Today Lady Gaga showcased a well-executed and beautifully simple example of the fan-powered interactive ‘hunt’.
Most brands have caught on to the fact that when you have truly passionate fans, you can create sexy, intricate and interactive games for them to play online. Done right, this means a fun experience for them – and a hell of a lot of promotion in the process as people talk about it the process of discovery.
We did it at TMW Unlimited for Lynx, giving fans the opportunity to win tickets to Chaos Island, taking different routes each time. Fever did it for Toshiba’s sponsorship of Dark Knight Rises, there’s Magnum’s Pleasure Hunt - I could go on.
But today, Gaga launched #SOUNDPUZZLE directing people from Twitter and Facebook to this image on her very own Littlemonster.com…
Finally after tweeting a few clues in the form of close-but-not-quite-there attempts, and a direct note about pitch, this…
The end result is a new track, possibly called Stache, possibly from her upcoming album ArtPop.
It’s way more electronic than we’re used to, but more interestingly, is referenced to as ‘#SOUNDPUZZLE 1’ – suggesting that this is the beginning of a series. With a new album to promote, this feels like another clever way to start building momentum from the grassroots up. Call me impressed.