Court TV and Save My Husband
June 11, 2007 by Rachel
Filed under Advertising Agencies, Viral Marketing
Court TV, along with sponsors Suzuki and Applebees, are pushing boundaries again. After the CourtTV campaign That Girl Emily to promote Parco PI, they are now taking it a step further with a fully fledged ARG attempt. But not everything has gone smoothly.
The Game
The principle is straightforward. Andrew Goodis has been kidnapped and his wife is trying to find him. Over 8 days, clues and puzzles will be provided for the players to answer, by sending the game the solution to each puzzle, you get the link to the next days puzzle. The game started June 4th, but was open to registration before this. At the end of the gameplay, you need to provide the names of the people behind the kidnapping and the location of where he is being held.
Clues are through videos, emails and texts over the 8 days; as well as the main site at savemyhusband.com, there are additional sites that are in game, such as akarmcorp.com.
The Prize
The prize is a share of $25000. There’s no guarantee about the amount you will win; all the players who successfully get the correct answers to the final 2 questions get a share of the prize
Promotion of the Game
Promotion for the game is quite heavy and mass media focused. Commercials on Court TV and online advertisements are all pushing people to the main site of savemyhusband.com. One of the key reactions to this is from people who did not understand that this was a game from the advert, that they were going to something that was real and that the wife had skipped over the formal channels and gone straight to the web to find the kidnappers. Don Park at the Daily Habit posted on how he was initially fooled from a text ad on CuteOverload.
Clicking through, I ended up at SaveMyHusband.com site where there were two videos, one by the wife of the abducted man and another of the abduction taking place. The site and videos smelled fake but I didn’t notice anything that clearly indicated that site is a marketing gimick by CourtTV.
The ad that is currently there now has an obvious disclaimer in it, as do the TV ads. There are other comments dotted around about how people did believe the TV and online ads and are now annoyed that they were taken in by them. Reading the comments on Don’s there is a lot of emotion on both sides of the argument. From Richelle:
I was severely annoyed when I discovered it was fake. All I could think was that people were really missing loved ones, people’s husbands really were being kidnapped and killed, people’s children really were missing - and here is a contest about it?!?
From Kyle:
The point is that once you go to the site you see it is just a game. As someone else mentioned, there are many other forms of entertainment (movies & tv…) that focus on the same fictional topics (and a lot of reality shows talking about TRUE stories, as well) and that’s not raising an eyebrow.
The Partners
Suzuki and Applebees are the partners for this prize; I’m not sure what part they are playing or what they are getting out of it apart from brand exposure, however the project “ grew out of “our advertisers’ and our own interest in exploring entertainment opportunities online,” says Court TV general manager Marc Juris.”
Reactions
The gamers did what they normally do; jumped all over it to try and solve it. Unfortunately the game makers, Deep Focus in this case, Court TV or the other agencies, underestimated the skill and passion that is out there. Very early on in the game, the URL structure of the site was discovered and all the daily videos were revealed. The agency had placed all the information out there ready to go – makes it far easier from a resource issue. However by doing that, using security by obscurity, the clues were easy to find and many people have worked through the answers in advance and were ready to go at each stage. This necessitated the agency re-doing the last few days of the clues (wonder how much they are over budget now?) From catherwood on unforums:
rookie mistakes like sequentially hosted websites, plus a curtain breach I discovered, makes me glad that this is merely a contest of short duration and not an attempt at a full-blown ARG. I did track down an article about the promotion, which confirms in my mind that these are first-time gamemasters at work. Let’s be kind.
Within 3 days of the announcement on this forum, they had found the emails that were being sent out and all the videos, 3 days before the game went live. Furthermore, names and addresses of employees and testers were out in the open long enough to get into Google cache. Whether or not this information was in game or not has been the subject of some discussion, leading the CEO of Deep Focus to issue a plea not to contact them. This demonstrates the focus players put on such games, when anything can be considered part of it until absolutely proven otherwise
For the sweepstake competitors and non-gamers who are either after the money or just playing for casual fun, the reaction of the ‘professional’ argers has been frustrating. This audience has been trying to win the money and feel strongly that the argers are ‘cheating’. From Diana on argn.com
Stop asking for hints!!! and stop cheating! if you cant get it oh well youre ruining it for those of us WHO ARE figuring it out on our own.
One blog, jossip.com, got really angry that this was “the network’s shameful attempt at collecting your personal information”. The reaction is strange considering that nearly all online marketing is, in one way or the other, a way of getting your information so that they can send you emails. It’s a standard business practice – provide something to the user and hope it entices them enough to let you send them further marketing communications via email or direct mail. There’s always an opt-out.
Conclusions
There’s a lot of mixed reactions to this promotion and some valuable lessons to be learnt if you are planning on doing this.
- As I’ve said before, this type of promotion can lead to a high level of engagement with the brand over a period of time. People are exposed to your message for as long as the promotion lasts and there are plenty of opportunities to take the viewer beyond the high level exposure that a tv or print ad can give you. I think they are a good way of marketing and I think we will see more and more of them. Without knowing figures, one aspect that indicates the success of this game is the absolute hammering the unfiction forums are getting, with the site very slow. Some threads are getting nearly 200k views in the site.
- However running an ARG is hard. It’s a relatively small (but dedicated) audience. Trailheads promoting the game are usually sent to a few key influencers who know the rules. Even for the big games, such as I Love Bees for Halo2, the game was started by sending clues to people in the ARG community which eventually got linked to the URL that was been promoted as part of I robot trailers. In this case, the ad was promoted using mass media which confused many who are not used to the fictional worlds surrounding ARGs. Many people thought the situation was real or concluded that the situation described was too close to reality (or not good for the children…)
- Getting the technical details right on such a game can be even harder. The agency had obviously not predicted the behaviour of ARG players, even though a casual perusal of forums could have told them that that anything on the web, especially when ‘easy’ to find, would be fair game. There was a lack of understanding here of part of the audience – they may not be the target audience of Court TV but they are a segment that play ARGS and you had to understand these people as well as the puzzle and crime game playing people who were the main targets.
Moving things like ARGS to the mainstream is not for the fainthearted and not for the inexperienced. There’s no doubt that high levels of engagement can be produced – especially for a cash prize – but care is needed in setting it up.
Sharon,
This is a great writeup of what happened to this ARG. The only criticisms left unspoken are that, not only were the answers to the puzzles far too simple, the “fixes” Deep Focus made when they realized the players had found all of their unsecured game assets were a mess. Nothing hung together at the end — neither clues nor story. If someone were to try to start the game late, they would have been badly confused by the errors made when scrambling. I might add also that, even after they realized their game assets were vulnerable, they put up the final video giving away the answers almost a day before the deadline for the game. Everyone found that, too, of course, and the game was truly over at that point — CourtTV, Applebees and even Deep Focus now are experiencing negative backlash.
Thanks. I hadn’t realised the fixes were worse; as I said, doing this successfully from a technical perspective if extremely difficult and few companies I know would be able to do it. I’ve discussed such things before with dev teams and the concepts are never quite grasped, at least in the time I’ve had.
And after reading the various boards, confusion was definitely rife. But I’m still convinced that doing such things well is a good marketing tactic for a company.
“But I’m still convinced that doing such things well is a good marketing tactic for a company.”
And you would be quite right.
Actually, people like me who owned and ran companies for live-action role playing games are best experienced with this sort of thing, as are folk like Randy Farmer, virtual communities guru who with Chip Morningstar created the first graphical virtual world for George Lucas in 1987. Randy was also a pioneering computer game designer, who was able to combine his game design skills with what he learned about virtual community interaction. He published his findings in 1990 as a paper entitled “The Lessons of Habitat,” and certainly the virtual community of Unfiction showed no variation in what he discovered 17 years ago. We discovered the same principals in our company’s live-action games, which is why I was hired by Randy in 1994 as a World Builder and Story Teller. The problem is that this stuff has been around for ages, but the people who take it on — even companies designing MMORPGs today — don’t realize it and consequently reinvent the wheel every time. Finally, live-action gaming people have the flexibility and experience to create effective new clues should the players get ahead of themselves or otherwise tip the game the “wrong” way. But the technical people don’t necessarily see the value added in that because it’s not a scripted game, which seems to be more commercially valuable by a long shot.
Anyway, thanks again!
I walked into SMH on word of mouth, someone showed me an email., so I checked it out, I am no computer wizard but I love puzzles, and solving “who dunnit” scenerios.. I happened across unfiction, I was disappointed that the ending was revealed early on in the game.. but.. knowing that, I still didn’t trust anything I read. but it was fun.. I had a great time, I think Deep Focus did an awesome job., and many people on the board at unfiction were greatful for the experience. There is a recording on that site from the CEO of Deep Focus that said, that they learned alot from us.. and we were basically doing a great job as a team. (not his exact words) and that we should not try to contact their employees. But I thought he was a great man, he was tactful, he didn’t seem upset, more concerned then upset.. and maybe at that point he regretted getting involved with people online like this. I would hope that they will do this again., and next time just somehow enter the information that same morning, make it so no one in the world knows what’s gonna happen til it happens. But I will be the first to defend Deep Focus, and AppleBee’s and Suzuki.. Next time just give the public a run for their money!
This (Save My Husband) was my first venture into ARG’s. When searching for clues, I came across the Unfiction Forum site and was a little ‘angry’ that people were giving away answers. I thought it ‘unfair’ and felt they were ‘cheating.’ Since the game has ended, I went back and did some reading and did a little research about ARG’s and have changed my mind. I was ignorant.
As an avid reader of mysteries, whodunits’ and true crime, I thought that I would enjoy this ‘game.’ The clues were easy to figure out. It seemed that most were handed to you on a silver platter. I found them extremely disjointed though, like things were missing and one thing did not lead to the next.
By the time we reached the last day of the game though, I was terribly confused. I wasn’t sure if we were supposed to actually use our brains on our own, or go with the obvious. Using the words (audio) on the last video, which were cryptic, I was able to come to several different conclusions. We were given two opportunities to submit answers. If we submitted one and then changed our mind, we had one chance left. We were told in advance that they would NOT be letting us know if our submitted answers were correct or not.
My problem arose when I submitted my first answers. (There were two questions) About an hour after my submission, I received an email stating that I needed to ’submit an address.’ Which was the second question. I took this email to mean that my answer to the first question was correct, but my second was wrong; therefore, since I still had a ’second chance’ to submit a correct answer, I should. So, I went back, spent several hours looking for an alternate answer to submit. Came up with one and submitted that one. But, in my heart of hearts, I felt that my “first” answer was correct. Since the second submission will override the first, then I feel that I was mislead by the email that I received.
When I was reading much later at the Unfiction site, someone had posted that it was an automatic email that was sent as a reminder. Well, it truly screwed me then.
Oh well, I certainly don’t have any answers at this point. From what I’ve been reading of other players’ submissions, the majority went for the obvious answers. I didn’t. So, just maybe, BOTH of my submissions were wrong!
In any event, I would play again and I thank them for the game, even with all the mistakes. We all learn by our mistakes, right?
SMH was my first time participating in a game of this type and I had so much fun playing it. I think the employees of Deep Focus had no idea that the information would be discovered so early, and I am very glad they tried to do something about it. The game instructed the players to do google searches with quotes to find information, and that is how everyone found the forum, where people were giving answers and posting all the information they could find. Many times, people would find websites/myspace sites/blogs that they thought were part of the game that turned out not to be. When the site was shut down at one point in time, the email addresses of employees were posted and many angry emails were being sent to them. I did not use any of the hints, because I wanted to have fun with the game and figure it out on my own, and I am not upset that many people did choose to go this route. I hope more ad campaigns like this will take place in the future, and maybe the mistakes in this one will serve to teach lessons for future games.
It seems to me that a lot of people took this game WAY too seriously. From complaints about the product placement to about “cheating”. To the latter I say, if Applebee’s et al. really WANTED to pay out in cash they would have simply had a drawing from all the correct entries! Some of these people are just greedy–I think Applebee’s was planning all along to be in a situation to give out some sort of promotional item like a coupon or something. Just read the rule about prize substitution!
Marianne, Doris, Jessica, I agree - these games are so much fun. That’s why I play. And from a marketer perspective, they are a great way for people to get involved with the brand. I’ve worked before on trying to get a client to do an ARG like game and the perceived risk is high, so it takes a brave company to take that step, so all priase to Court TV and sponsors for going that route.
But as you’ve seen, making one of these games is very hard. Looks like Deep Focus have been learning rapidly and other companies that are watching will also learn. My advice would be don’t do it by yourself the first time - get an expert in to guide and advise.
I did follow the unfiction threads but thought much of them to be unreliable. I figured out all of my answers myself and on the last one I asked my husband for his opinion. Each day after I put in my answer, though, I checked with the general population about their answers. My final answer was not what the majority got. I went with my gut instinct. I had a blast playing this game and hope that there are more out there. Maybe they can make every day of the next game as challenging as Day 8 of SMH. I love cliff hangers.
i MISSED THE Hole Thing Stupid work i wanna know who did it and where he was i missed that part cuz of work if someone can tell me please drop m e aline!
Well, we know pretty much for sure Andrew was at 8 north Cherry Street, the who dunnit is another matter. It appears that in the end, Grant Tenbrook did it.. but in the final video Andrew and his wife are explaining how Grant planned it all, but in the Applebees rest., they get served a meal, the a tv in the background broadcasts a news clip with Grant being arrested, and the anchor says people that saved him will share in the reward of 25K, but then she says.. however, there is a twist.. Sonia is missing. So they leave us hanging, we are all specualting as to what that meant., some think it will be a continuation in a second game they plan on doing, others think that this game has a twist, and things may change before June 26th, we are all confused as to who actually was behind the abduction. Most think that the 8th day was the end and Grant was the one. But there are thousands of people that had that answer and the correct address, that people are joking that they will.. maybe get a coupon at applebees for 1 cents. lol. Maybe we will end up owing them money after they tally all the correct answers lol. I have never seen a contest for 25k where there were thousands of winners. I just had fun playing the game. I think we are all depressed that it’s over.. I have never gotten up at 3:30 in the morning to check my computer for any reason until day 8 on this game. It was fun, and I am glad they did this. It was very enjoyable. They are really good people to put this together, I am sure it took months to put together and alot of hard work. I hope they aren’t discouraged by bitter people that think this should have been a perfect game.. next time I am sure Deep Focus and Google will be well prepared for a hackers war. Come to think about it, our Government should hire these people on the war against terror lol., the bad guys wouldn’t have a chance against us in the computer world lol.
that was my 2 cents..
I don’t necessarily believe that DF or CourtTV was caught short by the fact that the hard core gamers got into their info so quickly. I think that was set up purposly so that there WOULD be thousands of winners……what better way to acheive their advertising goals and get away with giving away nothing more than a fistfull of BOGO coupons????
Linda (et al),
There’s marketing, and then there are things that accidentally help marketing. Having been active in marketing departments for several corporations, I can tell you that, yes, the ease of the answers was probably intentional towards the ends you describe. However, leaving their gaming assets unguarded was unprofessional because every good marketeer knows their segments. The fact that CourtTV and DF both failed to realize that there even exists “hard-core gamers” shows a total lack of savvy about who would be on the receiving end of their strategic messaging, and how that might impact the messaging across multiple segments. In this case, they lost control when they lost the clue distribution and started making problematic “fixes.” Sorry if that’s a mouthful of corporate speak, but it’s the business reality, which is transparent to the great majority of folk.
I do feel also that people are forgetting why they had fun with this game and their giving DF too big of a credit share. They had fun because of the socializing on the Unfiction forum. Socializing and virtual community building have been proven by studies for years to be ’sticky’ (have high hit rates) and create value in lots of ways, even if ultimately the virtual community has other set backs. Unfiction was a fantastic example. If there had been no virtual community building for this ARG, it would have been significantly less fun — especially when all the crazy problems cropped up.
Sorry your blog was highjacked, Rachel!
No problem Maria- always open to a discussion. Great point about the forums providing a large part of the fun.
I’m almost absolutely sure that it was the employees of Applebees and Susuki who shared the answers they got to the community. Why? They weren’t eligible for the reward. Just think about it. Let’s say I was an employee of Applebees. I check the game out or see it advertised on Applebees. I then to my rage find out I’m disqualified to win the reward. I even find it unfair that my own employer would exclude me. What do I do? I share the answers so that others may know, so that I feel comfortable that no one person will walk away with the 25,000 reward.
I feel this is the strongest or most logical reason for all the sharing.
I’m not saying all who shared were employees but certainly those who started it were employees.
So I played SMH, and I had a great time. I actually had something to look forward to doing on my computer every day. I enjoyed the puzzles, and the mysteries. I hope CTV does this again (though it looks like they might re: Sonia)! I know I got the answers correct on Day 8, but since I have not heard ONE SINGLE THING from SMH.com, or CourtTV about the contest, or anything else for that matter. When do we find out how many people won, and how much $ we won? Just a single email with an update that they are working on it would be great!!! Did anyone receive an email or contact of any kind?
I have a question.. and it feels like I am reaching.. but does anyone think that this whole promotion was to draw in people that have the knowledge to hack into computers so they can find out who these people are? I know it sounds way out there.. but maybe it really wasn’t a “who dunnit” rather then “who’s do’in it” lol? Just a thought.
John, primarily the people sharing answers were people who play ARGs..and then probably people join in. The usually play for the game and not for a prize, although the prize is nice! If you look at the main forums where the conversation was taking place and look outside the SMH conversations you’ll see that puzzles and solutions are shared all over the place. I think the starting point was the ARGers and then others join in.
Melissa, if you look at the rules it says that winners will be notified on or about the 26th June by email. Winners will have to sign an affidavit of eligibility before getting any prize money. So there’s still a couple of weeks to wait before they do anything else.
Marianne - doubt it. There’s was little in this that required a lot of skills to get the puzzles. It was just logical thinking and there was no reason to set up a game to find people who can look at html, reason out urls, desteg pictures etc, you just need to read forums to find that out. Interestingly, when the Heroes game started there was a survey that was put out and it was felt that this was trying to gauge the skill level of interested parties to see how they would play it. In this case, the puzzles and clues were far easier than many games but people still did all the things they would when playing other things.
I really enjoyed the day to day play. Like many others I was annoyed by those that found the videos and emails early. I can understand wanting to work together - I had an email buddy that shared hints with me to solve the puzzles. On the last day I checked out the forums to see what other people were thinking about the final answer. Although the game was pretty disjointed, I had a great time playing and felt let down when it was over. I am sure that the sponsors knew all along they would have scads of correct answers and would be sending out $5 off coupons at Applebees. Otherwise, as another poster said, they would have just drawn the winner from the correct entries. That is ok with me - it was the game, not the prize that was the draw. I just wish there was something on the website - or an email or something - to let us all know that the winning answer is coming soon - or a new game is afoot soon. I will lose interest and start a pc game or actually go outside if they don’t keep me hooked!
Jill, there seems to be some debate about whether they are setting up for a second part. And take a look at the unforums - there’s lots of games going on as well as whole section of more casual puzzles. Often, the more commercial games are around entertainment properties. It seems that there is a Transformers one ..and Heroes is still ticking along.
I never found who the kidnapper was nor the correct address where Andrew was being held.
I rec’d an email from Christina stating, “it’s over,” but subsequent attempts to access the website have failed. What’s the deal?
In the last email you got, there was a video that eluded you to the fact that Grant did it, and in the email they mentioned, that the address was in that website Zendell corp or whatever it was.. but in the video at the end, on the tv they zoom in on at applebee’s the anchor says there is a twist, that Sonia is missing.. so now we have to wait til on or about June 26th to find out who won the 25K.. it was a bit confusing. anyway, by all appearances, they look like they may be making a new game we have to tune in I guess and find out…
Did anybody ever call the number that we received in one of the clues and if you did, did you leave your name, number and email?
I called Andrew’s cell phone number and left a message with my name and phone number on it, but nothing further ever happened with that.
well, ok a few things first it was not applebees folks that leaked the answers as they did not have them only the game designers did..
second,the guys that leaked it did it this way they took the first website premoting the game and added 1 to the ip address and guess what the designers were so lame that the ip addresses were done like this 123.456.123 then the next one was 123.456.124 then123.456.125 etc. and they made their biggest mistake was putting all the info on the sites way in advance instead of opening them each day .
third,when they were notified it was hacked/cracked they said”we are redoing the answers so no one will have a advantage. but in realality they only changed a few things but not the bad guy!!
then the real mess up was this on the 9th of june they changed the fingerprint page adding 10 names and rearranging 4 old ones for example grant was number 00927009 matching finger print but then on the 9th it was changed to robert johnson a unkonown character then on the middle of the last day after most answered it was changed back to grant at that number and print.. this was some of what is realy getting to the arg’ers because some mistakes are expected but not like this then the sites go down after the 12th and its like a ghost applebees site no mention of it same with all other sponsers now its the 25th and we still have not heard a definite answer or where the winners will be odd after all this time ..
overall i/we play many args and even work on a few games ( online mmorpgs ) but i have not seen this level of trained monkey act untill now ( sorry if i insulted the monkeys)
Thank you, thank you, thank you for helping find my husband. You successfully solved the 8 Day Mystery and will receive your share of the $25,000 reward. If it weren’t for the dedication, smarts and persistence of people like you, Grant would still be walking around a free man and I wouldn’t have my husband home safely.
I was really surprised - and touched - by the amount of interest in my husband’s disappearance and by all the support I received. Over 30,000 people tried to help me and my son Max and 6,013 actually solved the mystery all the way through. I am working on sending out the reward money.
I hope you got something out of it, too - beyond just receiving a reward. And don’t go too far. I have a sneaking suspicion that things are still not right, what with Sonia’s disappearance and all, and next time things could get a lot more complicated.
Thanks again,
Christina
There is a new show coming out, I saw an ad for it from this organization I belong too, casto, anyway they are looking for contestants, it sounds like fun. It is at http://www.embassyrow.com look at “Power of 10″ they ask, “Do you know what America wants?” I would enter, but I won’t fly. but maybe some of you guys might want to apply. I still like the Savemyhusband idea alot better. I guess this show will air in August.
Has anyone ever heard back from SMH?
I played this game as well and was amused by how easy and sloppy it was but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I also answered correctly and received the confirmation email (posted earlier in this blog) that I was one of the 6,013 winners (and therefore entitled to $4.16 or equivalent value Applebees reward). But nearly 2 months later from the June 26 email, I have yet to receive another communication about getting my reward. Has any other winner received either their reward or an affidavit in order to get the reward??
I was a winner as well and I never recieved anything. I am still wondering if there will be another game with Sonia being the main character. I have tried emailing court tv in the past but I have never gotten a reponse from them.
Wow, I was real disappointed, spent all that time playing the game, I was sure I won but never heard anything from them. I got my check in the mail today, $4.18.
Mike N - did you not get an email? At least the cheques have been put in the mail, after 2 months. Did you get money or an Applebees voucher?
Big news.. I got my check yesterday 4.16 weeeeeee. ok when is the next game?
Hi Rachel, never got an e-mail, never heard a word. The check was dated Aug 2nd and the letter that came with it was dated Aug 9th, no voucher, it’s a real check for $4.16.