Viral/ARG/etc 101

Doing the rounds on the interwebs: thisman.org. The site shows a man ‘hundreds of people’ see in their dreams. This is gold, this is the kind of stuff people want to hear about, want to believe and a lot of them even WILL.

But it’s a viral. How do we know? Actually a pretty basic thing gave it away: the domain is registered by Italian marketing agency Guerriglia Marketing. What frustrates me is that this is against some basic stuff. It even sounds too trivial to even be worth mentioning:

don’t register a domain that will be the base of mystery with your agency’s email.

A lot of people will argue with me, will say most people won’t take the effort. Well, sorry but you’re wrong: someone is bound to check this and, trust me, even A LOT will. By putting something like this together, you’re approaching a species that lives and breathes on the net. They will find out and they’ll start spreading the news (they know how to). This will take away all the magic you are creating, the story will lose it’s mystery and doubt and will become worthless for a big part of an important part of your audience: the ambassadors that will be spreading the word.

This isn’t about this being a viral, people don’t mind that. People love a good story and this specific case is the seed of a brilliant one. This is exactly what people are looking for. But if you take away the thrill of the hunt by doing this, what is left?

One thing I will agree on: some people will look until they find out, no matter how much effort you’re putting into keeping it hidden. And I agree, it’s pretty hard to do something like that on the internet without someone finding out eventually. But the key word here is ‘eventually’. When people are already into the story, it won’t matter that much when it comes out during the ride. Because they’re already participating, you’ve got their attention and the willingness to experience what you have in store. But not from step 1, that’s suicide for this kind of project.