( link: http://awards.sf.akqa.com/creative/2007/halo3/iris/shell.html )
Iris was an ARG (alternate reality game) designed to promote Halo 3 pre-launch of the game.
With any giant media launch come hype, and as if the Halo franchise hadn't enough steam behind it, Iris had planned on topping the bar. As another alternate way of, perhaps subliminally, promoting the game, Iris took followers from the digital world, to the street, back online, and to the street again with countless mysteries to solve, hidden messages, and a massively confusing "storyline".
Halo 2 had, previously, used a familiar technique with their infamous "ilovebees.com" site (where the xbox.com url switched to ilovebees.com in the original theatrical trailer), so running an ARG was nothing new to Bungie. With the fact the conclusion of the trilogy was Halo 3, though, they decided to go far beyond what almost any ARG had previously done. With months of preperation, Iris finally took form and was released to the public, bit by bit. I remember attempting to follow the events as they progressed, becomming massively confused and springing to fan site to look for clues. Needless to say, I was aleady interested in the Halo series as well, but this ARG had spiked an almost personal need to try to figure out this mystery.
And as saying, I continued to fail.
The site above lists all the steps of this "game" and how they were carried out. It's interesting to see the complexity behind organizing such a complex "social experiment" such as this. The success of this project continued onward promoting the game's storyline, pushing the hype, and depthening the plot of this epic sequal to one of the most anticipated trilogies ever created.
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As much as the hardcore Halo fans bother me, I absolutely love Bungie! This company is one of the few AAA independent game developers with fun products. After the ilovebees.com and Iris viral marketing stunts, they definitely do a great job creating hype. Their marketing team definitely knows their audience and the best way to reach them quickly. As the video showed, Iris started in a forum post which was easily reported about in blogs and webcomics. Of course, everyone knows that Halo 3 was coming out soon, but everyone is determined to find out how this Halo story started with the Covenent. This granted the success of the viral marketing campaign.
ReplyDeleteI feel that this campaign can only really work for videogames and movies. The product being advertised has to have a genuinely deep story line and Internet fan base. I can’t imagine Tide creating a viral campaign to this extent. Gatorade did create a successful line of viral marketing videos to promote their new flavor of sports beverage a couple of years ago.
I think that ARG's, and Iris in particular, are incredibly fascinating. Even though I don't have an Xbox, and have only played Halo a couple of times with my friends, I still heard about the promotion. Although I didn't really follow it, I knew somewhat about what was going on purely because there was so much hype about it. I agree with Dan that this would only really be possible with entertainment. It would be possible to run a similar campaign to raise interest in another type of product, but I don't think it would be anywhere near as successful. As Iris proved, fans of video games and movies are truly fanatical about the story lines, and will definitely respond to this type of campaign. No one can resist trying to solve a mystery, and when that ties in with your favorite game, you're hooked.
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