Tuesday February 14, 2006

ARG or Not?

When I was a rock critic in the irony-rich middle ’90s, I was frequently confronted with the following dilemma: Is this the worst band I have ever heard or is it the best performance art I have ever seen?

This question also comes to mind when considering McKinney + Silver’s (apparently?) ham-fisted “Pherotones” campaign for (we now know) Oasys Mobile. Let’s review.

Oasys launches a fake website featuring a fake doctor, Dr. Myra Vanderhood, who does fake interviews and figures in a fake Wikipedia entry. All of this fakery is initially criticized by bloggers, until it turns out Oasys is paying said bloggers’ bills. Meanwhile, Dr. Vanderhood drops comments around the blogosphere and the alternate reality gaming crowd gets understandably excited, since something this clumsy just has to be a setup, right? It can’t be music; it must be performance art.

It’s beginning to look like it just is that clumsy, however. If the client here really were Qwest—as some speculated—there would be blood on the walls in Durham. Since the client is, instead, a no-name, Go Daddy client like Oasys, things might net out. Still, unless this gets a lot more interesting in a hurry, it’s sure to go down as a cautionary tale rather than a case study.

Posted by jim at 03:01 PM ||