Behind the Buzz - digital and interactive advertising and marketing

Alleve Game

by Rachel on July 16th, 2007

Whilst I think the Google/Search for Bourne Game is a good idea currently poorly executed and/or tested, a recent promotion for Alleve is neither a good idea nor a good execution.

This came to my attention via Dan Hon, who linked to a NYT article :

HUMOROUS and offbeat are not exactly the words that leap to mind when it comes to advertising in the over-the-counter painkiller market.
But to attract a younger customer, the consumer care division of Bayer HealthCare is starting an online game today for Aleve Liquid Gels, a product that was introduced in March. By visiting a Web site, www.aleviator.com, Internet users will be able to follow a fictional storyline that leads them through a series of clues, taking them in and out of social networking sites, wikis and blogs.

The alleviator links takes you to the start page where you find, through a series of web sites, that you need to turn on the ‘liquid flow of information’. What this basically means is you have to follow the bread trail to the final site, where Bayer will make a donation of $5 or so dollars to the Conservation Fund. Now, that donation is one of the few reasons why I see anyone clicking through to the end.

The NYT says that the hunt takes you through a series of social networking sites, wikis and blogs. Not quite true. this is what you get:

• A video sharing site, with all the ‘functionality’ of YouTube. Except the page is completely built out of flash and nothing works except to play the video, send to a friend and the links to the next page in the line. They have fake comments and tags and everything.
• Next up, a site on wetpaint.com - a wiki There’s some random facts about Web2.0 to support the ’story’ but no wiki functionality as it is all locked down.
• We then have a Ning site, where you appear to be able join the network but all of the ‘friends’ appear to be sock puppets.
• Then Blogger (where you can post comments)
• The another ‘wiki’, although this one is fully flash and useless again
• The final one os back to you flash ‘video site‘, where it tells you you’ve been successful and you have fought PAIN online

That’s a fair bit of detail, but I thought you may want to take a wander around the painful creative involved. Now let me try and hypothesise how this one month campaign came about.

• Social networking tools are all the rage, user generated content gets the buzz.
• Treasure hunts across sites seem to be quite popular - look at Volvo
• Donating to charity as an incentive always works
• But we can’t actually let anyone comment or interact with us as we are a drug and the FDA does not like that

Result - build a fake story and treasure hunt across multiple sites that are locked down and moderated so no interaction or are just not real and get all the fun of all this cool stuff with none of the risk. The wrong decision.

The reason these games get followed is not just the prize but also the fun of the game. Save My Husband, despite the problems, was a lot of fun for a lot of people. There is little fun here, there is little challenge, just click the obvious links on each page to lead to the next lot of content - which is not that good anyway. This is an agency and/or client jumping on a number of bandwagons for something that should not be done anyway. Drugs, alcohol, tobacco, financial advice are all areas where restrictions mean that it is extremely difficult to move into the more interactive areas in any meaningful way. Pretending to do so is not the right step - those who have done so tend to promote social software as a means for information and communication, not for entertainment. See GSK with their blog and message boards for Alli. Bayer, with this attempt are, unfortunately, nowhere near where they need to be.

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POSTED IN: Branding, Engaging the Customer, Fake Marketing - flogs and splogs