Uncovering a Viral Marketing Campaign

It all started with an unusual e-mail to Franklin Avenue:

Hi!

I love your site, I just saw a post about this on a different website and was wondering if you'd either seen the posters or heard anything about it, I've seen them everywhere in my neighborhood lately. Hope you're having a good day!

The email included a link to this MySpace page. Usually e-mail that doesn't actually address us by name is spam, and immediately thrown into the trash. But I decided to check out the link.

What I saw was clearly some sort of stunt. The flyer (seen above) was too slickly produced (and not at all what a real missing poster would look like -- if your friend is missing, you don't lead off with some catchy slogan like "Where is Amy Pressman?"), the photo too headshot-ready. The setup too much in the vein of "Lonelygirl15." The MySpace page is filled with big, gimmicky question marks.

The narrative was also off. Supposedly the whole Pressman family is missing, yet the flyer and so-called cousin is only interested in "Amy." An excerpt from the site:

Hello All, I am Taylor the cousin of Amy Pressman. As some of you know she went missing. The authorities as usual are “doing all they can”. I have decided to do my part

June 2nd, 2007 The Pressman Family departed from southern California on a road trip in the family R.V. They never returned. A suspicious blog was left on Amy Pressman’s Myspace page days into the trip.

We fear the worst for the Pressman family, but the final blog leads me to believe Amy is still alive and out there.

("A suspicious blog"? I find it funny when people refer to blog posts as "a blog.")

Enough people seemed to believe the story that I was suddenly interested in finding out who really was behind it. I decided to check WHOIS to see if anyone had registered the domain "whereisamypressman.com." Sure enough, I found this:

Fourth Floor Productions
14275 dickens st #11
Sherman Okas, California 91423
United States

Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: WHEREISAMYPRESSMAN.COM
Created on: 13-Jul-07
Expires on: 14-Jul-09
Last Updated on: 13-Jul-07

By the way, it's not hard to cover up your info with GoDaddy. (I do it with the Franklin Avenue domains -- don't need any of you sneaking around our garbage cans.) It's a few bucks more, but if you're looking to keep the source of a viral marketing campaign a mystery, I'd advise spending the extra dollars.

Meanwhile, here's how Fourth Floor Prods. describes itself on its website:

“The Young Guns of Hollywood are in town and stirring up some trouble. Looking to make the mark in the ever-competitive film industry. This group is comprised of some seriously talented people; creating not just future works of art, but a buzz they seem to call, Controversial Marketing.

“Knowing that great films could never be seen without great advertising, Fourth Floor Productions strive to create both New and Fresh media that will be talked about for years.”

Mystery solved. Not sure if "Where Is Amy Pressman?" is a indie film, a website akin to Lonelygirl, or what, but it's definitely not a real missing girl.

Does viral stuff like this work? I dunno, but I somehow find myself writing a post about it, patting myself on the back for figuring it out. Or is that what they wanted? Damn, I've been had.