L O S T (Stage One)

In May 2006, ABC launched one of the biggest alternate reality games i've ever witnessed. Working in conjunction with Channel 4 in the UK and Channel 7 in Australia, ABC set out to further the story of the hit TV show LOST with a sort of side story that paralleled the main narrative of the show. I'm not quite sure if i'm going to go step by step or just explain how this relates to cross platform practice or if i'm going to sink in to nostalgia, so please bare with me.

It Started With An Advert...

This advert was shown I think right after the end of the season 2 premiere in the UK. That phone number at the end was active as well, and when you called it up...I can't remember what happened actually. I know it was a voice recording and it probably led you to the website thehansofoundation.org, which was active this time last week but seems to be a dead site now, which is a shame.

Anyway, the whole first phase of this plan revolved around a hacker known as Persephone who leaves a series of clues for you to find that lead to showing that the Hanso Foundation shouldn't be trusted and introduced key characters of the story. The smart part of this plan was how they gained revenue to pull this off. Some of the sites that Persephone sent you to were from co-sponsers Sprite and Jeep.

This phase also included a online radio show that would prove to play a key part in the game  later on. Another aspect was a book that included key "brands" that were in the show like Widmore Industries and Hanso Foundation. On top of that, the book even gets a mention on the show. The "author" was on the Flight 815 and was declared the guy who flew in to the engine in the pilot episode.

During Season Two, the character Sawyer is reading the manuscript and Jack comes along and burns the ending so Sawyer doesn't find out 'who-dunnit'. A smart tie in to make it more official that it ties in to the show.

From the book, there was newspaper adverts from Hanso Foundation slamming the book and telling people not to buy it. I remember reading that one in the Metro. This was when I realised they had gone ALL out. The platforms they have dealt with so far were:

Television Adverts
Newspaper Adverts
Online Sites
Books
Online Radio

Not bad for the first phase of five. And the book wasn't bad either.