New gag from the viralists

 
Games Viral marketing is used to spread advertising like a virus, but this is no longer enough for advertisers - new ideas are needed. 
You've seen it before. An email lands in your inbox with a link to a funny video. The content makes you smile and is immediately forwarded to friends. It's all just advertising. The often poorly shot 30-second films are basically clever commercials that spread like a virus due to the way they are made. That's where the name of this form of advertising comes from: viral marketing - the random distribution of such films is no longer enough for advertisers, as users are literally flooded with so-called virals. Viral inflation has made many users immune. Now the viralists among the advertisers are looking for new ways to infect the masses with advertising. They are pinning their hopes on the still young genre known as Alternate Reality Gaming (ARG for short) (see:
Robbers and gendarme
An ARG is basically a clever information scavenger hunt that takes place both on the web and in the real world. As many media as possible - from posters to telephones - are included in the game. The boundaries between reality and fiction are fluid. So far, such campaigns have only been launched in the USA. Gradually, however, advertisers in Europe are also discovering the game, which draws on various media. One of them has been causing a stir in the German-speaking Internet world for a few days now.
Hidden USB stick in pizza
Matthias Schlecker recently had a pizza delivered even though he hadn't ordered one. Between the salami and extra cheese, the university lecturer finds a USB data carrier and becomes suspicious. It shows him an elaborately produced movie without a plot on his laptop. A reference to the Internet site Push11.com leads him to a sequel to the movie. This in turn refers to a room in a Berlin city hospital. Matthias Schlecker is not the only one to be shown a glimpse into a confused world. Eleven others are currently receiving this unexpected gift. It is interesting to note that all the recipients are active on internet blogs and write about crime novels.
The story surrounding the mysterious video is becoming increasingly bizarre. New clues emerge. The sender of the messages is now also known: a boy suffering from a brain tumor with the pseudonym Horatio. His short messages set the web community's brains racing. With an invitation to his birthday party, the mysterious character even keeps the players in suspense.
real world on the go.
Tracks to Switzerland
The story of the mysterious boy fills hundreds of websites within a few days. The insights into his life mobilized people to discuss the boy's fate on forums. In the meantime, the traces even lead to Switzerland. Dr. Johann Tiefensee, reincarnation researcher and guest lecturer at the Psychological Institute of the University of Zurich, treats the patient. The website Wer-bin-ich.org provides information about the work of the German researcher. Interestingly, the researcher works together with the Swiss advertising agency Angelink. They developed the Hypnotizer for him, which they describe as a tool for depth psychology. Not entirely unimportant: Angelink is regarded as a leading agency when it comes to viral marketing.
What reads like a thriller here is actually an alternate reality game. A cleverly staged marketing campaign in the form of a multimedia scavenger hunt. The web community doesn't mind that advertisers have their fingers in the pie. Although it is clear to the amateur detectives that "Push11" is a fictitious story, which in principle quietly and secretly advertises something, people puzzle over it every day. Forum and weblog entries suggest that "Push11" must be the launch of a new movie or crime thriller.
Angelink Managing Director Markus Gabriel is enthusiastic about the game. The online expert says: "It's a very interesting approach that we are seeing in this game. The campaign is in line with the current of the participatory web." The viral specialist knows whose handwriting the "Push11" project bears, but doesn't want to be a spoilsport and give the creators away. He and his team contributed the Hypnotizer to the campaign. Gabriel sees new opportunities for advertising in alternate reality games because the game format, which has become popular in the USA, plays on the entire media keyboard: "In principle, there are no limits to creativity." However, he assumes that such scavenger hunts will only become an issue in Switzerland in two years' time. Gabriel: "Unfortunately, Swiss companies are not yet ready for such activities, even though they could easily finance them from their expense accounts."
Christian Lüscher
Status quo of viral marketingThe power of viral spots is waningA year ago
there was a gold-rush atmosphere around the term viral marketing. Advertisers saw low production costs and many times lower media costs in the crazy 30-second films. Today, advertisers are more critical of the discipline that can apparently bring advertising content to the people so easily and cleverly. Viral marketing specialists speak of inflation, as video platforms such as YouTube are virtually bombarded with thousands of commercials every day. The majority of these films end up as so-called clip corpses without having attracted any attention. 
As the expert Dan Ackerman Grennberg
writes on the Techcrunch web blog, viral marketing has now become a tough business. Advertisers often use questionable methods in the daily battle for attention. Users are deceived under pseudonyms, forums are manipulated or credible bloggers are bought for recommendations. Deceptive maneuvers are the order of the day. Roland Kühl von Puttkamer of the advertising blogger team summarizes the development: "Viral marketing threatens to become a dirty advertising bomb. Advertisers should not be surprised if consumers no longer trust not only online advertising, but also the producers of Web 2.0." Markus Gabriel from the Angelink advertising agency
who specializes in viral marketing, says: "Top Swiss agencies and clients still know little about viral mechanisms." It is naïve to think that uploading a funny little film to a video platform has anything to do with viral marketing, summarizes Gabriel. User Generated AdvertisingSupervirals.com does that

what an advertising agency does for a living. They conceive and realize good ideas. Companies can post a briefing for a viral campaign on Supervirals.com. Anyone who feels inspired to realize a spot can take part in the competition. If the original idea meets the requirements of the briefing, the winning entry will receive a prize. The German-language version of this idea is called Moviebakery.com. Instead of prizes, however, the video bakers from Cologne reward the amateur directors with money. The results of such platforms have already caused brand strategists a lot of stomach ache. Last year, a participatory campaign by Chevrolet went completely off the rails. Environmental activists did not miss the opportunity and produced several cynical commercials, which led to heated debates and hot heads about the sense and nonsense of such advertising experiments. (cl)