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Lyle Zapato

Viral Marketing And Microsoft Word

Lyle Zapato | 2005-10-22.2300 LMT | Entertainment | Letters | General Paranoia

Perhaps by now you've seen the blog with the video of the giant uncovered by the tsunami?

Back on the 12th I received an email from someone claiming to be the publicist for Eric Belson, the owner of the above blog, who claimed to be writing a book on the mythology of giants. The publicist asked if I would run the tsunami giant footage on my site. The email had attached a press release in MS Word format breathlessly announcing the release of the video. Opening the doc up in a regular text editor revealed that it was created by someone working for TBWA\Chiat\Day, a large advertising agency used by Sony and known to engage in viral marketing.

The general consensus, based on the content of the video and others since released on the blog, is that it's all a viral ad for a Playstation megacide simulator called Shadow of the Colossus. So here's further confirmation, albeit somewhat late.

It also confirms the dangers of Microsoft Word. This is why True Paranoids write their duplicitous press releases using hex editors.

(When I received it, I emailed the publicist back asking if she worked for TBWA\Chiat\Day, but she never responded. If I had made the connection with the game then, I would have tried to finagle a free copy out of them -- no doubt a useful training aid for my eventual final showdown with the forces of Federalist Canada -- but it's obviously too late for that now. Oh well. Anyway, thanks for linking to my site, guys... although it should be "Zapato Productions intradimensional" not just "intradimensional" -- hey, I was nice enough to humor your ridiculously backslash-cobbled name, allow me my titular extravagancies.)

UPDATE: Giantology Revisited.

End of post.