Stephen Fulljames wrote to the Culture about a terrible scam being perpetrated by Acclaim (a computer games company). Basically, Acclaim ran a marketing promotion for their new game Turok Evolution, where volunteers would receive £500 and a free X-Box if they changed their name by deed poll to ‘Turok’.
The winners have been announced, and if you google a couple of their names (Matthew Grist and Lheila Oberman), they turn out to be actors. Who knows, they might all be actors.
It gets worse. If you visit the website for the promotion, you find that the concept of ‘identity marketing’ was invented by Dr. Simeon Cantrell at the Institute of Science in Marketing (ISCIM), neither of whom exist outside of the confines of Acclaim’s imagination, according to Google.
Dr. Cantrell is also said to be releasing a book on the subject with the ISBN no. 0552546925. Checking that at Amazon comes up with My First Knock Knock Joke Book. Oh, what a hilarious lot those guys at Acclaim are. Sigh.
The sad thing is that the media completely fell for this and it’s been covered in several newspapers. As Stephen says, “Someone in their marketing department needs a good kick in the face.” Exactly.
mssv 