Who Is Benjamin Stove?

With the "Who Is Benjamin Stove?" project, we were trying to build awareness about GM's renewable fuel initiatives and programs, and to build public curiosity for E85 using a number of media channels to convey our message.

The original concept was created while looking into non-conventional forms of advertising to support GM's "Live Green Go Yellow" campaign. The goal was to create a conspiracy theory-based campaign involving ethanol, crop circles and General Motors. We felt that an Alternate Reality Game (ARG) was the best method to create online discussions that would allow us to bring the "conspiracy" above the radar.

"Who Is Benjamin Stove?" displayed that in today's advertising environment, even a large corporation like GM is engaged in thinking outside of the box and trying new forms of digital and grassroots marketing.

The fact that General Motors' identity was kept a secret throughout the majority of the campaign is also notable. Most marketing ARGs, like Audi's "Art of the Heist" are branded from the beginning. With "Who Is Benjamin Stove?" GM's role was part of the mystery, and wasn't revealed until late in the storyline. When it was finally revealed, GM was introduced as a character within the story-- as opposed to being revealed as the sponsor behind the game.

The overall web statistics and online discussions exceeded all expectations. We had over 380,000 visitors to the main site, over 1.8 million page views and over 8,800 discussion board posts during the program. The average visitor spent more than 16 minutes on the site per visit, which far surpasses the amount of time consumers remain engaged in more traditional marketing platforms. The game was extremely well received by the ARG community and featured some key aspects that had not previously been attempted by ARG developers. This game also brought many non-ARGers into a genre of which they had previously been unaware.
-- Stefan Kogler, SVP, creative director, Campbell-Ewald, General Motors

I love a good mystery. Before I was asked to review this campaign, I came across it as most consumers would -- quite by accident -- and found myself intrigued. GM was making reference to the Benjamin Stove site on their website, and while it smelled like an ARG viral to me, I followed the rabbit down the hole. It's a little like going to see PT Barnum's mummified Mermaid: the adult in you sees the wink-wink, but the kid in you wants to believe it.

Campaigns like this are hard to find. They don't meet the regular convention -- three creative executions and a website -- that all of us are guilty of cranking out like factories. They don't dazzle with flash animation, or high production video-- they rely on a good story well told. I love the use of elements in specific cities, taking an online campaign into the real world. The only drawback is for the attention-deficit crowd, like me -- to really appreciate the depth of the story, a consumer has to spend time with it -- but that's the point. Not every campaign has to reach millions for 30 seconds. Often it's better to engage fewer, more targeted people more deeply.

It worked for me. The blogs sounded believable-- not cranked out copy like most "viral blogs" are. I didn't engage very far into the puzzles -- as a consumer I often am guilty of enjoying more instantly gratifying entertainment -- but even so, I walked away more educated about ethanol and GM's role in making the world cleaner.
-- Sean MacPhedran, director of creative strategy, Fuel Industries

"Who Is Benjamin Stove?" is an Alternate Reality Game (ARG) developed for GM by Campbell-Ewald and GMD Studios to create buzz for GM's E85/Live Green, Go Yellow campaign.

GMD studios was the ones behind the famous ARG by Audi called "The Art of the Heist." The campaign that set the standard and made ARG's popular.

This time the storyline is about an Iowa farmer by the name of Benjamin Stove and a mysterious painting he left behind when leaving his family without a trace. It's a storyline that developed during a 12-week period both online and offline.

The game was launched with the release of a website using the structure of a blog with forums to initiate the mystery.

I imagine that if I would have come across the website without knowing that it was a campaign for GM's E85, I would have thought that it was for real for quite some time. It is intelligently executed, and the design and the content really make it feel like a real blog with a real forum.

I really enjoy the details that the storytellers have planted on the site, but also at other URLs mentioned in the news and the archives. It really makes it feel authentic. You can browse around for quite some time and discover new puzzles and clues.

From my point of view where I only see the online campaign, I never really got the connection with GM's E85, but I imagine that the campaign was much more effective for those who could experience the offline activities as well.

The scope of the campaign with online and offline activities makes it really convincing, and I believe that this form of integrated marketing is the way to get an impact with the audience. My only concern is that the connection with the actual product could have been more clear.
-- David Eriksson, creative director, North Kingdom