Nine Inch Nails Using Alternate Reality Game (ARG or “Big Game”) To Market New Album

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by: Karl Long

I think the concept of marketing using “big games” or ARG’s is one of the most exciting marketing concepts that has emerged in recent years. The way it combines customer experience, co-creation, word of mouth, and customer engagement and lets not forget FUN, makes it a very powerful tool in a marketers repertoire. As Trent says though this is not just about marketing but a new form of entertainment.

To promote new album “Year Zero,” Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor is using a multimedia scavenger hunt that leads fans to online destinations, reports CNN. The campaign will encompass everything from cryptic phrases on T-shirts to Orwellian Web sites to MP3s found on USB drives in bathrooms at NIN concerts.

A source with knowledge of the project says Reznor perceives it all not as a marketing campaign but as “a new entertainment form.” 42 Entertainment is helping to create the experience; that’s the agency behind 2005’s “alternate-reality game” promoting the Halo 2 videogame for the XBox.

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Related: Five Trends Driving Big Games

Original post: http://blog.experiencecurve.com/archives/nine-inch-nails-using-alternate-reality-game-arg-or-big-game-to-market-new-album