2012 Viral Review Dan Koelsch, November 23, 2009January 8, 2010 2012 has come and passed, and we are all still alive. What? You say it’s only 2009? But that doesn’t make sense. Thus goes the viral campaign for Roland Emmerich’s epic disaster film. Just like with other time-sensitive movies with viral (Cloverfield, District 9), 2012 had a complex viral campaign with multiple storylines interwoven, leading up to a particular moment. The problem always seems to be that the actual time is up for debate. This is only one of the many nitpicks I have for an otherwise proficient viral campaign. Before going into what may have been wrong or weak, its important to know this is definitely in the upper echelon of film ARGs. I’d have to say that only 42 Entertainment’s campaign for The Dark Knight was more impressive, but they had the help of a movie that was overly anticipated. 2012, on the other hand, had been pushed back from its summer slot, plus Emmerich’s resume hasn’t really been impressive since the mid-90s. Why was this campaign so effective? First of all, it had a good pace despite the film being pushed back several months. The viral started with The Institute of Human Continuity, which was just a basic site for an organization preparing for the scientifically-proven destruction we’ll see in 2012. You could enter their lottery to be survivor, and everything seemed fine for a while. On the side we had Charlie Frost as the stereotypical end-of-days prophet, and things were humming along nicely. Then we started to see an uptick in activity in August, and finally we were hit hard with the full force of the campaign in September all the way until the week of the film’s release. All in all, everything was timed perfectly. The content of the viral also helped make it successful. Sure we had the usual narrative like in Cloverfield and District 9, but we also multiple contests with prizes that even included a trip to Cancun. There were dead drops, where you could pick up packages and decode information, revealing a conspiracy with the aforementioned IHC. It was really quite intricate and expansive, spanning real world, the web, and social networking. ARG players actually got to do some legwork and reap the rewards, making the whole experience that much more fun. Lastly, the viral worked because it added to the film a few things it needed. First of all, buzz. Usually viral campaigns are used to build on buzz that already exists for a film, but the buzz wasn’t that great on 2012 originally. It was the campaign that created excitement. Also, the viral created more of a plot than the film would be able to develop within itself. We got a lot of background about the conspiracy that plays a role in the film, and the audience realized the film isn’t just about the world blowing up. However, one of the problems of the viral is that very same thing. It gives away a good chunk of the plot in a way I’ve never seen before. It’s nice to see how strongly the campaign and film connect, but when you give away a central plot twist, it kind of kills the movie a bit. There were also some dating issues with the viral. Everything seems to be taking place in 2009, but the film makes reference to one of the last viral events taking place in 2012. As I mentioned to start off this review, you have to take it all with a grain of salt. My only other complaint was the constant reminders that the campaign was tied to the film. First of all, we had the whole “experience” moniker that was also present for District 9. Every viral website was tagged as part of the “2012 Experience’. Now, I know there have been issues with people believing the world really will end in 2012, and seeing these sites might confuse them, but it still takes some of the fun out of it. We also were reminded its all a game thanks to their need to constantly recap what’s happened so far. We had in-world explanations, an official guide, and even a video. Still, overall this was a greatly complex and interesting campaign that hit us by surprise and got us even more interested in the film than we otherwise would have been. Final Grade: B+ Viral Marketing 2012
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I really couldn’t disagree with you more about your review. I thought the entire 2012 ARG Experience, while showing great potential, was mediocre at best and a disaster at worst. Saying that only The Dark Knight was more impressive fails to recognize that games such as Monster Hunter Club (for The Host) was much more elegantly constructed and Cloverfield, Metacortechs (a fan based game for The Matrix) and The Beast (for A.I.) were all fairly well done and had a significantly higher visible player base than 2012.Although I too felt that the entire 2012 Experience was overbranded with statements stating that it was tied to the film, that is far down on my list of complaints over all with the game. My biggest issues would be the appearance of the PuppetMasters just phoning the game in and Sony’s treatment of their dedicated player base. While my thoughts on the players being treated unfairly by Sony may be colored by my own experiences, I think the PuppetMasters actions (or lack thereof) speak for themselves. It’s PuppetMastering 101 to have your assets ready when you start broadcasting their availability, so it is utterly inexcusable that it took weeks for them to update their phone system so that you could leave tips for the whereabouts of Soren Ulfert. Not to mention that the amount of mistakes in their puzzles was utterly pathetic. While I don’t expect every aspect of a game to be perfect, the amount of errors that crept in went well beyond anything you could expect from a corporate game.I also think the way that the Corruption Theory dead drops were handled showed a lack of concern from the PuppetMasters. The initial information drop at the gas stations was a disaster and the lack of any tweets from the main characters acknowledging there was a problem while it was happening is baffling. Then there was more than one occasion where players were not alerted to the address information being broadcast on the gas pumps until after the fact, leading us to wait on the whim of Charlie Frost to give us the addresses (sometimes hours after we publicly asked him for it). I think the number of players at the dead drops speaks volumes about how well this campaign was received by the public.Overall, while I thought this game had great potential considering it’s huge lead-in time and assets it produced, I thought it fell woefully short. It wasn’t even a game during its entire first year and the pacing at the end seemed erratic. Many of the in-game assets seemed underused (most notably the ARC website with its login) and there was practically zero back-and-forth communications between the characters and the players. The entire game was run on rails and I don’t think that anything would have really changed if the players just decided to sit and home and watch Charlie Frost’s updates instead of going out, picking up the drops and decoding them. And the finale of the game was so extremely weak that many players were left scratching their head wondering ‘Is this really it?’My final grade: D+
Every viral campaign for a film has mistakes, and this is no exceptions. I think it did it’s job because it was fun, complicated, and actually got me interested in the film.
I think this viral was impressive in terms of scale… TV commercials, websites, a name actor (Charlie), gas station videos, puzzles, ambassadors, contests, prizes, drops with cell phones, text messages and calls. The amount of loot given out was pretty crazy. Shirts, Arc tickets, webbie cameras, readers, the drop phones and memory sticks, posters and other documents, and of course the contest prizes. Clearly this was a huge investment of money compared to other virals.I also get the feeling that the viral had big plans, but after all the press about people beliving it was all true and calling Nasa they had to step back from their big plans, create those guides and videos and brand all of the websites with the top “part of the 2012 experience” banners. I imagine that all took some of the fun out of it for the puppetmasters and it seemed to slow things down for a bit.Overall I enjoyed the viral. It wasn’t perfect, but it had an interesting story and tried some new things. More interaction would have been nice, but this is a new medium and there is bound to be a learning curve. Kudos to Sony for investing so much into it.