature information in both versions.
• Add a note listing what the page cannot establish.