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July 16, 2007

The Ultimate Search for Bourne with Google

One year after the partnership with Sony Pictures to promote The Da Vinci Code movie, Google has a new campaign, this time for The Bourne Ultimatum. Searching for [Bourne Ultimatum] or [Jason Bourne], you'll find an undisclosed ad for the Ultimate Search for Bourne with Google, a competition that starts today in 7 countries: U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, the U.K. and France.
It's up to you to track down Jason Bourne across three continents. With Google tools at your fingertips, you're well equipped for your mission. And you'll have the chance to win fantastic prizes, including:

* The VW Touareg 2 as seen in The Bourne Ultimatum
* Destination vacations
* iPhones, cash, and DVDs

You'll probably find intriguing that "Google must provide Universal Pictures with the primary email address associated with your Google account for verification purposes". Besides the integration with Google accounts, a Google search box will help you find clues and a gadget for iGoogle will keep track of your scores.


Apparently, the partnership between Universal Pictures and Google didn't involve money. It's just a way to create more awareness for Google's services. "This is a great opportunity for us to bring the power of Google search products to help players across the globe hunt for Bourne online. We're always looking for creative and engaging ways to connect people with the information they're seeking, and this collaboration is a terrific example of that," said Dylan Casey, product manager at Google.

It's interesting to see a media giant and a technology company as partners in a viral marketing campaign that blurs the borders between advertising and real content.

{ via SE Roundtable }

23 comments:

  1. Sorry, but
    THE ULTIMATE SEARCH FOR BOURNE
    cannot be undertaken in Linux.
    http://www.searchforbourne.com/html/notsupported.php?id=0

    wasn't google supposed to start offering more for linux users?!?

    ReplyDelete
  2. From what I know, it wasn't Google that created the site.

    ReplyDelete
  3. You can spoof the user-agent string. The site's script denies access to Opera and Linux users.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Also, the site doesn't work with Opera. Kind of a let down, I must say.

    ReplyDelete
  5. This is a spam in results page :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Opera fix:

    1) Visit the site
    2) Press F12 and select "Edit site preferences"
    3) Go to the "Network" tab
    4) Choose "Mask as Firefox"
    5) Refresh the page

    ReplyDelete
  7. Seems a bit "evil" to me - Google is effectively cooperating with Universal Pictures to put their result at the top of the page. I agree with anonymous up there: spam in the results page.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Whoever made the site needs to fix it! Great potential - poor execution at the moment

    ReplyDelete
  9. It's Day Four, one day behind Jason Bourne, two sightings of Jason Bourne already, and ready to fly to Morocco. Anyone find an actual use for the Image Filter yet?

    ReplyDelete
  10. No, but here are two answers some people might find useful:

    * Nicky Parsons is Treadstone's Logistics Coordinator

    * Nicky is in Tangier

    ReplyDelete
  11. To those who kindly explained how to spoof the user-agent string for Linux and Opera (I use Linux on Ubuntu) I would say that it's rather missing the point.

    Why should I have to spoof anything, why can't they make it work on any platform and with any decent (standard adherent) browser.

    If they want me to participate in whatever promotion they're running, they need to make it work on my choise of browser and o/s, not the other way round.

    ReplyDelete
  12. This is such a bad idea! Feeding advertising garbage like this (the plugin is advertised on the bottom of the page) to the Igoogle page does only harm to Google's reputation as a trustworthy service.

    Will we be seeing popups and forcefed Flash adverts next?

    ReplyDelete
  13. Day 5: look at the third video from Dater Notes and concatenate the three numbers. You'll get a 5 digit number that starts with 123.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Day 6: you're sent to this video and you have to connect the words: "Treadstone all lies".

    ReplyDelete
  15. Day 7: Do a search for [treadstone all lies], copy the URL of the first image results in the image filter. You'll find the capital of an important country from Europe.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Day 8: one of the two images from the Mastercard "Priceless" site contains the username (CRUYFF74) and a passphrase. You'll get this message from Simon Ross: "You are one of the agents looking for Bourne? I may have some information. Contact me again tomorrow."

    ReplyDelete
  17. Day 11: New York

    ReplyDelete
  18. Day 12: Madison Square Park (use the image filter)

    ReplyDelete
  19. Day 13:

    username: JoanneBrous
    password: Treadstone All Lies

    The answer is a link to a YouTube video:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aq0iKP8c3D0

    ReplyDelete
  20. Day 14:

    * Contact Mustapha Nayet
    username: mouslelion
    password:Vive le Maroc!

    * Search for [Bourne lie detection Treadstone] using Google Image Search

    * The first result is this image. Check the tips about waveforms distortion and detecting lies.

    * Go to your videos and click on the "Waveform video".

    * Notice that [Stay here] is the answer.

    ReplyDelete

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