And the number one sign Lee needs to get a job…

November 5th, 2008

Gears Of War 2 I spent the better part of my day searching for a promotional cog for a video game that I’ve never played and unfortunately isn’t even on the platform that I’m currently using.

It was also raining.

But I wasn’t alone and I think I’ve had my first real experience in the absolute power of online marketing and viral campaigns and to be honest I’m not scared of the implications.

You see despite the fact that it was raining and that I probably won’t get a chance to play the game for a while (if ever - I’m really considering a platform change though) it was brilliant fun.

The other day I wrote about the hints that I had slipped to me about a real life promotional cog being hidden somewhere in Brisbane. I thought it was a neat idea and told you guys about it in the hopes that one of my readers would find it and report back, but that was it.

This morning though I found myself in the city thinking about how easy the clue really was and wondering if anyone had gone and retrieved it. At this stage I hadn’t visited the Facebook page and read the deeper analysis of the clues and the extra ones I hadn’t seen. It ate away at me until I decided to pop down to Ace Comics and see if I couldn’t pick myself up a cog.

I was not alone.

I’m sure the guys at Ace Comics would’ve preferred it if I was as they knew nothing of the promotion and we’re getting a little swamped by the questions - I think they were pretty much good sports about it all but I imagine they were getting the shits with it by end of the day (hopefully they made a couple of sales - I hadn’t been in there since they moved so I managed to have a quick look around and might go back for a couple of things).

I had a quick look around the front of the entrance and came up with nothing. Dismissing it I went to the library and jumped online…

More clues!

It has to be out the front of Ace Comics somewhere and now it was bugging me!!!

I went back in the pouring rain and scoped out the place some more. It was then that I realised that I wasn’t alone, there were others looking under bins, on top of railings.

Wow.

Cool.

Eventually I approached one of a cog seeking trio who seemed to be making a bit of a go of it and asked if he thought the cog was already gone. He didn’t as the website hadn’t been updated and instantly I was accepted into the ‘team’ as we mulled over the clues over and over.

I then discovered that one of the guys was an individual I’d already read about falling off a statue searching for this cog. In fact we had actually searched in a couple of the exact same places (we both found nothing but an empty coke bottle stuffed into the cannon barrel).

I suddenly didn’t actually care about actually getting the cog I just wanted to be part of finding it - these guys had been looking longer than me and frankly I’d be happy if one of them were to find it.

After much detective work, even talking with a couple of really nice and very helpful Brisbane guides (they were really good sports as we bashfully explained our search) I had to call it an afternoon. I had decided in my own mind that someone had indeed already picked up the cog and just not reported in. I hope they know what they found and do report in so we can all find out the actual hiding spot.

The really cool thing about it all was simply that it was a spot of adventure and now I associate that with Gears of War 2.

I’m happy to report that as I left the guys they were hunting down another possible slant on the clues.

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11 Comments

Arjan November 5th, 2008
ah so that’s why you ‘quit your day job’ oh wait it wasn’t litteral.
It ís a very cool viral campaign. I couldn’t find anything on the Dutch xbox site though..otherwise I’d have something awesome to do tomorrow!

[Reply to this comment]
By Lee on November 5th, 2008 | Reply
That’s too bad man, I had an absolute blast today as silly as it was. So sad that we didn’t find it.

Today was about getting out there and doing something different and I’m really glad I had a go.

[Reply to this comment]
Bettina November 5th, 2008
so you’ve had a good day then? lol

Bettinas last blog post..Housekeeping.

[Reply to this comment]
By Lee on November 5th, 2008 | Reply
Yeah it was pretty smashing.

Then I found out I’ve dropped out of the Top 100 Aussie Blogs even though I had the biggest month traffic wise last month.

But that’s all cool I was in there for a couple of months

[Reply to this comment]
By Arjan on November 6th, 2008 | Reply
Injustice!!!

Arjans last blog post..Merlin (2008) theme

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Jayne November 6th, 2008
Sounds like a fun treasure hunt , even if you didn’t find it
Jaynes last blog post..Trivial History November 6

[Reply to this comment]
By Lee on November 7th, 2008 | Reply
That’s the cool bit - it didn’t matter that we didn’t find it!

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Marita November 6th, 2008
That is a really cool marketing idea.

[Reply to this comment]
By Lee on November 7th, 2008 | Reply
It is one of the better ideas I’ve seen - Nine Inch Nails did a really cool viral campaign a year or so ago. They left USBs in the bathrooms of their concert with songs on them.

[Reply to this comment]
By swollenpickles on November 7th, 2008 | Reply
The NIN one was cool, there were a few little sub-sites set up as well. And some of the USB’s had some ‘white noise’ tracks that when you ran them through a spectanalyzer or whatever, the graph looked like a hand reaching to the sky or something.

[Reply to this comment]
By Lee on November 7th, 2008 | Reply
I believe they handed out prepaid phones too to advise people where to go for various tasks and at the end said to hang on to them as they may contact them in the future.

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