ARGs: The future of marketing?

So I was reading Maxim the other day - naturally - and ran across an interesting article, titled "Mind Control, Inc.: How a new form of marketing that blurs fact and fiction is changing the rules - for better or worse." This new(ish) form of marketing consists of ARGs: alternate reality games. It started, unofficially, with The Blair Witch Project and became more mainstream with Steven Spielberg's AI. ARGs are marketing campaigns designed to pique the interest of people through cryptic clues, a mystery to solve, on the internet and in the real world. The article describes them as "[...]a new strategy, one that combines viral videos, guerrilla hype, performance art, and scavenger hunts."

I've never heard about this marketing technique, although I remember when everyone wondered if The Blair Witch Project was based in reality or not. It' s one of the first films to become insanely successful based on the strength of its online marketing campaign - which blurred the lines between fantasy and reality. Viewers weren't really sure what they were getting into, or where they were headed, or even why. Entering the Labyrinth (or Down the Rabbit Hole, if you will). Nowadays, television shows like Heroes and Lost have ARG marketing campaigns on the internet, as do video games like Doom and Halo 2. Movies like The Dark Knight use them. Musical groups like NIN use them.

I had no idea this was such a prevalent marketing strategy, but it seems to be effective. People like to be a part of something new and strange, especially on the Web; and everyone likes a good mystery. It's a great way to involve people on a different, deeper level than, say, the relative supeficiality of purchasing a movie ticket or CD based on personal taste or reviews; they become personally involved in the narrative and feel that they helped shape the success of a given project. It makes people feel smart, clued-in, connected, to put the puzzle pieces together themselves.

Some people find ARGs dangerous for those very reasons: Tom Hespos, prez of Underscore Marketing says "I get concerned when people don't realize it's a game from the get-go . . . You run into issues of authenticity and brand backlash when people realize they've been led on a wild goose chase." Others think that ARGs are the future of marketing, and I have to say, I see their point. In today's society of reduced attention spans and multi-media dexterity, having a marketing campaign that engages consumers on several levels, that requires their active participation and appeals to their sense of being ahead of the curve, is perhaps necessary in order to be a success.

I wonder what Ooligan could do to take advantage of this type of marketing. The campaigns I mentioned earlier in this post all had price tags of several million dollars. Would it be possible to adapt this model to a much smaller sphere? Would it take too much time, energy, and coordination? There must be a way to engage the potential reader through more than the average online resources. Even if it does feel a bit like playing The Pied Piper.

Has anyone else read much about ARGs? They're new to me.