Exocog
Project type:
Movie promotion
In support of:
Minority Report (unofficial)
Agency:
Miramontes Studios
Date:
April - May 2002
Description:
This was a project that we at Miramontes Studios ran in 2002 as a way of learning what it's like to run an 
extended immersive campaign in support of a major entertainment property. This was a guerilla-style project -- we didn't have any official affiliation with a studio, we just chose a movie -- Minority Report -- and acted as if we had been given the job of creating a web-based world to promote the movie. If anyone complained, we could just stop; if there were no complaints, we'd learn a lot. And we did.
We wrote a story about a pre-Minority Report world in which precognitive people were a recognized part of society, and in which an unscrupulous company was planning to take advantage of their unique abilities. Four websites grew out of this story, corresponding to the major characters in the story, and these sites formed the center of our campaign. For a five-week period prior to the release of the movie, we told our story by regular updates of the sites, all of which served to drive the plot forward. Characters announced their plans and actions on blogs or by e-mail to visitors who registered with the characters' mailing lists; documents and e-mail found on corporate websites revealed the not-always-benign plans that the companies had for precogs; other precog-oriented organizations found themselves caught in the middle of the struggle between the company and the precogs.
The result was an engaging web-based event, one that taught us how to use immersive, Internet-based techniques to build an audience and keep them involved with the event throughout its lifetime. Over 50% of the people who visited a game site more than once came back at the end of the game, so we feel good about what we accomplished with surprisingly little effort and budget. You can find an in-depth report on the Exocog game here.
extended immersive campaign in support of a major entertainment property. This was a guerilla-style project -- we didn't have any official affiliation with a studio, we just chose a movie -- Minority Report -- and acted as if we had been given the job of creating a web-based world to promote the movie. If anyone complained, we could just stop; if there were no complaints, we'd learn a lot. And we did.We wrote a story about a pre-Minority Report world in which precognitive people were a recognized part of society, and in which an unscrupulous company was planning to take advantage of their unique abilities. Four websites grew out of this story, corresponding to the major characters in the story, and these sites formed the center of our campaign. For a five-week period prior to the release of the movie, we told our story by regular updates of the sites, all of which served to drive the plot forward. Characters announced their plans and actions on blogs or by e-mail to visitors who registered with the characters' mailing lists; documents and e-mail found on corporate websites revealed the not-always-benign plans that the companies had for precogs; other precog-oriented organizations found themselves caught in the middle of the struggle between the company and the precogs.
The result was an engaging web-based event, one that taught us how to use immersive, Internet-based techniques to build an audience and keep them involved with the event throughout its lifetime. Over 50% of the people who visited a game site more than once came back at the end of the game, so we feel good about what we accomplished with surprisingly little effort and budget. You can find an in-depth report on the Exocog game here.