Video game developer Ubisoft just released an exciting new trailer for the newest release in the Tom Clancy series Ghost Recon, Ghost Recon: Future Soldier. Instead of showing game footage the new ad opted for live action with visuals and special effects that parallel a big budget movie. Using real actors playing out scenes as the game’s characters make the game’s world seem more realistic and move the focus on the storytelling rather than the actual game play. It also does an excellent job using special effects to showcase the game’s high tech gadgets and weaponry without taking away from the storyline. This ad is extremely effective because it is exciting, different, and gives the viewer a realistic, captivating glimpse into the world of the game. There have also been reports that this was merely a teaser and a longer twenty-minute trailer/short film will be released later this year.
Using movie quality, live-action sequences for game trailers is becoming increasingly popular after the groundbreaking ads released for Halo 3 by District 9 director Neil Blomkamp. Following this popular spot released in 2007, there have been successful live action trailers for last year’s Halo: ODST and Assassins Creed 2.
One could speculate that these types of ads are being released in hopes of building hype and gaining support for a full-length movie adaptation of the game. Movies based on video games are becoming increasingly popular (and better) with the upcoming release of Prince of Persia next month and the seemingly non-stop speculation of a Halo feature. Regardless of the reasoning, these cinema style commercials are very effective and hopefully become a long-standing trend in game advertising.
There has been a recent surge in companies looking to expand their social media presence on outlets like Facebook and Twitter by offering new “fans”, “followers”, and “friends” free products. They offer coupons for free products and similar incentives to consumers for simply becoming online fans of their brand. Einstein Bros. Bagels recently offered digital coupons to users who registered as their friend and gained hundreds of thousands of new fans. TGI Fridays tried a similar campaign last year with dangerous results. They introduced a spokesperson for the brand “Woody” on Facebook who offered free burgers to his first 500,000 fans. They reached the target number of fans weeks ahead of schedule and did not plan to give away so many free burgers. Facing potential backlash from potential customers the company had to extend the free burger offer to one million friends. Starbucks also ran a campaign to attract fans by offering coupons for free pints of their new ice cream brand. Learning from TGI Friday’s mistakes they put a limit on the free coupons and offered other coupons for a discount to fans who were too late for the free offer.
These tactics have been proven to be very effective in quickly increasing your online followers and social media presence, but are campaigns like this effective in reaching the “right” people. By using these strategies most new “fans” are not necessarily brand loyalists or even interested in the brand for that matter; most are there simply because they want free stuff and could care less about the brand. Are the fans genuinely interested in the brand or are they just taking advantage of a free deal? While Einstein Bros. gained hundreds of thousands of online fans they also gave away over $800,000 worth of free bagels.
For social media campaigns like these to be effective, brands must consider the usefulness of having fans on social media and it is a question of quality vs. quantity; is having more fans better than having loyal fans? Brands can take all their new fans and use social media try to mold them into true brand loyalists over time but what about retention rate? Fans can easily join for a promotion and take themselves off immediately after. Most brands derive value form social media by using it to educate their loyal consumers about new products or happenings in the company to build hype. They are also used to directly communicate with their valuable customers to improve performance or learn more about their target market. Some companies even use social media as another way to reach customers for customer service purposes. While quickly expanding your fan base is a good way to get in front of a large number of people how effective is it when they do not care about the message? It seems more important to be liked that simply popular. Brands can derive great value from using tools like social media but unless they understand why they are using it, understand how to use it, and have tangible goals preferably linked to some sort of return on investment, expensive campaigns like this can be largely ineffective.
Sweden’s TV licensing company Radiojanst recently released a new viral video campaign experimenting with emerging video technology that allow viewers to insert themselves or a friend into the commercial. The ad, titled ‘The Hero: A movie about you or someone you know”, builds up with a dramatic announcement about a new national hero who is making life better for the people of Sweden. This new Swedish hero ensures that viewers can trust what they see on television and radio and the voice of average Swede can be heard. Midway through the commercial the hero is revealed to be the viewer because they pay their broadcast fee. The ad shows crowds of people from around the world celebrating the viewer with their photo on billboards, signs, and TV. The idea for this video was for people to upload an image of their friend and email it to them so they can star in their very own commercial. At the end of the commercial it gives the option to make a new commercial with a different image that can be passed along to share with another new “star”. The video was very well received by international audiences with over 14 million site visits within 8 weeks.
This clever campaign was accomplished using viral video technologies like those used in Staple’s “Elf Yourself” holiday campaigns and MoveOn.org’s Glenn Beck satire that takes the viewers image and information from Facebook and inserts them into a viral video where they are appear to be publically smeared by the ridiculous, fear-mongering Glenn Beck. This new trend of in viral videos where the viewer can be a part of the commercial and shared has enormous potential for advertising. After all, one of the main goals in advertising is to get the potential customer to envision themselves using the product or service. Videos like this give the message a personalized look and feel allowing consumers to establish an emotional connection with the brand. It will be interesting to see how this technology will be used next and how it will continue to evolve the viral video.
