We wonder if this has happened before – a nation has made a woman pregnant. Jane, the divorced mom in BT’s long-running TV ad campaign in the UK has been the subject of an online vote, and 72% of some 1.6 million voters want her, ahem, “expecting.” And how did Adam, her fiancé, get the news today? In an unusual way (at least for him)–in  a face-to-face conversation. The number of respondents the poll suggest this crowdsourcing experiment has generated significant public interest. It got us wondering: are we seeing the start of genuine customer engagement in marketing campaigns?

For those not all that familiar with Adam and Jane, the story has been running now for five years. It shoehorns BT’s internet, landline, mobile and TV services into a (slowly) developing plot around the relationship between Jane (played by Esther Hall) and Adam (Kris Marshall). But only now has the viewing public had a say in what happens next.

After the previous episode, in which Jane is seen lying on her bed, rubbing her stomach, viewers were invited to a dedicated BT site to decide the next development. However, BT played it very safe – the vote was simply – ‘Jane is pregnant’ or ‘Jane is not pregnant’. So, no prospect of enlivening the saga with the appearance of a John Hurt-style Alien.

The results announced today show 1,184,032 wished for Jane to be pregnant, while 465,965 couldn’t face the prospect of these characters two producing offspring.

Those wanting to suggest their own scenarios were invited to do so, but we don’t think we’re being too cynical in believing the scriptwriters already had things worked out.

Several groups on Facebook suggest a genuine affection for the couple (though not necessarily for BT), and this crowdsourcing seems to have generated big numbers.  It can’t be long before a brand goes a step further and encourages more substantial input from the public to develop characters that the public actually cares about.