Slashdot Mirror
ESPN Football's Bizarre Viral Marketing?
LilSerf writes "Four days before Sega debuted their new 'first-person football' feature for ESPN Football 2K4, a mysterious personality called Beta-7 premiered a site detailing the injuries he suffered as a beta-tester for the game. The site is a blog going back to March 21, 2003, the day he first claims to have tested the game and blacked out as a result. The story includes mysterious packages from other injured testers, surveillance footage of his 'episodes', and bootleg video of the 'secret' game features - suspiciously not posted until after the official announcement by Sega. Consensus in the boards on his site seems to be that this is a hoax by Sega - what do Slashdot readers think?"
normally, I am the adbusters loving anti-advertisement kinda guy... but I think they did a great job. at least you can tell it's a big joke... I probably would be miffed if I had bought into some elaborate site and later found out it was a marketing scheme...
but, this is probably the funniest advertisement ever... I laughed so hard at this site =P
I like the authentic touches here and there (kinda surprised about the modchip)... even though the first entry on beta-7 shouldn't be about pre-beta-7 times =P I'm sure you could make a list of the mistakes
oh well, I'll probably be hating this site later after I've reached my senses. once this kind of marketing is widespread, I will loathe it, I know it.