I Screen My Phone Calls: Halo 3 - When Viral Attacks

[gamer]

One of the goals of viral marketing is to draw your target audience into your game by making them feel like they are an active part of the story. Sometimes this can backfire, however, as was the case with Grand Rapids Community College student Michael VanderZand, who found himself unexpectedly caught up in the Halo 3 ARG Iris. When a gamer tag linked to the ARG contained digits that looked suspiciously like a phone number with the last three digital removed, fans began randomly calling phone numbers that coincided with the sequence...one of which belonged to VanderZand.
Unfortunately for him, his phone message was pieced together from snippits of one of his favorite web programs, Red VS. Blue.
Starting last Wednesday he began receiving calls to his cell he didn't recognize. First a couple...then dozens...and now hundreds of phone calls from fans trying to decipher a secret message that doesn't exist. Messages posted to official and non-official forums alike stating that he is not part of the game have gone largely unheeded.
Luckily VanderZand is a big Halo fan with a healthy sense of humor, so he is taking the whole thing in stride, even going as far as to voice his disappointment over folks that don't talk to him when he actually answers the phone.

I even replied in a monotone voice "Are you calling about the Halo ARG?" and still some just hung up! How do you expect to get anywhere if you don't even have the balls to respond?​

My favorite part of all this? Michael is an advertising and marketing major. Oh sweet irony. Check out The Hushed Casket link below for a full interview with VanderZand. Michael Fahey
College student gets hundreds of cell phone calls due to HALO 3 viral marketing campaign [the Hushed Casket]
image courtesy of myspace
[IMG]http://feeds.gawker.com/~a/kotaku/full?i=xBvPcq[/IMG]


More...