Watch the actual incident and the follow up interview with Bush before reading on and seeing how the web buzz has been created by a very clever, really simple game.
Here’s the bit of info that landed in my inbox and put me onto this. Incidentally I was forwarded this by my aunt who works at Foord Assest Management, which just goes to show you how diverse the penetration for web activity is.
I suppose we’re all interested in this type of thing regardless of what we do for a living or what walk of life we’re from.
“More than 6 million shoes have been hurled at George W. Bush in three days, according to an online game that mimicks an incident this week when an Iraqi journalist hurled his footwear at the U.S. president. Sockandawe allows users 30 seconds to throw virtual shoes at Bush, with a scoreboard and countdown charting the player’s progress. A total of 6.44 million virtual shoes had hit their mark by 5:30 a.m. London time today, according to a hit counter on the site. Internet registration data shows the site was created Dec 14, the day Iraqi television reporter Muntadar al-Zeidi hurled two shoes during a Baghdad press briefing in the office of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Bush, 62, was unharmed in the incident, which he described as an example of free speech in a democracy. Throwing shoes is a grave sign of disrespect in Arab culture.”
What’s interesting for us is how the free, non-commercial game was used to encourage user aquisition and essentially build a database for a new website that has yet to launch.
Recently at the penultimate Heavy Chef Session for the 2008 we discussed what to expect in 2009 and the different user aquisition models currently becoming popular or showing signs of becoming popular. Quite a bit of commentary was critical of this sort of model. Basically providing a hook or interaction, which allows the creator to market to (read send spam to) the user with other premium offers later on. So the site that used this game to drive user registration might launch and then have a premium content section or loads of banners offering premium services or products, which they would be able to sell because of the amount of page views they can offer.
We’re all competing for space. The difference between the marketers of tomorrow versus the marketers of today is that former realise that the inteluctual space or brand afinity that we expereince as individuals is far more important then a 1% conversion rate from a database of 1 million users.
[The Heavy Chef Sessions are brilliant and if you want to be in the know, click. The speakers are always top class with the last 3 from the year end session being Jon Cherry, Simon Leps and David Duarte. All of whom offer there own unique insight.
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