** Economic Superheroes and Financial Villains ** - Friday 13th March
It’s Friday (the 13th to boot), so ahead of the usual market wrap...
Economic Superheroes and Financial Villains – is it all just fantasy?
*I was reading about a great new media/role-play/tech phenomenon called ARG (Alternate Reality Games) – now, whilst many duck into the movies for 90mins of escapism by watching the latest instalment of super-hero fantasy frolicking where the guy-always-gets-the-girl, saves the world and employs a myriad of cutting-edge special effects along the way, entertaining at arguably the best-value-for-money-around (I personally can’t wait for Iron Man 2 – that suit is cooool), there is also a growing trend of (admittedly geeky-seeming for now) groups of friends getting caught-up in the latest full-on real-world/fantasy role playing events.
I know some would argue that the greatest comic-book storyline of our time is being played out in front of our very eyes, where we have our own best-of-the-best Marvel Super-Obama-Man Hero (embodying all the greatest superpowers across the Marvel characters). Alongside him, a collection of supporting-cast heroes; including Geithner-the-Great, Bernanke-the-Brave and Summers-the-Special and even (as almost second-tier “heroes” – and certainly lacking in “super-charisma-power”) Flash-Gordon Brown, Terrific-Trichet and Mystery-Merkel. The financial villains are complicated characters and too numerous to list, but clearly dangerous in their ability to wield and manipulate the dark arts of over-leveraged-CDOs-and-other-financial-wizadry-no-one-understands.
*As great the material the real-world provides, some are still looking for something different – Alternate Reality Gaming might just be it.
*What happens in ARG is technically and organisationally brilliant, but the aim is quite simple – a multi-national has a brand/movie/event that it would like to promote. It starts tying in online events to real-world gatherings - possibly posting clues to a treasure hunt for a make-believe archaeological artefact to promote the latest Indiana Jones movie – where online users suddenly become groups of friends trawling New York city trying to find the next clue to point them in the right direction. The media company employs a host of techniques, from radio and magazine interaction (“old” media these days) to TV and the Internet, SMSs, random numbers left for you on your voicemail or even GPS coordinates uploaded to the map-reader in your I-Phone – the possibilities are endless. One firm even had a light-aircraft emblazing a code-sequence into the clear sky at a certain time and place for the gathering-crowd below.
*This all serves to create a total immersive experience, and whilst most ARGs have so far been used to market products from McDonald’s sponsorship of the Olympics to the release of a new video-game, there is a more serious potential side to this new immersion technique: some firms are making use of the fantasy-environment to simulate potential scenarios, essentially an extremely high-tech situation-modelling exercise. A recent scenario employed a myriad of elements to evaluate the world’s reaction to a spike in Oil. OK, so where am I going with all this? Well…two places actually:
*First, I suggest that, given we are facing one of the most severe economic declines in recent memory, we employ the techniques above to basically do what the likes of CNBC and other financial news channels are failing to do – adequately and reliably inform and prepare the people. We would not only provide details of the economic situation, linking declines in the stock-price of..ohhh..let’s say..Citigroup…to events in the “real-world” (like staging a run-on-a-bank), but we would fully immerse the US consumer, Chinese saver, UK over-borrower and Eastern-European carry-trader, in an ARG that would see them living out a variety of possible scenarios given a number of governmental interventions that may be employed.
*We would test the waters of the new found love of autocratic influence – providing a glimpse into the all-so-important social interactions (and possible breakdowns) if something as disastrous as another bank collapse were to occur/be allowed or the US Treasury bubble was to all-of-a-sudden burst, sending the US$ unstoppably spiralling downwards. Or what if China didn’t hit its 8% GDP growth target? Would Chinese farmers find online websites telling them to gather at certain times for mass rallies with the promise of promotional gifts?
*Including the young and tech-savvy in such scenarios might teach some people a “fantasy-lesson” that would scare them from ever over-leveraging themselves again! Or they might understand the pain and suffering of those poor savers that now find themselves having to bail-out the greedy.
*The ARG element of these scenarios would find the “innocent” public receiving text messages informing them they had lost their jobs, or suddenly find a newspaper “reporting” on the auction of their house that afternoon. Maybe GPS co-ordinates uploaded to their I-Phone would allow them to navigate to the location of their next “clue” - which turns outs to be a job interview where the numbers are not code-sequences but an offer on your salary for 50% less/mth than your previous job – or how about a repo-man suddenly appearing to lug-away not only your SUV but the three plasma screens hung across your bathrooms OR an HR manager being held hostage after informing almost 50 employees that they are losing their jobs (sounds familiar Mr. Sony HR Manager in France?).
*Imagine the huge amounts of fun and laughter this would generate for policy-makers and outside non-gamers watching the events unfold. A combination of old and new media, crowd-theories, mass gatherings and individual experiences could be collated to paint a picture of what the world would look like in a global financial meltdown – hold on…this all looks and sounds familiar no? Which leads to the second point…
*Second – well, what if we’re all already playing this game?
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