Wrigley Targets Web Gamers
In May, Aaron Allar saw an ad on the Web soliciting “test subjects” for an alternate-reality game, and he soon plunged into a world of pulsing beats and blinking lights, black packages arriving at his door and game clues that unlocked more games.
“This is the first alternate-reality game I’ve played, and I didn’t know what to expect,” the resident of Twentynine Palms, Calif., says. But he and other players he met through the game soon guessed “the test” must be a promotion for a new video game.
Instead, though, the teaser campaign is part of an elaborate marketing plan for Wrigley’s 5 gum. Wrigley introduced the brand in 2007 to try to bring teens and young adults back to chewing gum. The company was acquired by Mars Inc. in 2008.
