The Marketleap Report
Volume II, Issue #4 - March 14th, 2002

Telling Good Stories:
How the AI online campaign kicked viral marketing over the fence to us all
by Keith Boswell

The online marketing campaign for AI, Steven Spielberg's movie from last summer, changed the way that marketers approached the term viral. The games epic feel, homegrown appeal, and rich story made it a unique force on the web. The excitement and buzz it created for an online promotion was unheard of (Artificial Intelligence - Viral Marketing and the Web).

For years the promise for entertaining marketing online lay broken, like a third grade promise of love. Online press kits, driven by rich banners, were the fixture for marketing efforts online. The occasional Flash game was just hokey enough to bug us all. Everyone talked about content being king, but no one showed everyone else how it could be done.

In an interview with Doug Horlick from Three Mountain Group, the company that built the AI online world, Horlick stressed how much ideas about web marketing were changing now that people had seen an example of using the web to create something new. "Intelligent companies engaging in viral marketing aren't throwing their product at the customer. There is a subtlety in having the brand live underneath a story. The target audience is a web savvy person who isn't going to be annoyed enough by banner ads to make a purchase. We're marketing to people who respect the creativity we put into our work."

Companies like Three Mountain Group are working on ways to capture the audience's attention, keep people engaged, and drive action online and offline for their clients. They are creating a new type of entertainment that integrates all of the various communication mediums into something that is real for people. This is what creative marketers were meant to be doing, telling the best stories they could on behalf of clients who trust them to get results.

There were over one million people who visited the AI sites and at least one quarter of them stayed an average of 30 minutes, the same amount of time as a typical TV sitcom. Can you imagine how much that amount of interaction would cost to produce for network television?

The influence of the AI campaign is spreading. The new trailer for Star Wars Episode II (shown on Fox Sunday night and now online at starwars.com) has a link at the end to holonetnews.com. This intergalactic newsletter, set before the events of Episode II, is for fans only. It gives news and background so that Star Wars fans can become more intimate with the story and characters in the film. It's not as expansive as the AI world but it is creating the desired buzz on Star Wars fan sites.

These viral marketing campaigns are also working in ways that allow them more freedom than most. In order to create effective viral buzz, Three Mountain Group likes to delve into their clients brand and find something truly unique. Their clients must trust them inherently with their reputation.

Their latest project follows up on the concepts they used for marketing AI, and applies them to create a unique form of contest for the rock band Creed. CreedQuest.com takes Creed fans into the world of the bands lyrics, trivia, and artwork to create a story that pulls Creed fans closer to the band. Community areas on the site encourage site visitors to communicate with one another, but in a unique twist from the AI puzzles, the individual is better off to not share hints with others because they are trying to amass points to win a grand prize.

The stories and interactive quiz require the fan to hunt for clues on the web and the evolving story at CreedQuest to answer a new set of questions every week. The game has been planned long enough that the second Creed album, Human Clay, had clues for the game on the album cover, a set of map coordinates where the cover photo was shot. The April issue of Guitar World has Creed on the cover and contains hints about current elements in the game. By promoting the game on the web and offline the games become more real and take physical form, increasing the connection with the audience.

CreedQuest.com is unique because it is the first time that a band has been able to pull their audience deeper into the world that drives their music. Creed tells rich stories with words, imagery and mystery. Imagine if Jim Morrison had been able to take us all through the doors of perception or if we could have played around in a war of the gods with Led Zeppelin. These are real possibilities today for intelligent musicians and artists who aspire to more than a group shot and a cool album cover.

HBO is delivering supplemental content for their breakout series Six Feet Under by giving fans additional material not seen in the weekly episode at the shows website. Each of the main characters has some interactive element that gives the audience more than what they saw. It makes their sense of the characters richer, more robust and personal. It creates a sense of, "I know this person in ways that others don't."

For the entertainment industry and those who have to sell movies and music, opening weekend or first week sales are their gauge for success. Creating buzz isn't as easy as it used to be. A funny tag line won't cut it and high-frequency television ads kill margins. Viral campaigns create a buzz you can't get from a thirty second spot or a two-minute trailer.

Marketers now have the tools and permission to engage us in ways they wouldn't have dared before. The response makes it clear that these new types of marketing create excitement and passion from their fan base. Promotion, storytelling, marketing, and experience all meet in real viral marketing to demonstrate the creativity of those behind good entertainment and at the same time respect the audience enough to give them a little more.

report@marketleap.com.