What you may or may not know is that they've also been doing a pretty rad job of marketing their installment releases. Take their last one for example. For Halo 3, Microsoft's Xbox got 2 Cannes Grand Prix awards, a traveling museum exhibit, and $300 million in first week sales. Impressive, eh? Even a non-gamer such as myself watched a few of the "Believe" videos on Youtube, and was mightily impressed by it. So what does Microsoft have in store for their next installment coming out this September?
Let's just say that this will be the biggest game campaign from Microsoft in its marketing history. They currently have a website where visitors can manipulate a real life robotic arm to create a laser light sculpture in homage to the protagonists, the Noble Team. The site (which I took a quick peek at) was created by independent digital agency AKQA, who dealt with the interactive component, and AgencyTwoFifteen (creative and strategic agency), who dealt with the strategy and video. Both agencies were involved with Halo 3's fantastic campaign that garnered two top prizes at the Cannes Advertising Festival, so it's no surprise that they're on board again for the latest installment. There will also be spots and online films created by AgencyTwoFifteen, just like they did for the "Believe" effort for Halo 3, showcasing the situation on planet Reach in live action. Which I think is pretty cool, considering how other video games usually provide footages of the actual game in the gaming ads.
Xbox is also partnering with PepsiCo. for the biggest brand integration to date. Come September, 300 million Mountain Dew bottles and 30 million bags of Doritos will be sporting Halo packaging and under-the-cap sweepstakes. There will also be an integrated promotion with the UFC (yes, the Ultimate Fighting Championship).!!So keep your eyes and ears out for the new Halo products coming out as soon as next week!
Check out their world premiere trailer:
Thoughts?
2 comments:
Halo is always so epic. I'm a huge gamer myself but I still can't get used to Halo. I prefer Call of Duty myself. The Call of Duty Black Ops game is coming out only three days before Halo: Reach! I'm so excited to see who will win the epic battle of sales! :P
Yes, I'm a huge gamer if you didn't know :D
LOL Cansu! I know next to NOTHING about video games, but I remember stumbling across some videos on Youtube that I thought was almost like a trailer for a movie..only to realize that it was for Halo. It was only after the viewing did I start looking into it.
Haha who do you think will get the most sales?!?
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