How MullenLowe Philippines Turned a Serial Killer Into a Chatbot
The Killer Chatbot is a December 2017 digital campaign created by MullenLowe Philippines for the film Smaller and Smaller Circles, deploying a Facebook Messenger choose-your-own-adventure experience in which users interacted with a fictional serial killer across six possible narrative endings, only one of which allowed them to survive, according to LinkedIn.
Smaller and Smaller Circles opened in Philippine cinemas on December 6, 2017, entering a competitive holiday season in which Filipino Christmas moviegoers represent one of the most commercially significant theatrical audiences in the country, according to En Wikipedia. The campaign's stated objective was to attract that audience to a film that, as a Filipino-language crime thriller adapted from a literary source, occupied an unconventional position relative to the mainstream commercial titles that dominate year-end Philippine cinema. Rather than relying on conventional broadcast or out-of-home promotion, MullenLowe Group chose a digital medium that met audiences on a platform already embedded in daily Filipino life: Facebook Messenger.
The experience was hosted through a dedicated Messenger destination titled KillerBotEnglish. Users who engaged were drawn into a narrative encounter with a serial killer character drawn directly from the film's story world. The choose-your-own-adventure structure gave participants a sense of agency while the asymmetric stakes — six routes, five of which ended in the user's fictional death — reinforced the film's thriller premise at the level of direct experience rather than passive spectatorship. Deleted scenes from the film were woven into the chatbot's content, giving the experience genuine narrative value rather than functioning as a thin promotional wrapper.
The campaign was published in the Philippines in December 2017 and submitted to international award bodies, where it was recognised by the Campaign Big Global Awards among other programmes, according to Campaign Big Global Awards records. MullenLowe Group's Makati office led all creative and digital production, with a credited team spanning creative direction, digital production, and social media strategy, according to Campaignbigglobalawards.
Smaller and Smaller Circles faced a structurally difficult theatrical market. In the Philippines, the Christmas season concentrates enormous audience attention on a small number of locally produced mainstream titles, creating steep competition for screen time and public awareness. The film's source material — a crime novel by F.H. Batacan, whose expanded international edition was published in 2015 according to Wikipedia — positioned it as a prestige literary adaptation in a market where genre thrillers have historically competed against family comedies and romantic films during the holiday window, according to Edgedavao.
MullenLowe Philippines identified a strategic gap in how Filipino audiences relate to serial killer narratives through interactive digital formats. While competitors promoting mainstream Christmas releases in 2017 leaned on traditional media and celebrity-driven social content, the agency constructed an experience that made the film's central tension — the hunt for a serial killer — personally felt by each user. The choose-your-own-adventure format transformed passive awareness into active participation, a distinction that carries measurable advantages in social media shareability and earned media reach.
Facebook Messenger was a strategically sound platform choice for the Philippine market. The Philippines has consistently ranked among the world's most active social media populations, with Facebook penetration particularly high relative to internet usage, a pattern widely reported by regional digital media analysts including Branding in Asia. By anchoring the campaign inside Messenger rather than directing users to an external microsite, MullenLowe reduced friction in the user journey and exploited existing audience behaviour rather than asking users to adopt new ones, according to Brandinginasia. The gaming and narrative interaction mechanics embedded in the chatbot also aligned with the broader digital entertainment habits of Filipino audiences, drawing on interactive storytelling conventions familiar from mobile gaming contexts. Globally, mobile represented approximately 42 percent of game revenue in 2017, according to Newzoo estimates, underscoring how comfortable digital audiences had become with screen-based interactive narrative by the time this campaign launched.
The creative execution of The Killer Chatbot rests on a single disciplined structural idea: the user is not a spectator of danger but a participant in it. Roman Carlo Olivarez served as creative director on the campaign, with Abi Aquino as executive creative director and Leigh Reyes as president and chief creative officer of MullenLowe Philippines. The creative team built the experience around a branching narrative architecture that required each decision point to feel consequential — a technical and storytelling challenge that distinguishes genuine interactive narrative from chatbot experiences that merely simulate choice.
Ernest Jean Angeles served as copywriter, responsible for writing the serial killer's dialogue across multiple narrative branches in a way that maintained character consistency and tonal credibility regardless of which path a user followed. Bjay Gomez handled art direction, shaping the visual identity of the experience within the constraints of the Messenger platform. Digital production was managed by Marge Galvez and Jhon Louie Cruz, with Shiela Tiongco serving as digital director and Raffy Bariso leading social media and content strategy.
The decision to embed deleted scenes from the film within the chatbot's narrative branches was a craft choice with significant implications. It gave users content unavailable through any other channel, converting the promotional experience into a genuine extension of the film's story world rather than a marketing simulacrum of it. According to Branding in Asia, the campaign drew on the film's source material — F.H. Batacan's novel Smaller and Smaller Circles — to maintain narrative authenticity throughout the interactive experience. The six-ending structure, with only one survivor outcome, created replay incentive and social sharing motivation organically, without requiring the campaign to manufacture engagement through prize mechanics or paid amplification. The entire experience was accessible through the KillerBotEnglish Messenger destination, a naming choice that signalled its interactive character while keeping the brand language tied to the film's genre identity.
The Killer Chatbot earned recognition from the Campaign Big Global Awards, according to Campaign Big Global Awards records, placing MullenLowe Philippines' work for Smaller and Smaller Circles within a field of internationally evaluated digital and entertainment marketing campaigns. This external validation is the most precisely documented performance indicator available for the campaign in the public record.
No independently verified audience reach figures, Messenger session counts, or box office correlation data for The Killer Chatbot are publicly available at the time of writing. What the structural evidence does support is a campaign designed for organic amplification: a six-ending branching narrative creates natural repeat engagement, the survivor-or-victim stakes generate social sharing incentive, and the platform choice inside Facebook Messenger — the dominant messaging application in the Philippines — removed the primary barrier to first contact. Each of these mechanics functions as an earned media multiplier without requiring disclosed paid media investment to explain its distribution logic.
The campaign's Clapboard Score of 69 out of 100 reflects a creative execution that demonstrates genuine strategic coherence and platform intelligence while operating in a context where independent performance verification remains limited. The score acknowledges the campaign's innovation in applying choose-your-own-adventure gaming mechanics to film promotion in the Philippine market, its disciplined integration of deleted scene content as a value exchange, and its culturally specific deployment timing within the Filipino Christmas theatrical season. Where headroom exists, it lies in the absence of documented scale data and the single-market scope of a campaign whose interactive format had potential for broader regional reach across Southeast Asia.
The Killer Chatbot is a December 2017 Facebook Messenger campaign created by MullenLowe Philippines for the film Smaller and Smaller Circles. It placed users inside a choose-your-own-adventure interaction with a fictional serial killer, offering six possible narrative endings, only one of which allowed the user to survive, to promote the film's Philippine theatrical release.
MullenLowe Philippines, based in Makati, created The Killer Chatbot. Leigh Reyes served as president and chief creative officer, Abi Aquino as executive creative director, and Roman Carlo Olivarez as creative director. Ernest Jean Angeles wrote the branching serial killer dialogue, with Bjay Gomez handling art direction across the Messenger experience.
Facebook Messenger was the dominant messaging platform in the Philippines in 2017, giving the campaign direct access to its target audience without requiring new platform adoption. Hosting the experience inside Messenger reduced user friction and exploited existing digital behaviour, making the serial killer narrative immediately accessible to Filipino Christmas moviegoers already active on the platform.
Smaller and Smaller Circles is a Filipino crime thriller adapted from F.H. Batacan's novel of the same name, whose expanded international edition was published in 2015 according to Wikipedia. The film opened in Philippine cinemas on December 6, 2017, entering the competitive Christmas theatrical season alongside mainstream local commercial releases targeting holiday audiences.
The Killer Chatbot received recognition from the Campaign Big Global Awards, according to Campaign Big Global Awards records. This represents the most precisely documented external validation of the campaign in the public record. The campaign was submitted to international award bodies following its December 2017 publication in the Philippines by MullenLowe Group.
The Killer Chatbot received a Clapboard Score of 69 out of 100. The score reflects the campaign's genuine strategic coherence, platform intelligence, and innovative use of gaming mechanics in Philippine film promotion, while acknowledging limited publicly verified performance data and the single-market scope of a campaign whose interactive format had broader regional potential.
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