Halo 3 viral marketing beings
Alien conspiracy group emerges.
The inevitable viral marketing campaign to promote Halo 3 has begun.
This weekend groups from an organisation called The Society of the Ancients took to the streets of New York and London (among other places) to hand out flyers and preach that "we are not alone".
A logo on the T-shirts they wore and paperwork handed-out are exactly the same as used by a mysterious poster on the Halo 3 forums, as well as on a bizarre email sent out by Microsoft that was built around the same theme.
All clues point towards The Society of the Ancients website, which features various clichéd phenomenon like Stonehenge and crop circles, and looks like it was made in 1996. Have a nose around and you'll eventually find yourself on a page sporting a countdown timer.
We've asked Microsoft what it's all about and what the event is the timer counts down to, but we're still waiting for an answer (which we don't think is too likely to materialise).
It isn't the first time wacky marketing has been linked with a Halo game. The second instalment in the series was promoted by the "ilovebees" campaign. This revolved around a bizarre website seemingly about the joys of keeping those buzzy bees. However, as people started to dig further the plot thickened.
It all culminated in participants being offered early access to play the game at special events, as well as getting their hands on promotional bits and pieces like DVDs and posters.
We shall be keeping our eyes peeled.
-
About Halo 3
-
6,074 followers
About Robert Purchese
Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds. @Clert on Twitter.
Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.
You may also like...
-
Day Z: The Best Zombie Game Ever Made?
Welcome to the corpse run. 73
-
Gravity Rush Review
Found in translation. 62
-
XCOM: Enemy Unknown Preview: First Contact
Hands-on with the unknown unknowns. 17
Subscribe to The Eurogamer.net Daily.
The 10 most popular stories of the day, delivered at 5pm UK time. Never miss a thing.
You may also like...
-
Day Z: The Best Zombie Game Ever Made? 73
-
Gravity Rush Review 62
-
XCOM: Enemy Unknown Preview: First Contact 17
-
Sony patents method to interrupt your gaming with an ad 149
-
Wii U Aliens: Colonial Marines is best-looking version because of console's "more modern tech" 101
-
Jet Set Radio announced for PlayStation Vita 49
-
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning needed to sell 3 million to break even 80
-
New Star Wars franchise to be unveiled next week 41
-
Rockstar to push Max Payne 3 "to its limits" on high-end PCs 25
-
Ghost Recon: Future Soldier Review 132
-
Arma 3 in-engine footage shows off lighting tech 25
-
Amalur MMO "would blow you away", claims game's author 13
-
App of the Day: Go Robo! 2
-
Activision vs. Vince Zampella and Jason West: Inside the game industry trial of the decade 72
-
Harry Potter For Kinect announced 17
Comments (24) Latest comment 5 years ago
Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Comment below viewing threshold Show
some more- [link url=http://www.borat.tv
]http://www.borat.tv
[/link]
Comment below viewing threshold Show
To me it just seems so obscure and fad-ish that I really wonder how much impact this actually has on things beyond being a cool new angle for marketing people to add to their plans.
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Fine.
Does it really need this? 95% of Xbox owners are going to buy the fucking game anyway.
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Clearly they were not, someone seems to enjoy these things although I am unsure who exactly (other than the advertising agencies, as “node” pointed out).
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Maybe I'm being picky, but I always though the point of viral marketing was that on first appearance it did not appear to actually BE marketing. Nothing I have read here appears to be anything else.
Kanga's vm rule,
incomprehensible website != viral marketing
(I need a logic sign for "does not necessarily equal"
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Comment below viewing threshold Show
You can't tell me this,
[link url=http://mtvgames.typepad.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/2007/06/15/sota_protesters.jpg
]http://mtvgames.typepad.com/.shared/imag...[/link]
doesn't look like marketing? Simply not putting the name of your product in the advert is hardly embracing the spirit of viral marketing. In fact, not including the name of your product is surely the very most basic qualifier.
In ym book, a viral marketing campaign is one that can permeate between people without any of them realising straight off that what they are disseminating is actually marketing.
Take the following example. Versions of this ad that did not have the Quicksilver logo on the end did the rounds for a while before people realised. Now of course not everyone was fooled, but the style of presentation is much more on the money, and it would be a lot easier for people to pass on links to this movie simply because they thought it was cool (thats the viral bit you see, people "passing it on" without realising what they are doing).
[link url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JR_naKxLEPc
]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JR_naKxLEPc
[/link]
No one is going to be "passing on" the students wearing t-shirts in the street, so where is the viral aspect. I really think that marketing firms have confused viral with confusing.
Comment below viewing threshold Show
If you don't like this stuff, don't look at it.
Comment below viewing threshold Show
I guess this is really an issue of semantics.
[link url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viral_marketing
]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viral_marke...[/link]
Dont know whether that bears me out or not
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Comment below viewing threshold Show
I'm not sure that making specific comments about someone's marketing campaign is trolling.
I personally don't make a distinction based on the target platform, I just say what I see. Show me a crap PS3 marketing campaign (as I have been shown in the past) and I'll likely have something negative to say about it (as I have done in the past).
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Yes and no. These marketing campaigns work because the fans and the campaign hit headlines and the Internet topics (every time this gets mentioned somewhere someone previously unknown with the product is undoubtedly going to stumble across it). It's not so much selling your product as it is making people aware that the product will be released in the near future. After this you will see the 2nd move that will try and get people to buy it.
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Eh? Come again? Could you specify as this thread has been pretty civil up till now.
Comment below viewing threshold Show
TRUTH
mike_mgoblue
Comment below viewing threshold Show
---
Do you not remember Nintendo's resonse to I Love Bees. We had I Love Knees, I Love Cheese, and basically any other word you could think of that rhymes with bees - all to promote Metroid Prime 2.
Comment below viewing threshold Show
Seems I love Cheese [link url=http://www.ilovecheese.com/
]http://www.ilovecheese.com/
[/link]
And I love Knees [link url=http://www.iloveknees.com/
]http://www.iloveknees.com/
[/link]
Don't support Pikmin in quite the same way that I love Bees did Halo.
Comment below viewing threshold Show