ARG: ALTERNATE REALITY GAMING FOR INTERACTIVE: MARKETERS...Curious about ARGs and how to use them in your campaign? Get the history of, and best uses for, this up-and-coming marketing technique.BY JOYCE SCHWARZ (as excerpted from www.imediaconnection.com) March 3, 2006.
DO YOU RECALL THE SCENE IN "THE MATRIX" Do you recall the scene in "The Matrix" when Morpheus says to Neo, "I imagine that right now you're feeling a bit like Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole."? As fans know, if Neo takes the red pill, he stays in Wonderland and Morpheus shows him how deep that rabbit hole goes.
In an Alternate Reality Game (ARG), the rabbit hole is the first puzzle-piece or event signaling the beginning. ARGs are becoming increasingly popular as platforms today for "alt-marketing" gurus. Major brands such as Microsoft, Hasbro, Jet Blue, American Express, Sharp, Audi, Song Airlines and Stella Artois beer are staking out space in the ARG arena. (Link to complete article: http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/8508.asp
ALTERNATE REALITY BRANDING: I bet you're familiar with lots of ARGs, and maybe you've even played in one or two and participated in an ARG offline event without even knowing who was sponsoring it, since that's one of the key tactics of ARG marketing or ARB (Alternate Reality Branding), as it's starting to be called.
So just what is this 21st Century phenomena? Wikipedia.com explains-- an "Alternate Reality Game" is a cross media game that deliberately blurs the line between in-game and out-of-game experiences often being used as "a marketing tool for a product or service."
Dissect an ARG, and you'll find elements of immersive gaming, viral marketing, interactive fiction, social communities, virtual worlds and real-life publicity stunts that would make P.T. Barnum blush
ARG SPIN-OFFS:
Inspired by the success of Alternate Reality Games, new spin-offs are capturing attention and funding. Most of these "mash-ups" include some elements of ARGs, but the curtain and the puppetmasters are often visible so ARG purists will insist they are outside of that box. The new "categories" that I see evolving include experiences that might be better termed Extended Reality, Mega-Reality, Alternative Reality, Collective Reality and Faux-reality.
Here are some examples:
Extended Reality Games (ERGs) 
extend the drama, excitement and characters from films and television shows with a combo of online and offline experiences and adventures that span far beyond the norm. Two examples are THE PINK PANTHER game www.smart.com/pinkpanther.
Another is 5ive Days to Midnight experiential marketing for the mini-series and USA Network's Monk promos.
Mega-Reality: Monopoly:
Sometimes the scale of the Alternate Reality Branding campaign is so big it deserves to be called Mega-Reality since it is larger than life and lets players experience their favorite online video or board games in the real world.
Alternative Reality: 
Nothing like a venture into an alternative universe to break up the workday like Last Call Poker,
Collective reality: The Halo 2 "I Love Bees" and 
Sharp Electronic's ARG titled "The Legend of the Sacred Urns" all require a collective virtual community to solve the quest.
Faux-reality: One of the toughest versions of Alternate Reality Branding to pull off is a version called Faux-Reality where false or misleading info appears real.Check out 
Audi's The Art of The Heist campaign If you're flying Jet Blue in April, you can turn on your seat's Direct TV screen and participate in what may be the first made for in-plane only reality show called "Share the Love" from American Express
http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/8506.asp
