Some More ARG Stats

Last year I posted statistics I’d researched on alternate reality games. The list needs some minor editing since some links have moved. But before I do that, I wanted to add some more stats. Let me know if you have others to add to these ARGs or any others.

ReGenesis Extended Reality Game II
These stats from a talk delivered by Evan Jones, then Creative Director of Xenophile Media, ‘Extended Entertainment Experiences‘, 24th Nov, 2006, Paddington, Australia.

• • First ARG linked to a full television season 
  • 2 hours exclusive footage
  • 9 distinct websites
  • Included email, telephone, SMS messaging
  • 6 months to build
  • 30 people on the team at Xenophile
  • Ocktopods (hardcore players) = 1-2,000 players
  • 6 fan websites were created
  • Cost significantly less than on episode of TV
  • All those that registered their email and did the survey said they watched all 13 episodes of the TV show
  • Average age 29 years
  • Male and female players
  • 1/3 of audience international 

The Lost Experience
These stats are from a talk delivered by Cricket Wardein, Marketing Director, Yahoo!7, ‘Extended Entertainment Experiences‘, 24th Nov, 2006, Paddington, Australia. They are for May 14th onwards for the Australia part of the multi-country ARG-style project.

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  • After launch video broadcast (advertisement) with a call to action to ring a number: 15,000 calls were received
  • 900,000 unique users
  • 7.6 million page views
  • 1.9 million video streams
  • 200,000 forum messages
  • average time spent online: 12 mins

In The Lost Experience, there were also many advertisers. The following information about the involvement of Sprite is sourced from Word of Mouth Case Studies.

“The LOST Experience is an Alternate Reality Game (ARG) designed to bring consumers closer to the fictional world of the ABC TV show, LOST. The ARG features 4 advertisers embedding clues into their online & offline properties for consumers to discover more information about the show’s characters. Sprite began on May 10th by placing the new Sublymonal.com URL into a faux TV commercial that ran in primetime during the ABC network show LOST. The URL drove consumers to a puzzle solely related to the show with the only brand mention being the actual URL. Afterwards, the ARG transitioned to a scavenger hunt with embedded DJ podcasts, videos, and hidden memos within Sublymonal.com. A final component includes embedded codes in print ads in Entertainment Weekly and People Magazine. The codes can then be used to unlock further content online.”

Results:
1. Sprite web traffic up 400%
2. Average visit time up 275% and +300% vs benchmark
3. 500K valid codes entered … and climbing!

Credit Information
————————————–
Client: Coca-Cola North America
Agency: AKQA
Budget: <$150,000 excluding media
Date of Campaign: May – September 2006

Meigeist
The following Meigeist statistics are all sourced from: ‘MeiGeist Placement and Research Report’, Diffractions, 2007 [pdf ]

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  • Gender: 56% male, 41% female, 3% unknown (note: stats from only 30 respondants)
  • Age: 37% aged 30-38, 28.5% aged 20-27, 27% aged 40-47, 7.5% aged15-19 (note: stats from only 30 respondants
  • Country: 47% USA, 44% UK, 6% Canada, and 3% Germany (note: stats from only 30 respondants)
  • Visitors to main ingame website by country: 40.73% Other; 21.8% United States California; 18.6% Great Britain; 14.48% United States Virginia; 4.93% United States > Arkansas.