The Alternate Reality Game and Viral Marketing

Where the World Really is Your Playground
Do you remember those days as a kid when you and a group of friends would pretend that your given environment was either a jungle or the interior of a space ship and you’d spend the whole afternoon in that make-believe world and no matter what anyone said, that cat really was an alien and your plastic gun fired plasma? So now, what if I told you there was a kind of game that managed to harness that feeling of yours and literally make the world your playpen?
The alternate reality game or ARG is a type of game that uses the real world as its platform while using multiple media and game elements to tell a story that is directly affected by the players’ thoughts and actions. So in its own way, it bears a similarity to a puzzle game or a detective story, since an ARG is not as simple as “beat this” or “get that”. It uses a player intense environment that takes place in real-time and evolves according to the players’ decisions and interact with the game’s characters to solve puzzles and challenges.
While it can be just another way to play a type of game, the mainstream has recognized this as a potent form of advertisement. This is where the viral marketing comes in. Imagine this: you’re sitting on your desk, typing away when suddenly comes an invitation to check a website. So being naturally curious, you go to the website and are mildly amused at what you find. Just then, you receive a phone call that sets you off your desk and on an adventure around the city, often teaming up with people or working against them. And at the end of it, you earn yourself a promotional item from the makers of the product who commissioned the ARG. Clever, wouldn’t you say?
Some of the best examples of the ARG being used to drum up interest for products would have to be “The Beast” from 2001, “I Love Bees” from 2004, “Lost Experience” from 2006. “The Beast” was created in order to market Steven Spielberg’s film “A.I.: Artificial Intelligence” and another of Stanley Kubrick’s unfinished works. The game centered on the mystery of the disappearance of a credited character and the murder of another. The game created various web sites for its end and even places like hat stores and sleep clinics.
“I Love Bees” was to promote Bungee’s massively popular “Halo” video game sequel. It followed that after the theatrical trailers for the video game, the URL of the site “ilovebees.com” was flashed. Curious, people would go to the site, which was about honeymaking and sales, but with random characters and sentence fragments. The webmaster set up a blog that something had gone wrong, and both ARG and Halo fans set themselves to work on solving it, thus leading them to aid an AI (Artificial Intelligence used by the military of the in-game universe) that had crash-landed on earth.
“Lost Experience” was one ARG developed for the recently-concluded TV show, “Lost”. The game was a little more difficult to follow, reflecting on the mysterious nature that was the show’s trademark. But from what could be gleaned, it was built around solving some of the sinister initiatives of the show.
This proves that games and marketing have found a brilliant way to blend together to promote products and awareness. Given time, one can only wonder what brilliance can be achieved.

EMail Marketing in a Nutshell

Perhaps one of the most lucrative aspects of e-commerce is e-mail marketing. In fact, in 2006, companies and firms spent around $400 million on e-mail marketing campaigns, just one indication of the growing reliance on this type of marketing.

In essence, it uses electronic mail, otherwise known as e-mail, as the focal point and primary tool for marketing campaigns directed towards customers. Of course, e-mail marketing isn’t always just for commercial applications. Even fund raising messages relayed through a designed can be considered e-mail marketing.

Generally, e-mail marketing refers to many different situations and purposes. E-mail marketing is also useful in order to enhance a company’s relationship with its customers. They can keep track of customers and encourage brand loyalty because of the one-on-one nature of e-mail marketing.

This way, companies can go direct to existing clients and give them prime offers that will allow the company to have return customers.

This type of marketing can also be utilized for the purpose of acquiring new customers by sending out e-mails to prospective clients. These e-mails are sort of like feelers that provide new customers with an idea of what products or services your company can offer them, and what privileges or discounts they get from your e-mail marketing campaign.

Companies with e-mail marketing campaigns can also tap other companies by allowing them to advertise on the e-mails they send out.

E-mail marketing has numerous advantages. One of the foremost benefits is high revenue for the company. Marketing through e-mail correspondence has proven to be very effective. According to some sources, this type of marketing trails only one other online marketing method in terms of effectiveness (that method is search marketing). E-mail marketers can also keep track of their revenue as well as their returns on investment because there are many tools available.

When you think about it, E-mail marketing is really very viable because so many people check their e-mail accounts everyday—and we’re not even talking about people with multiple e-mail accounts here. Statistics peg that more than half of the people who use the Internet check their e-mails or send e-mails at least once per day.

Another advantage is that e-mail marketing allows a more personalized way of dealing with customers, as e-mail marketers can tailor-fit campaigns and e-mail messages to suit a particular subgroup of their clientele. This makes marketing more dynamic and less automated.

Of course, e-mail marketing is not yet an exact science. There are still many variables to deal with, such as delivery rate and e-mail regulations, particularly those relating to what is considered as spam mail. Still, e-mail marketing is on the rise, and it has proven its worth in the world of online marketing and e-commerce.

Understanding the Way Viral Marketers do it

The word “virus” or “viral” usually connotes something negative– it is associated with diseases and some other unwanted parasitic microbes stuck inside your body. You may not have it, but it’s greatly contagious: it’s something that you will get when you’re in contact with someone who has it.

Marketers, however, want to achieve an ad that works the same way as a virus: one that spreads like an epidemic in no time. Although no, they don’t want to make a vast population feel sick (although sometimes they do just that,) as salesmen, they want their products to be well-known by this mob. Cue in something funny, amusing, annoying or anything that you’ll remember every time you dare close your eyes. And it’s (supposed to) have something to do with a product.

Simply put, viral marketing is any strategy that encourages your viewers to pass the marketing message on. A guy will start talking to his friends about the ad he just saw, then his friends will do the same to their other friends, and so on. It is pretty much how your common cold works. This is also referred to as the “word-of-mouth” marketing (which is how some folklores and mythical stories are passed down and preserved). Now that internet and search engines came into the playing fields, it’s much easier to ‘spread the word’ because people, familiar to you or not, are all over the internet, and all it takes is an e-mail to their addresses and the word is finally released. Mission accomplished.

Hotmail.com, one of the first email services for free, served out a classic example of a viral marketing strategy, one that is fairly easy to understand:

1. Give away free email addresses and some other services,
2. On every free message sent out, put a tagline that  says, “get your free private email at http://www.hotmail.com,”
3. Wait for the people who sends messages unintentionally advertise Hotmail to their friends and co-workers,
4. And to others who can see the email,
5. Let them sign up for their own free email accounts
6. Repeating step 3, sending more mails to more people.

Basically, the strategy worked wonders, at least at that time. Who knew that by tagging a plug in emails can disseminate information quickly? Apparently, Hotmail did.

Nowadays, viral marketing strategies include videos, those that tried to become the next Rick Roll or Numa Numa dance. As far as cyber-marketing goes, it is now the war of the memes. (an aspect of pop culture that’s mostly parodied, and made into a joke, mostly present in the internet)

It’s amazing how the internet revolutionized marketing. Feel free to confess that even you also caught an advertisement over the internet. And ended up buying.

Memes and Viral Marketing

Internet marketing is a very complex undertaking. With the sheer size of the Internet, there is really a wide range of methods that marketers can use in order to promote a product or a service and to create buzz for it. Among these methods is something called the Internet meme, one form of viral marketing.

What is a Meme? The term ‘internet meme’ derives its origin from memes, which are collections of ideas and cultural phenomena spread through written, oral or other forms of media. Internet memes, in essence, follows the original concept. However, the ones on the Internet are more like trends and fads and nothing quite so permanent as a culture or an idea.

Still, Internet marketers see Internet memes as useful marketing tools. Take a couple of films, for example, that rode on huge online viral marketing campaigns that involved memes and viral marketing to assure box office success. The Blair Witch Project, a 1999 horror film, and Snakes on a Plane, a 2006 horror feature film, both relied extensively on viral video and word of mouth marketing.

As a testament to the incredible buzz generated on the Web, one reviewer from the UK even called Snakes on a Plane “perhaps the most internet-hyped film of all time.” Snakes even had a lot of memes associated with it prior (and even after) its eventual theatrical release.

Of course, there are many memes that apparently seem to be borne out of people having too much free time. You’ve got your 4chan memes as prime examples of this. Still, that’s not to say that they don’t have exploitability in terms of marketing purposes.

Creating and capitalizing on memes depend heavily on a thorough knowledge of crowd psychology and awareness of the netizen group dynamic. Memes allow extremely fast proliferation of content, especially if you can drive it enough to become a hot trend.

The Internet is really the prime prospect for many marketers because of its immense potential to generate publicity. The only problem is that there are so many avenues, so many things that internet users do and see in on the web, that it seems so hard to pinpoint which one would be the most effective to focus on.

When it comes to rapidly spreading the news about a product, memes are the way to go. It will be a difficult task and requires a lot of hard work, research, and perseverance. But if you get it right, surely the buzz will be enough to guarantee a big payoff. This is why companies will continue to make campaigns that are aimed toward capitalizing on memes and viral marketing.

Become an Internet Star

The Internet and Stardom; The Redefinition

By now, it is obvious we regard many artists as class acts, even though they were of a different generation. We upload the hits of the Beatles and the Police into our IPods. Michael Jackson was remembered in a moving tribute that is sold as a CD or on DVD. Real or pirated, the great musical talents from our parent’s generation are available on any street corner bazaar or even a CD bar. But as we are the most well-connected generation, we have an extra advantage. What are they? Youtube, Newgrounds, MegaVideo and Veoh; sites where anyone with a digital camera and access to the internet can upload music or videos to share with the whole world. The general aim; to strut their stuff and let the world know it!

We are a generation connected by the world-wide web. And as people of many ages and nationalities are wont to do, we like to show off to our friends, families, even complete strangers. The recent boom of talent show on TV like American Idol and America’s Got Talent are evidence of that. But because of the heavy completion and strict judging processes, not everyone can get their shot at the limelight (or the multimillion music contract and makeovers from well-paid make-up artists and dressers and trainers to keep bodies nicely toned and fit).

People are also persistent, time and time again that has been proven. With the same drive that shot Neil Armstrong to the moon and split the atom, people take their video cameras and do just about anything to get attention. There are comedians, amateur documentary crews, film makers and, surprise surprise, musicians. Justin Beiber stands out as an example for the moment, whether he is talented or a flash in the pan debated very furiously (but not rationally, given the internet’s gift of anonymity has given some people unwarranted arrogance and aggression) in forums and chat rooms. Even the established stars acknowledge the power of the internet with a resurgent Neil Patrick Harris in a starring role in Joss Whedon’s Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.

Then, there are the less-savory characters with internet access. Amateur pornography is very much available for viewing. It stands to reason that the participants are aware that they’re taping themselves or have no idea that the video meant for private viewing has been uploaded onto any number of video-viewing sites. There are those that have vicious and hateful rants of any topic under the sun that are there just for the sake of being there. There are those that record themselves engaging g any manner of stupid activities, like immature pranks that could seriously hurt the participants. There are even those who post videos or blogs just to let the world know that they exist and, by reason of apparent talent and wit, must be worshipped and paid attention to. And those are only the penguins at the tip of the iceberg.

The road to stardom has come a long way from agents waiting in the wings of talent shows and gigs. With the resource pool of the almost the whole world at their disposal, agents need not do much than log into Youtube and stumble upon the next big thing in music or skateboarding. But the question to ask is; how long will those stars shine?

Mobile Internet Marketing

With mobile internet quickly becoming the norm nowadays, it is but natural for internet marketers to follow suit and develop internet marketing strategies that target mobile internet users. Actually, mobile internet marketing is one of the newest trends at present and it is yielding pretty good results in terms of conversion. This is one bandwagon that it wouldn’t hurt any business to jump in to.

The first question is why join the bandwagon? Because it’s still a fairly new market. As we all know, it is the pioneers that more often than not strikes it big. If you look at the success of Iphone and Google phone in mobile applications, you know that there’s a large market out there. And when you consider the advances in technology, it is not far off when every mobile phone user would use their phones to access the internet in a regular basis.

But back at present. There are several successful campaigns that show the rewards to be reaped in doing mobile internet marketing. For example, Subway’s campaign in giving out coupons via messages to mobile phone showed a good conversion. Another case is in Japan, where about 25% of mobile owners make their purchase decisions from ads and messages sent through their mobile internet connection. These cases make it worthwhile to look at the mobile market and develop a strategy that market these users.

The trend is certainly catching up. Now you can see mobile apps for your favorite social media like Facebook or Multiply. Though the trend may be more prevalent with social media sites, this is still a good venue for you to launch your social media marketing. Even if you don’t get conversions outright, you can still benefit by building familiarity with your site and your reach in mobile internet.

How do you start? You can look at your existing data from your analytics tool. You can look through the data to check how many users are visiting your site via mobile browsers. If you have a considerable amount of visitors, you can start e-mailing or sending out coupons to these potential customers and see their reaction. Another thing that you can explore is creating a mobile site of your own so that people would have easier access your products. It would all begin from there.

Of course, one can still be skeptical about trends since some of them come and go. But in the case of mobile internet, it’s like the internet all over again. With the advances in mobile technology and how companies are developing this new media as an alternative to the personal computer, it’s not far-fetched to imagine that internet access would be standard with all mobile phones. That day is approaching soon. As such, it would be smart to invest on mobile internet marketing and find ways to reach that market for your product or business. Though there may be risks involved, the rewards to be gained outweigh those risks in terms being among the early prospectors in the area.

The Role of Word of Mouth in Internet Marketing

Word of mouth is one of the most effective techniques used when it comes to Internet Marketing. Because there are now many avenues in which consumers can interact with one another, a properly-planned word of mouth campaign can spread like wildfire, delivering the traffic a web site needs to get the face of its product out on the market and drive sales.

In essence, word of mouth is accomplished by creating content or making a product that is worthy of positive praise and that users or viewers will be more than happy to pass on to their friends and peers. Of course, with internet marketing, there is less “mouth” used. Instead, word of mouth materializes through social media status messages, blog posts, reviews, and other forms of widely accessible user-generated content.

One big part of word of mouth marketing is social media. With the popularity of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, many businesses have utilized them to boost their marketing efforts. Social media also provides companies and organizations with an excellent (not to mention low-cost) opportunity to interact directly with their clients.

Viral marketing in general works on this principle, as does buzz marketing. The latter aims to directly infuse interactions with the buzz that will help drive a product’s sales. The aim of buzz marketing, after all, is to avoid the usually automated or scripted marketing pitches and inject more creativity and uniqueness (not to mention spontaneity) into the experience of each unique user or customer.

When you think about it, doing marketing by way of word of mouth isn’t even all that difficult. As long as one has an excellent product or really interesting content, then the spreading of the news will take care of itself. This is why positioning and proper identification of the target audience is important, to ensure the success of the internet marketing campaign.

In a way, one can say that word of mouth is easy because it practically takes care of the marketing. There would be no need to spin the product or market the service after the initial effort, as people will be doing the spinning for you. Then again, this puts much more pressure to make sure that the product or service really will elicit positive or favorable reactions.

Internet marketing is a burgeoning industry, tapping the practically limitless potential of the World Wide Web to market products and services straight to the screens of consumers. In this effort, word of mouth indeed plays a big role—albeit one that transcends its traditional definition. This is where people really play the biggest part of marketing, and that is also the main reason why it is so effective.

Internet Marketing Through Social Media

Social media sites have undeniably become part of modern life. Almost all people who have access to the internet would have at least one account in one of the numerous social media sites or visit them once a day. With all of the traffic that these sites generate, it would be a logical choice to integrate them in any internet marketing campaign.

There are several reasons why you should include social media sites in a marketing campaign. One is already mentioned: traffic generation. You can use social media sites to get your product or service out there. Aside from that, increased traffic is good for any internet marketing strategy. When more people know and get to your site, you increase your chance of selling your product or service.

Another reason is that internet marketing through social media is cost-effective. You don’t need to hire someone else to do it since you can do it yourself. The only investment that you’ll make is the time that you spent building and managing your network. Additionally, the return for your investment in terms of traffic makes it worth the effort.

Using social media also works well with your current internet marketing campaign. You don’t have to do much to make it work with your current strategy. Using social media as a marketing tool is also low-maintenance. You don’t need to keep tabs on it every hour just to make sure it’s working.

You would also notice that as you build your network, you’re also getting supporters and people that share the same interest. It would be easier for you then to work on your niche market through other internet marketing strategies. Also, your network can also serve as promoters for your site or business.

You’d have to note that using social media is more for promotion and build up than anything. Conversion is not the goal in using these sites. Though that maybe the case, what you’re betting on in this strategy is increasing traffic and awareness of your product. Once you have those, conversions and revenue would not be lagging behind.

To make your social media campaign to work, you should tone down on the marketing and focus more on building interest and giving value. A helpful article, a linkbait, or any interesting fact will be more appreciated and followed by people in social media sites. Your goal is to build interest and a community about your product and its niche. The best way to do that is to build hype about your niche first before marketing your product. You shouldn’t worry much about it since once you get people interested in your niche to visit your site, sales should come in naturally.

All these reasons should compel one to look at social media as an avenue for internet marketing. When properly done, targeting social media sites can bring an increase in site traffic, more regular visitors, and an increased bottom line: added conversions and the monetization of your site.

Mistakes that viral marketers make

Mistakes in Viral Marketing

It has been proven that viral marketing is one of the most highly-effective means of advertising products for this generation of high information. But given the realism that viral marketing tries to accomplish, there are times when the world proves how it is not ready for a marketing campaign that uses such an interactive approach.

There are notable instances wherein the campaign was taken too seriously. In 2007, a Boston transit passenger saw a sign created for the movie adaption of “Aqua Teen Hunger Force”, a popular midnight cartoon show, and pointed it out to a police officer. Unlike a poster, it was a box with wires and electronic paraphernalia on its back while its front had a person “showing you the bird” or flashing his middle finger. The natural assumption for such a strange-looking item was that it was some sort of improvised bomb.

The public reaction was fairly stupendous. A fleet of emergency vehicles and a bomb squad were called in, the intersection cordoned off and the placard detonated. Later on, two bridges were closed off for the removal of a second sign, with the Coast Guard closing off part of the Charles River. Quick-thinking bloggers spread the word out that the placards were part of a viral marketing campaign, but by then city officials took the whole incident out of context by arresting the two guys who put up those signs on the charge of “placing a hoax device with the intent to panic the public.”

Turner Broadcasting, the company that owns the show, had to pay one million dollars each to the Boston Police and the Department of Homeland Security. Meanwhile, the incident made headlines around the world, earning the show and movie roughly 10 times that amount in free publicity.

Need I also forget that incident in New Zealand where a heavily-bandaged man waved a gun around in a bar? Part of a stunt to market the popular video game “Splinter Cell”. The second actor who was supposed to subdue the first actor could not make it due to the police being called in to apprehend him.

There was also that fake meteor crash by a Latvian phone company that was supposed to draw attention away from their failing economy and to presumably subscribe to a new phone line which instead drew representatives from the scientific community who immediately smelled a fake.

Now, one would think it was the fault of the marketers for not warning the populace about the method of advertisement. But that is not how viral marketing works. Viral marketing’s strength is to pull the consumer into the interactive side of the product, adding a level of interactivity the conventional methods cannot achieve. Therein is the risk. To those unaware of the method involved, it looks like you are being drawn into a confusing and dangerous incident. Naturally, given the easily alarmed nature of regular people, this would prompt unwanted attention to be drawn towards actors or the company itself who did not include a disclaimer towards their campaign. It just goes to show that in today’s day and age, one must be very very careful.

Do you feel lucky punk?

The success of the Numa Numa video was based on luck. The tune is catchy but the song isn’t even in English. The “actor” certainly isn’t a stud and the quality of the video is pretty bad. Why was this video a success? Luck.

We all need a little luck to help us succeed. It doesn’t matter how skillful or hardworking we are; luck is an essential ingredient for success.

You may start listing famous companies and individuals and try to convince me that they did it all through sweat and/or skill, but I’d disagree with you in each and every case that this was the deciding factor. Luck played a hand in each and every one of those successes.

Of course we have to remember the famous quote by Gary Player the great South African golfer: “The harder I work, the luckier I get.”

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