"The Colony" may soon include your friends - and they probably won't like it one bit.

According to reports in Adweek, The Discovery Channel is promoting the second season of its survivalist reality show 'The Colony' with a social experiment called "Join The Colony," which simulates how your social circle might react on Facebook as a devastating pandemic unfolds. 

The effort, created by Campfire, includes fake footage fictional updates from your real friends, family and colleagues as they post about the effects of the outbreak on the cities where they live. 

In my new book, THE ON-DEMAND BRAND, I look at how Discovery has long used such social marketing initiatives to promote programing like its annual Shark Week block - as well as expansive alternate reality games/adventures like The Lost Experience.

This new effort from Discovery looks exceptionally compelling - and creepy - as a kind of digital era update to "Special Bulletin," a 1983 nuclear disaster special that came across like real television footage and freaked everyone out.

Here, the effect may be far more powerful.

Read more about the effort here.

Join The Colony yourself, here.

And read more about the book, here.

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