Four wins

 
Computer Hewlett-Packard relies on a viral online promotion by Angelink.  
Computer manufacturer Hewlett-Packard is using viral marketing to publicize its hpstore.ch portal. Instead of causing a stir with a funny little movie that is distributed by users via e-mail, the computer heavyweight wants to challenge the intellect of its future customers. The campaign is called "The HP Friends Quiz". "The HP Friends Quiz" is a question-and-answer game. It is not enough to answer the questions correctly. The participant becomes a runner. And this is where the viral effect comes into play: the participant answers the first question on hpfriendsquiz.ch. The e-mail address of a known person must then be entered, who will receive the next quiz question by e-mail. The quiz chain continues until four people have answered four quiz questions. Once all players have answered the questions correctly, they are in the running for lucrative prizes: HP digital camera, tickets to the 2008 Champions League final in Moscow, a shopping weekend in Paris or tickets to the Bon Jovi concert in Amsterdam in June.
Anyone who thinks that the quiz is child's play is mistaken. Even the most loyal HP fan is likely to find some of the questions tricky. Markus Gabriel from the Angelink agency, which developed the quiz, says: "Some of the questions are so difficult that you have to search for the answers on the HP website." The otherwise dry information thus becomes learning content. The concept reportedly works quite well and is not the first time it has been used: as Markus Gabriel says, various customers have already used the viral brain game. Henkel Germany, for example.
Gabriel sees the quiz as the ideal way to acquire e-mail addresses cleanly. Instead of acquiring addresses at great expense, such a game can be used to refresh the e-mail base. According to a study, the acceptance of the participating quiz players is very high. Four out of five participants could be contacted by email in future without the messages being perceived as annoying.
The quiz is advertised with special banners programmed by Angelink. The banners are distributed via HP's affiliate network.
Christian Lüscher