unforum

[Meak]

HOW TO MAKE AN ARG by Stella:

1) Take some cool photographs and place ads in 'funky', 'trendy' magazines.
2) Have cryptic clues leading to state of the art websites designed by seasoned pros.
3) Slowly reveal a compelling story, and offer a substantial prize to the winner.
4) Use all forms of modern technology to bring the game together - mobile phones, 3-D animation, flash puzzles, sound clips etc.
5) Disappear without a trace and never bother finishing the game or let anyone come near solving it..........

and hey presto... everyone hates you.

[xar]

Marlowe

[Wishi-san]

I tried using the portfolio to discover and order for the symbols, but unsurprisingly, nothing! Shock that eh?

I'm starting to think that either (a) the answer checker is broke (wouldn't that be hilarious) or (b) we're already in hell, and this is the devil forcing us to do this repetitive task with no answer.

[Bidvision]

I think there could be somthing in this. Or maybe not. But anyway.

Imagine you're Stella, and you're commissioning someone to make an ARG to advertise your lager. You're going to want to get the most out of the money you spend on prize money and websites, and a few Stella references here and there might not seem enough.

So what if you make the players learn about Stella Artois along the way? Next thing you know you've created a small army of Stella experts able to wax lyrical at parties about what an old and wise beer Stella is. Depending, of course, on what sort of parties you go to.

Having said that, I'm yet to find anything in the history of Stella saying, "...and then the final Stella recipe was complete. The importance of tridents is 37".

[Mac]

Well the way Stella is doing this they're creating a lot of angry people refusing to drink Stella even if it would save their life!

[Bidvision]

It's certainly dented my perception of Stella Artois.

But how many people actually play this ARG? The number of people registered at the Butterfly Preservation Society on Friends Reunited doesn't seem to be high enough to bother a major brand like Stella.

I suspect that to them we're just a bunch of useless nerds, and they reckon that if they say nothing at all we'll lose interest eventually and just go away.

Maybe we should try to kick up a small stink by sending out a press release to the computer press and advertising trade press. If it's a quiet news day we'll probably get a couple of articles in. I do press releases quite often for my job, I was even on regional TV a couple of weeks ago as a result of one of them, so I volunteer to do the legwork if anyone is interested in backing me up.

EDIT: If we do this, it should probably be after the 6 weeks is up.

[xar]

heres an idea

[GuyP]

[Bidvision]

Hell's bells, we certinaly shouldn't be talking about trying to do illegal things. I want to completely distance myself from any ideas to attack anyone's website.

My press release idea is legal and reasonable if we don't hear anything six weeks after the closing date.

It may create adverse publicity for Stella, but it will be because they have cancelled a competition without informing its entrants, which while probably not against the law, is still very bad form.

Hopefully we will get some information and nosuch talk will be necessary.

[Meak]

I saw Stella's new print ad campaign in the Times magazine today...

it's a picture a lot like Olaf Veltman's stuff, a scene of a beach resort with quite a few references to films in it, such as four men running down the beach (Chariots of Fire), two scuba divers (Open Water), a piano (The Piano), girl in a white bikini emerging from the sea (James Bond) etc etc

interestingly, almost in the centre of the ad is a message board with lots of 'MISSING' signs on it... and the one in the middle looks a lot like Jon.

I'll try and scan the ad in... i can't find a copy on the internet.

[Frankie]

Could Stella be trying to tell us something with the song on this site?

[green ice queen]

hmm lets hope not...