More Viral Advertising From MS?

[Paul_G]

http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/9521/Pictures-of-Mysterious-Crop-Circles-Surface/

Looks like hot on the heels of OrigenXbox360, there is another campaign doing the rounds. The link should bring you up to speed, but it appears that the 'author' of the site is posting on all the different Xbox fan sites under the name of Lutz.

Theories behind the numbers so far include the launch of Halo 3, the launch of the Halo movie, and the three numbers in some way representing the 3 major territories involved in the global launch of the Xbox 360.

The site appears to be counting down to something in two days - not sure if this is based on the client machines system clock like Origen, or if it is server based, but whichever it is, what could it be counting down to?

Apologies if this has already been posted

 

[Carl B]

Oh God MS, please stop with the viral campaigns! I mean I respect your use of inexpensive advertising techniques, but isn't a different campaign every other month a little much now?

 

[Pozer]

It not so much the frequency of the campaigns that annoys, it that they never reveal anything substantial at the end. Kinda hard to get excited when you know it's just a countdown to revealing some minute piece of information that was leaked 5 months ago.

 

[ector]

It would be kinda fun if it wasn't so stupidly obvious.

168 in hexadecimal is 360 in decimal.

 

[Paul_G]

It would be kinda fun if it wasn't so stupidly obvious.

168 in hexadecimal is 360 in decimal.

not that obvious!

Well i didn't fancy reading what was at last count 88 pages of posts so maybe someone else figured it out, but it didn't even occur to me

Nice one

 

[Bobbler]

Well... the url for the site is www.hex168.com -- it should have been at least fairly apparent if you spend some time on it.


Regarding the first few posts: I'm of the same sentiment -- this viral marketing stuff is getting quite out of hand and silly lately. It's like every single thing now has to be a viral ad.

 

[Paul_G]

Well... the url for the site is www.hex168.com -- it should have been at least fairly apparent if you spend some time on it.


Regarding the first few posts: I'm of the same sentiment -- this viral marketing stuff is getting quite out of hand and silly lately. It's like every single thing now has to be a viral ad.

yeah, i just saw the thing on TXB and saw it wasn't on here, didn't really look at it too much, i guess i just assumed the hex bit was to do with the hexagon in the images released.

And I second you on the way this viral advertising is going now, I enjoyed ILoveBees, and OurColony was an interesting diversion, but it's sort of lost some of it's interest now that it's so common, i mean Origen hasn't even finished really, and already the next one is out. Having said that it may not interest us, but it is driving interest in Xbox360 and it is very cost effective interest too. For what is undoubtedly less than advertising just once at a reasonable time on TV, they are getting to so many more people and even if they are as sick of it as we are, any publicity is good publicity generally.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

How many of those interested in the viral campaign aren't already frequent game-site visitors who already know all about XB360 though? It's cheap but not an alternative to a proper marketting campaign targetted at those who otherwise won't know anything about the machine.

 

[3roxor]

Maybe the endresult of this all will be Bill Gates birthday?

 

[Paul_G]

How many of those interested in the viral campaign aren't already frequent game-site visitors who already know all about XB360 though? It's cheap but not an alternative to a proper marketting campaign targetted at those who otherwise won't know anything about the machine.

It's not about improving knowledge of the system though, not yet i don't think. I don't think that these ads are even targetting people other than frequent game-site visitors. What these are doing is building the hype and the drive ahead of the launch. It's the early adopters that drive the demand later on in the machines life, and it's the early adopters that are the frequent game-site visitors. Advertising on TV may reach people who don't yet know much about the machine, but at its launch price, it likely won't generate a sale. These campaigns are very tightly focused on a certain group of people, and these are the same people that will spend £280/$400 on a games machine at or near launch.

 

[expletive]

I think only the last one (origen) was a complete waste. The 2 prior were halo 2 and the x360 video.

Oh wait the x360 video happened after the MTV thing was announced. So only 2 of the three were complete wa..

Oh, nevermind

 

[pegisys]

this one seem interesting I wonderer if they are going to announce a game, maybe they will let us know wht bungie is working on

well the one for halo 2 was kinda fun, the others seemed to be pointless

 

[expletive]

this one seem interesting I wonderer if they are going to announce a game, maybe they will let us know wht bungie is working on

well the one for halo 2 was kinda fun, the others seemed to be pointless

I just hope its more than some damned contest when you get to play or win one of them a few weeks before launch. BFD

EDIT: btw bungie is working on halo 3

 

[pipo]

It's probably the US Origen version.

They still have to announce the location and date of that (US based) pre-launch event right?

 

[LunchBox]

i love viral marketing...

it makes me feel all nice and tingly, and most of all, dirty on the inside