Alternative Reality Game (ARG)
Proposed Marketing Concept
December 2008

Grounding
The application marketplace is extremely cluttered. Executing an alternative reality game (ARG) is a way to
standout in order to dramatically drive trial of your travel application.
Successful advertising tells a good story. The ARG is an interactive marketing campaign allowing participants
to play a part in the story being told. The ARG provides the ultimate pull-marketing strategy steeped in who
you are as a brand.
Your product is a marketplace of collective intelligence– allowing a task (planning a trip) to become easier due
to the contributions of many. The ARG embraces that concept; a task that may be too complicated for any
given person becomes much easier on the web.

Objectives
Increase the number of users by at least 40%.
Maximize revenue potential by increasing brand awareness and interactivity among your target.
Provide user-generated content to leverage in future campaigns.

The ARG
The ARG unfolds in a series of mini-puzzles. We’ll utilize varied media–from websites to text messaging
to reveal clues in fragments. The clues will be moderately difficult to spot and decipher requiring the
audience to leverage the power of community to solve them. A successful ARG incorporates three
primary principals:
Covert
Consumers are driven to participate by curiosity and a natural desire to solve the unknown. An ARG isn’t
a treasure hunt - participants won’t be motivated solely by a prize. A covert ARG generates valuable word-
of-mouth that builds buzz we can monetize.
Balanced
Clues need to be challenging enough to keep participants interested but not too difficult that participants
are deterred.
Engaging
A good storyline gives the ARG a reason for being, increases participation and allows for successful
follow-ups.

ARG Progression

Case Study
Overview: The Art of the H3ist – Audi
Created to promote the Audi A3; the storyline revolved around an art heist and
the attempts to trap the thieves and recover the stolen art.
Clues that unraveled the mystery were hidden in six stolen A3s during a 90-day period.
Outcome:
45 million impressions
2 million AudiUSA.com visitors
500,000 story participants
10,000 leads to dealers and 1,025 cars sold
By the 22nd day, 203,000 visited StolenA3.com (the ARG microsite)
200,000 people became involved with the search for the stolen A3 in a single day
7 fan sites were created within the first few days of the campaign launch

Next Steps
This is just the beginning. Over the next two weeks, we’ll determine how to make this ARG concept a
reality and present you with an estimated cost to execute it.