Mirror's Edge Launches in North America next Tuesday. If the weight of expectation resting on the title were not enough, it seems like EA is trying to drum up a little hype around college campuses with a “viral” marketing campaign.
The campaign takes the form of Wanted posters for the games protagonist, Faith. This first example of this was discovered on campus at the University of Southern California. This campaign is interesting. As of writing no official word has come out of EA and it could be the case that this is the work of fan, although so far the evidence seems to be pointing in the other direction.
The first thing to say about the campaign, without arguing semantics, is that it isn’t really viral. The idea of viral marketing is about the transmission of ideas through populations on an individual level in much a similar way that disease spreads. Simply sticking the “viral” label on any old advert, even if it is pinned on a college notice board, only devalues the concept. Furthermore, the wanted poster is a been-done for the ages. It is clichéd to the point that has been sucked dry of any impact it or meaning it may have once had.
The connection is so obvious and this use of the wanted poster is so clichéd is that it gives itself away as advertising instantly. Audiences are far smarter than that. If they see patterns emerging in the way they are being spoken to then they will just group them all together and be done with it. The point of “viral” or more appropriately “ambient” advertising is to inoffensively encroach upon and surprise consumers by communicating through means that they did not expect. Today’s modern consumer does expect to be communicated through via wanted posters.
On a completely different note, why would there be a wanted poster on a college campus anyway? Where is the connection between the location and the message? One of the biggest advantages of ambient advertising is the ability to exploit the context in which advertising exsists. There is none of that here.
If you’ve already committed to a wanted poster campaign there are ways of making it work though. GTA IV launched a similar campaign and to great effect. This down to the direction in which information was flowing. Obviously Rockstar anticipated the support its game would receive and invited eager fans to put up posters of their own. The brilliance of this is that not only is engaging potential consumers and giving them something to contribute great PR in itself but it also constitutes this “viral” dissemination of ideas. It wasn’t just a tool to get click-throughs to the GTAIV website but rather a way of utilising and bringing together the latent community surrounding the game and the brand. Rockstar put consumers in charge and the result was a well placed and believable poster campaign.
The most worrying trend in all “viral” or “ambient” or whatever advertising is that some practitioners seem to think that it will just happen. That if they think they are just that little bit out of the box that the world will come knocking at their door. Nothing could be further from the truth. Ultimately it is the social status of ideas and how their place within a community that will determine whether its members take it upon themselves to pass the word on.