Confused by the 2012 Viral? Sony Creates an Official Guide

Once again Unfiction pulls through with another update for the 2012 viral campaign. The campaign has taken a big turn in past few months. With several new websites, storylines, characters, and activities, it can be tough to keep up and make sense of it all.


The marketing team for the Sony Pictures feature seems to know that, since they’ve already had Charlie Frost post a couple of recap blogs to explain the situation at least from an in-world perspective. Apparently they don’t feel that’s enough, because they created an actual guide to the 2012 viral campaign.


The website, YourPartnerInTheFuture.com, uses the IHC’s slogan for its name, and you can tell it’s an official website from Sony, especially since it has the new header on top that a few of the blogs have implemented (not to mention the domain is on the Sony Pictures servers). This new blog is basically just a guide to keep you up to date (albeit with a day or two delay) on all the viral news for 2012. There are links to all the sites, brief descriptions of the main characters, and even a concise three minute video they posted this week that gives an overview to their ARG. Once we have an embeddable version, we’ll post it.


I have mixed feelings about this official guide. While it’s nice to have a source for such a complicated ARG, it takes some of the fun out of it. Sony has a notorius track record of taking the guessing game out of viral campaigns, but I hope this doesn’t catch on, because we’ll be out of a job. I understand they feel the need to make sure non-ARG followers can keep up, but how many of them are really going to bother read a guide anyway? Viral marketing is a niche category with a niche audience. If you don’t accept that, than your campaign will fail.


What do you think of the new official guide from Sony? 2012 opens nationwide November 13th.