What is hoax marketing? It's where marketers cause a stir over a perceived threat that turns out to be a product launch. Now, before anyone gets alarmed... there are ways to do this right. Be cautious though. 'Hoax' the wrong people and it can cause a lot of problems.
A good case study is the Mobile Phone Virus hoax. Basically, targets received the following message on their cell phone: "Outbreak: I'm infecting you with t-virus, my code is ******. Forward this to 60022 to get your own code and chance to win prizes. More at t-virus.co.uk."
It wasn't a virus at all and gamers know that the T-virus is from Resident Evil; a gaming franchise that is older than most of its fans. CE's fatal flaw was poor instruction. As a result, some people did get alarmed. What did they think was going to happen? They told 17-yr-old gamers to forward the message to everyone.
Grandma doesn't know what the T-virus is!Some recipients even called tech support worried that they had been infected with a REAL virus. (That is hilarious, by the way.) But trust me when I say, the appropriate targets for this campaign would know better. Why am I so sure? Because I am in that target. Gamers know the difference between a real virus and advertising. We live on the computer, console and iPhone.
The fact that anyone was concerned tells me CE didn't provide an appropriate call to action.
The strategy was sound but the execution was flawed. Infiltrating ONLY their tech-savvy target audience would not have caused a panic. Regardless, the game made major headlines and word spread like wildfire. Mission accomplished, albeit a little clumsily.
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