Mission Icefly Leads To Survival Code Dan Koelsch, July 1, 2011 Yesterday afternoon, Mission Icefly commenced. The activity was part of the Test Subjects Needed ARG from 42 Entertainment, and by all accounts is a marketing campaign for Wrigley’s new flavor of their 5 Gum brand. Those in denial or simply itching for a good ARG to follow participated in the dead drop game, and we got a new viral site to show for it. Get the details after the break. The website MissionIcefly.com was found when devices were mailed out to those that had signed up for TestSubjectsNeeded.com, a website run by the Human Preservation Project. The group is looking for subjects to undergo experiments to enhance their senses. The Mission Icefly site had a countdown that ended yesterday at Noon Pacific, revealing their Rescue subpage. This page had a list of cities and directions for finding the items at the dead drops across the country. You can see photos of the participates finding their copy of the item, an encased Icefly, on the official Mission Icefly Flickr Page. As each location checked in that their item was found, a video on the top of the page slowly became clearer. By the time all the dead drops were complete, the video was still in poor shape, but a link at the end could be seen: SurvivalCode.com, the next step in our journey.On the Survival Code website, there’s a link back to the Test Subjects Needed website, a tantalizing to-be-launched link titled “Game Code Activation”, and a video featuring Terry O’Quinn, best known as John Locke from LOST, that teases what’s to come. The “Click to Start Your Journey” link takes you to The Genesis, which shows you the Mission Icefly video in full and properly edited. The video and O’Quinn’s narration don’t really say much, but the idea is that humans are loosing their senses, so they are searching for something to bring it back, which leads to the mysterious Icefly.After the video plays, an artic landscape is shown, and you are enticed to click it. After a few clicks, you get to the door of some kind of compound, and then another countdown, this time ending on July 15th, again at Noon. Clicking on the countdown lets you set up your Survival Code profile using the profile you created for Test Subjects Needed. This profile looks to be a pivotal point in the impending game, as it logs your “Achievements & Commendations” There are also “Log Files”, which right now is just five consecutive pages of comic book or graphic novel featuring O’Quinn talking at the fictional Traelek Institute, presumably the location where the testing is being done.This is all very curious. While O’Quinn says a lot during his two videos and comic book pages, none of it really seems to mean anything or tell us anything that can help us understand what is going on. There’s no mention of the gum or any brand, so of course there is speculation that this could still be viral marketing for something more interesting (i.e. The Dark Knight Rises). I don’t know if this campaign is pretentious or brilliant or both, but I’m definitely on board.Let us know what you think of the new developments in the comments below! ARGs & Campaigns Viral Marketing Viral Videos Mission IceflySurvival CodeTest Subjects NeededThe Dark Knight Rises
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Man, I wish I lived in one of the cities that gets do participate! I live in Idaho, we hardly ever get viral stuff. During the Dark Knight viral the chose 2 really small towns for the Gotham City Pizza promo, no one ever claimed it. I had even thought about driving for 4 hours just to claim the free pizza and Batman mask!
I don’t think so… I’m pretty sure this has no connection to I Love Bees. Like, at all. Iceflies and bees and Halo? Makes no sense. Gotta be for something else… a movie or some product or something.
I saw that 5 gum commercial that features the robot fly. I’m pretty sure the guy in the middle of the experiment is the truck driver in the survival code video
Yes, It can’t be Wrigley’s gum because they are doing the captain America giveaway $100,000. Captainamericaquest.com
The Traelek Institute mentioned in the second logfile has a website (traelekinstitute.com) that takes things a step further, providing a bit more information on the emerging story.
I think it’s a Kinect game.Think about it. Giveaway’s at Microsoft’s E3? The Genesis vid showing that kids are “losing their senses?” If I recall correctly, “senses” were Kinect’s selling point.Although I really hope it IS Halo 4. :
On Halo.Bungie.Org, Frankie (343industries) responded simply with: “It’s not our bees”But concidering this ARG as nothing to do with bees, we still have no info if this has to do with Halo4.One thing is for sure. I WANT THE ICEFLY SCULPTURE!!!!!!!!!
This has to be 5gum. I mean, I’ve entered in 3 codes from the 5gum packages and found that the constellation keys that are unlocked are the symbols for the different 5gum flavors. The first one that gets unlocked is a green bolt, like the rain flavor symbol. The 2nd one I unlocked was blue and pink and squiggly, like the solstice flavor. Third one was a symbol with a red line leading to a green fuzzy thing, like the vortex flavor symbol. It just makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is why all this just for gum? It seems a little much, doesn’t it?