In the coming months I will likely be working on a Forrester Research document covering different types of advertising with video games and being a true professional, I decided to dedicate a full afternoon this past weekend playing as many video games as possible - to get a better understanding of just what these things are all about (yes, I do love my job).
I currently have an Xbox 360 and a Wii, so to warm up I decide to spend a few hours of killing Nazi Zombies in Call of Duty: 16 World at War on my Xbox. Then I moved onto Halo 3 where I was verbally assaulted by a very angry girl 12 year old boy. So I switched over to the Wii and played a few rounds of Tiger Woods, became completely enamored with World of Goo (thanks Jammo for the recommendation!), and finally decided to switch back to the Xbox 360 and settle on playing some video game soccer.
Quick side story: I’m a long time soccer gamer, been playing since the original diagonal-scrolling FIFA International Soccer, and had been a loyal FIFA player, until the game got all arcadey in 2005, at which point I switched to PES and have never looked back… until this year… and after a long and poorly fought battle, I idiotically own both FIFA ‘09 and PES 2009… Anyway- it’s weird the way you can only like one. It’s like Pepsi and Coke, or Nike and Reebok. Somehow we pledge our allegiance and follow accordingly.
Ok, back to the point of this post.
So I’m playing an early round Champions League game of Real Madrid vs. Galatasary (yes, I know that choosing Real Madrid is lame- but I went to a game at Santiago Berenbeu a few years ago and wanted to see what the digital stadium looked like… give me a break!), and a few minutes into the first half I notice something strange.
See anything odd about this picture? No? Well let me remind you that I’m playing PES 2009 on an Xbox 360… now look again, a little closer:
Yep: that’s an add for Playstation… on my Xbox 360. What?
For Sony (makers of the Playstation), this is completely wasted advertising spend. Playstation and Xbox are similarly polarized like Pepsi and Coke. You are allowed to like one or the other - certainly not both. And once you do choose your alliance, you are instructed to look down on the other platform. Therefore this is some of the worst targeted advertising I’ve ever seen. I mean, can you imagine going to the Apple website to buy an iPod and see banner ads for Zunes?
So what went wrong? Did Sony purposefully put Playstation ads on an Xbox game? I can’t imagine. But, did Sony pay an ad agency to place ads in video games, without checking where the ads were going? Very likely. What do you think happened?
But anyway, at least I noticed the ad in the first place and that’s better than I can say for most advertising. Step 1: get people to notice ads. Step 2: target ads so they make sense!
Well that’s it from me - I’m off to play more video games do more research for work.
Hope everyone has a happy, healthy, safe, and wonderful holiday season. Enjoy!
