Social Engineering Blogs

was an online alternative reality game (ARG). Its players had to help a US Navy cryptographer; Maria, by solving puzzles and deciphering new codes almost every day for 18 days. What most people didn’t realise, was that Project Architeuthis was also a job advert for the post of a US navy cryptologist. The advert was extremely successful, won two shorty awards, cost zero dollars, and tapped into a whole community.Project Architeuthis is a fantastic example of a successful native ad i.e. an ad disguised to match the feel and format of its platform, in this case, the platform being  ARG interactive gameplay whilst the ad is a job recruitment ad for the US navy. It is also  interactive and adopts a micro-targeted approach. The customised nature of micro-target ads (Agan 2007) is evident. It is aimed at a very niche audience: ARG players and delivered in their preferred medium: an online alternative reality game. Due to the specialist nature of the job, identifying and subsequently targeting  the psychographics of their desired audience not only helped to increase the effectiveness of the ad but also contributed to the recruitment process. Whilst the general effectiveness of micro-targeting is indisputable, its limitations include missing potential candidates. For, example this ad would have failed to reach experienced cryptographers who don’t play ARG could have been missed.Research shows that how information is presented affects  how people react it (Loftus and palmer 1974) and delivering this ad through their targets audiences’ preferred medium increased the chances of them interacting with it. Fortunately, the preferred medium for ARG players – gaming, is  very interactive.Producer scrounger dynamic: it is more rewarding to be a scrounger when there are many produces and vice versa Adopting a game format, was both novel and interactive. There were new puzzles and codes to decipher almost every day for 18 days. The idea of advertising for cryptographers through deciphering codes is not new e.g. cryptography jobs have been advertised as codes in newspapers. This is actually an example of the scrounger producer dynamic (Barnard & Sibley, 1981) in real life. The scrounger producer dynamic suggests  that people will either choose to produce a new idea or copy an already existing idea based on a cost-benefit analysis of what other people choose to do i.e. if many people choose to produce, the costs of producing and benefits of being a scrounger are higher. Here, the payoff for using an already existing advert idea is greater as most mainstream job adverts do not use it (fewer scroungers), the process is efficient and has been successful. Having the game available for only 18 days also played a role in the success of the ad. Evidence suggests that novel campaigns available for short periods of time are extremely effective (Cowpe, 1989) as they grab attention and avoid the negative effects of overexposure.The nature of the game also served multiple purposes:One of the psychographics of ARG players is that they are very communal, 53.3% of female and 39.4 % of male gamers have better VRG friends than real world friends (Yee, 2006). This worked to advertisers advantage and allowed them tap into a whole community – as opposed to a typical one to one relationship, they were able to tap into a much more scalable method of advertising. Project Architeuthis also brought people together and created a whole new community of  project Architeuthis players. This has great implications for the US Navy brand as it is now known for bringing intellectual people together. Something it is not particularly known for.The story line of the game imitated the actual job it was advertising. This allowed the advert to  serve as a recruitment process. You could see and assess the players’ cryptography skills and their approaches e.g. solving alone or in a group to determine how well they would fit the job requirements.The story line also involved them interacting with another cryptographer. Hence, creating the “chameleon effect” where the people start imitating those they are interacting with (Chartrand & Bargh, 1999). Without realizing it, they start to think like cryptographers and this increases their emotional (Yee, 2006).The combined emotional, cognitive and temporal investments increases the likelihood of the players continually interacting with the ad due to loss aversion.The tasks gradually get more difficult  and this created a “foot in door” phenomenon. Milgram (1963) People are more likely to go all the way, if what they have to do gradually gets more difficult. In this case the players will keep interacting with the ad because the tasks gradually get more difficult and complex.For successful individuals it could also serve as a source of inoculationwhen they start the job. Being able to complete increasingly difficult tasks might increase their self-efficacy on the job (McGuire & Papageorgis, 1961). While some research suggests that interactive advertising is not always as efficient as traditional methods (Bezjian-Avery, Calder & Iacobucci, 1998), this is not an issue for this interactive ad. The success of this ad saw it being covered by over 34 traditional and non-traditional media mediums. This ad can be considered successful in the sense that it created awareness of the job and encouraged interaction. However, its suitability as a job advert is questionable. Some gamers spend up to 40 hours a week gaming (Yee, 2006), report being addicted (Yee, 2006) and might not be interested in the job. Also, non successful gamers who could not afford to invest as much time gaming could have been lost. Arguably without the knowledge that it was for the recruitment, there would have been no incentive for gamers or people interested in the job to keep playing. Yee (2006) findings suggests that ARG players, might not  require incentives as they develop their own self-based motivations for playing the game. They also suggest that ARG skills are quite transferable.Micro-target  and interactive adverts might be the way forward. They target the ideal individuals and encourage them to invest in the product. Background research on the demographics and suitability of the ad, is also very important REFERENCEAgan, T. (2007). Silent Marketing: Micro-targeting. Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates.Barnard, C. J., & Sibly, R. M. (1981). Producers and scroungers: a general model and its application to captive flocks of house sparrows. Animal behaviour, 29(2), 543-550.Bezjian-Avery, A., Calder, B., & Iacobucci, D. (1998). New media interactive advertising vs. traditional advertising. Journal of advertising research, 38, 23-32.Chartrand, T. L., & Bargh, J. A. (1999). The chameleon effect: The perception–behavior link and social interaction. Journal of personality and social psychology, 76(6), 893.Cowpe, C. (1989) ‘Chip pan fire prevention 1976–1988’, in C. Channer (ed.) Television Advertising Case Histories, 2nd edn, London: Cassell)Lee, A. E., Ounsley, J. P., Coulson, T., Rowcliffe, J. M., & Cowlishaw, G. (2016, February). Information use and resource competition: an integrative framework. In Proc. R. Soc. B (Vol. 283, No. 1825, p. 20152550). The Royal Society.Loftus, E. F., & Palmer, J. C. (1996). Eyewitness testimony. In Introducing Psychological Research(pp. 305-309). Macmillan Education UK.McGuire, W. J., & Papageorgis, D. (1961). The relative efficacy of various types of prior belief-defense in producing immunity against persuasion. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 62(2), 327. Milgram, S. (1963). Behavioral study of obedience. The Journal of abnormal and social psychology, 67(4), 371.Yee, N. (2006). The psychology of massively multi-user online role-playing games: Motivations, emotional investment, relationships and problematic usage. In Avatars at work and play (pp. 187-207). Springer Netherlands.