… it's utterly bogus… As all of this pseudo-content made its way online, the dance grew even more complex. At one point when the team thought the tension on the message boards was dissipating, it created … a character playing the role of a… the boards went wild...
…if you're on the side of the equation that believes [the hoax], then it's fascinating, and if you're on the side that gets that it's not real, then it's just great entertainment."...
The extract above is taken from an
article in Fastcompany about the marketing firm, Campfire. Campfire is run by the people who turned a $22K unscripted movie with no-name actors into a quarter of a billion dollar take at the box-office. The movie is called The Blair Witch Project. Campfire has taken the lessons it learned and now sells its services to the likes of Sega, Audi and Pontiac. Please read the complete article, it is fascinating. Here are some more little gems; recognize anything?
… expands its audience by drawing in the gullible, the curious, and the merely bored--simultaneously... the audience needs enough backstory and a sufficient flow of detail to keep it guessing...
... To prime the palates of the conspiracy junkies…"what these guys are doing is strategically hiding parts of the story in an interesting and entertaining way, and getting people motivated to figure it out for themselves…
...The virus… catches on only if it forges a community where none existed. The infection has to start small and feed on fascination. "You can't start by thinking about what's going to appeal to the mainstream," says Monello. "You have to ask, 'What's this narrow target market going to embrace and absolutely make its own?'"
To create that kind of bond, Campfire immerses itself in the unspoken etiquettes and motivations of different target communities--Internet anthropology with a commercial twist....
… multiple layers of rabbit holes for people with varying levels of interest: the "divers," who participate minute-by-minute; the "dippers," who casually tune in on the message boards once a week; and the "skimmers," who accidentally read about it while surfing the likes of BoingBoing. Rather than cross its fingers and pray for the audience to pass the tale on, Campfire pushed people along by inventing a "fan" to track the saga on his own Web site, summarizing the story for casual observers. "You let the hard-core audience figure the story out and tell it to each other," Monello explains, "then archive it for people who are following along from the sidelines."...
You may ask yourself why I am posting this story if I am so convinced of Steorn's honesty. Good question. I want to demonstrate that I have not simply swallowed someone else's guff without researching and thinking deeply about the subject. So often, so-called believers are accused of having no idea of science, of unquestioning loyalty to a company that is using them as pawns, of a faith-based predisposition to being conned, of not paying attention, of not understanding the facts or how impossible all of this is, of having a poor grasp of the scientific method or of just being stupid. Some of these people, whose stance I can often otherwise relate to, seem to be stuck in a rut, unable to see that their mantras lose their power when they close their minds or denigrate others in trying to prove a point. Some are unable to recognise that, while scientific proof is the absolute and only end-game that matters, there are a myriad signals that could, if one chooses, be used to make an interim call. It is quite reasonable for someone to reserve their judgement, quite another to assume that this is what everyone should do.
I also want to encourage true vigilance and not simply have people buy into other's preconceptions of belief or scepticism. On either side of the fence, the ultimate proof is some way off and, until we get it, it is very easy to be wrong. What we read about in magazines is usually not the state of the art. Who knows what is happening now and where?
However, for me, the circumstantial evidence is so strong and the people that make up Steorn are so believable, that I intend to give them the benefit of the doubt while keeping an open mind (a truly open mind) to other possibilities. Thus, until I know otherwise, I will run with my conclusion that Steorn is going to change the world. If I had money, I'd bet on it.
Labels: steorn blair witch hoax guerrila marketing viral