New AR Game for Thorpe Park

[Ollie]

If you went to Thorpe Park last year, you’ll know all about The Swarm.
For 2013, it’s back with a vengeance… This video has just been released to launch an AR game for the park that follows the story of one of last year’s survivors.

“Adam has just escaped from 332 days of captivity. While he was held, he witnessed serious mutations that could mean the end for us all. He’s looking for people to join him on a mission to BEAT The Swarm and help save humanity.”

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDFiX4_RpbE&sns=em[/youtube]

CLICK HERE TO VISIT THE WEBSITE

 

[Nemesis Inferno]

Horray for more things plugging up my News Feed!

 

[Ethan]

This is awful.
I love the coaster but just no.

 

[nadroJ]

Ha, it's fab. NOBODY CLICK ON OLLIE'S LINK IT'S A SCAM! =D

 

[Ian]

Hahaha, until I get conformation this is an actual Merlin endorsed PR stunt, I'm not touching it with a barge pole. If it is, you'll find me plugging it on CF's FB, Twitter, home page and editing all links in this topic to my link. LOL!

 

[nadroJ]

^Joey got an e-mail, it is Merlin PR stuff. It's fixed though, so it's no fun.

 

[Ollie]

It is official. But they've done a comp where you have to get as many clicks on your link as you can. But it's all legit and Thorpe have posted it on their FB page as well.

 

[Ian]

Yes, I had conformatation late last night.

What's crap is the leaderboard thing on display. Looking at it now, the person in first place has over 1,700 hits. Unless you had a Facebook page/Twitter account with thousands of followers and use them to your advantage, then you're never going to win. Also, your followers have to trust you/be gullible enough to click the link. The number of hits should be hidden.

I'm pretty confident that if I had used the CF FB/Twitter accounts and the home page, then I would be kicking ass. However, most people interested in this will know about it and not bother.

If anybody wants to enter it, you'll find the entry page here: http://www.beattheswarm.co.uk

 

[SaiyanHajime]

I'd stop following anyone who continually posted this kind if stuff, especially if I felt tricked, so I hate it already.

It doesn't effect the PR company, or Thorpe, if those posting it lost loyalty.

Its upsetting that PR companies who work with Thorpe judge that they have to gain exposure dishonestly.

But what is interesting is how this is an example of using fans for promotion, which I am in favour of, just feel this method is missing the point.

Sent from my HTC Wildfire S A510e using Tapatalk 2

 

[Ian]

The method is called "seeding" where fans are prompted to spread the publicty stunt amongst their friends so hopefully it grows into a success. I don't think it's dishonest. I prefer more organic publicty stunts.

I don't think it's a bad stunt (it's not sniffing jars of piss, dummies losing limbs or mouthwash station after all!), I just think it could be improved by hiding the total on the leaderboard. I'm discouraged simply because I can see that it's virutally impossible (without "using" CF) to even come close to clinching thrid place.

 

[nadroJ]

I think what PR people totally miss the point of is the phenomenon of things going viral on the Internet. It's natural thing, it can't *really* be forced. It has to be something outstanding, something that makes people go 'Oh my god!' and piss their pants laughing or just be really weird. Something like that spreads like wildfire and people are more likely to go yes, I'll share that with my friends. Three hit the nail on the head with the Dance Pony Dance thing. They made something totally weird and random, and whilst it was self-aware and was purposely made with the intent of going viral, they understood the nature of these things are therefore it worked.

Thorpe, not so much. Personally I HATE the fake video things they do with actors. The acting is always sub-par, and always makes me think of A-Level media projects. Basically, it's balls. It's not hard-hitting, it's not funny, it's not even that entertaining or scary. The thing they DID get right (again, in my opinion) was the promo vids they did for The Swarm, where they looked like 'real' YouTube videos and people were going missing in them. If they did something like that, but made it look like it was real and wasn't associated with a theme park ride and were plugged like 'oh my god, look at these people disappearing in these videos!' Maybe start some rumours on the Internet about what was going on, and then after a few weeks come clean and reveal it was them.

So yeah, agreed with Joey. It's a cool idea to use fans to promote, but it's too cheesy and too forced to work. People won't take to it.

 

[gavin]

I think what PR people totally miss the point of is the phenomenon of things going viral on the Internet. It's natural thing, it can't *really* be forced.

This.

Why don't they just stick Psy on the coaster, preferably holding the grumpy **** ing cat while making people in the station do the Harlem Shake?

HATE. IT.