Halo’s ARGs prove to be secret to gaming success
Shankar Gupta of MediaPost wrote an excellent post today about the success of the Halo franchise and Halo 3’s inevitable record-setting sales.
He points to 42 Entertainment’s ARGs for the saga as one of the greatest marketing elements that made Halo as big as it is today. An ARG, or Alternate Reality Game, captivates the fans of a product or media outside of the normal outlet and makes them feel like they are part of the action.
42 Entertainment is creating “the world’s most innovative, immersive entertainment” as a form of advertising for their clients.
ARGs like ILoveBees.com allowed fans of the Halo series to follow clues left on the Web to put together a puzzle that unlocked hidden audio clips fleshing out the Halo story. All in all, it feeds into the Halo persona at Bungie. Bungie employees refer to this time between when the game is complete to when it finally launches as just another stage in development. I would assume this habit is a good way of making them see the marketing and promotion of the game as a development or as the development of the ARG. The ILoveBees.com campaign was such a success that people are speculating about what Halo 3’s ARG might be. Clues have been left on message boards and online. Even staged events have been suspected, but thus far, no one knows for sure how Halo 3 will emerge on the scene.
ARGs are the next wave as far as reaching the college market though. Viral campaigns have been shown as great ways to reach the young and “elusive” demographic, and ARGs are just one step higher in the immersive scale. An advertiser must use viral marketing to build buzz for their ARG, which then generates buzz and media coverage for the product they are promoting. It’s ingenious, and I believe it will become even more prevalent as we move into future media types and advertising. The consumer demands to participate in the story now in the online space, and marketers who give them that privilege will reap the rewards.
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