Recently, Audi USA posted a request for information about a supposedly "stolen" A3 model that vanished on March 31 from a showroom in New York. Not surprisingly, it was quickly pointed out that it was another Alternate Reality Game. This was incorporated a bit more into "reality" than other ARGs, however, which mostly have people searching from website to website and telephone number to telephone number. Check out the sign that showed up at the recent New York Auto show, for instance.
Fellow adverbloggers over at AdLand have a bunch more nitty-gritty details if you're interested in tracking down the A3 for yourself. In the meanwhile, it's interesting to see that there may be a small shift from the usual virals that we've been seeing in recent months (years?) floating around our inboxes making a transition to these Alternate Reality Games. While they are obviously complicated (and probably expensive), they are just as good a form of "conversation" between a company and its potential customers. Keeping people engaged outside of just watching commercials is something an brand would hope for every single time they put together a promotion, Audi is obviously banking that the Stolen A3 campaign will do just that.
[Thanks to Craig and Michael for the heads up]
