In the first of four commercials, Xira (the story’s heroine) tells the public that she is a future revolutionary and begs for help finding “The Essence.” This same spot appeared on almost all the cable stations in Quebec at the same time.

Another roadblock spot in which Xira reveals “The Essence” to be the 2010 MAZDA3 and it is the key to the Revolution of Joy that will take place in the future. Players all over Quebec fervently solve clues that lead to keys—one of which will start The Essence.

Xira and her companion are on the run from the evil Unifos and send another transmission from the road somewhere in Quebec with another hidden clue.

Captured! Xira has been abducted by the Unifos and is forced to read a statement decrying the Revolution of Joy, but she has other plans.

This strange symbol began appearing all over Quebec. Curiosity seekers flooded reperio.ca and were down the rabbit hole and into “33 Keys.”

This custom MAZDA3 was the primary focus of the game. "The Essence" was the key to the future revolution and one player held the key that started it. He drove it home after the end-game party.
 

We planted 33 geocached keys around Quebec in historically important locations. Players were led there by decoding secret messages on the game hub site. One of these 33 keys started a custom 2010 MAZDA3.

UNIFOs canvassed public places handing out these cards and asking the whereabouts of the woman pictured. When scanned by a smartphone, it lead to a website displaying the UNIFO manifesto.

The cast of “33 Keys” and the roles they played are explained here.

“33 Keys” attracted players from all over Quebec. Their fervent participation was evidenced by everything from trying to kidnap Unifos to leaving messages on the Croix Verte voice mail railing against their regime and vowing to save Xira.

One of the leading actions of the game, this image appeared on the blog of one of the main characters, Patrick Martin. It depicted the mysterious arrival of Xira.

An influential media pundit in Quebec, Dominic Arpin educated people about ARGs in general and reported on “33 Keys” on his popular blog and radio show.

An essential information pipeline, the FLAFF Twitter feed put valuable game tidbits in the hands of players.

Hosted on MusiquePlus, the Quebec MTV, this blog chronicled the entire “33 Keys” process.

Originally designed to support the FLAFF show, it was overtaken by players and became the de facto information-sharing hub for many players. Here, alliances were formed and player teams worked together to help one another find keys and solve puzzles.

One of the main communication tools of the campaign. Pat sent up-to-the-second messages while on the road with Xira during their quest for "The Essence."

The first challenge delivered to players involved identifying a number, what Xira called “The Sacred Sequence,” as a VIN number. Doing so took players to a phony CARFAX-type page displaying the custom MAZDA3.

Patrickdeshawi.ca was seeded for weeks before the game began in earnest. He wrote about his life as a divorced factory worker from a small town in the Quebec countryside called Shawinigan.
 

33cles.ca is one of the fan sites that erupted about 10 days into the game. Using graphics ripped from several different game sources, it was created for player-to-player clue-sharing and interaction.

The first salvo from Reperio came a week before the game began in the form of a comment on Pat Martin’s blog. The comment linked back to this page on which people saw odd pictures of the key tube, strange men in suits and graffiti tags.

Used as a tool to advance the narrative and give clues to the whereabouts of hidden keys, QIK videos were dispatched several times each day.

Defaced by the revolution, this billboard began as an ad for the fashion show FLAFF and was the reason its host began to report on the game. The board and the show were fake and both part of the game.

The Croix Verte in present day is an environmental organization, but in 2333 it is the oppressive governmental/industrial complex that must be defeated. In the game, this site served as a decoy, then a place to find clues that led to keys.

This case study shows how alternate reality took over Quebec with “33 Keys,” an immersive marketing experience across multiple channels.

Mazda ARG | 33 Keys

Millennials are clued in to the whole “ad world,” so we had to put them in control of the next MAZDA3 campaign to get them behind the wheel. The solution was an Alternate Reality Game: an immersive marketing experience that allowed users to save the world and their own future. Delivering results 500% above projections, it was one of Mazda’s most successful campaigns to date.

What started out as a fashion show on MusiquePlus, Quebec’s version of MTV, became an up-to-the-day account of game activity when the host’s billboard was defaced. There were 20 two-minute episodes.