Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09
From the famous advertising agency Wieden + Kennedy (who have been responsible for a great deal of EA’s best advertising in recent years), this advert is not just noteworthy for its wit or humor, nor its clever use of the game’s namesake, Tiger Woods. No, this advert really pushed the boat out through its use of the internet and social media. Originally stemming from a YouTube video that highlighted a glitch in a prior Tiger Woods game, the resulting real-world re-enactment from W+K spread through the viral video-sphere like wildfire.
Resistance 2
Resistance 2 had the odds stacked against it at launch. Surrounded by the likes of Gears of War 2, Far Cry 2, Fallout 3 and Mirror’s Edge, it was going to take some real magic for it to assert itself and stand up to each of these other quality titles. Sony’s answer to this challenge was one of the most unique, innovative and ground breaking advertising campaigns the medium has ever seen.
Not only was the scale of Fall of Man’s sequel well represented through giant, literally building sized advertisement in LA but the game also took brave steps across the line between the real and the fictional. A six page wrap-around advertisement in the Metro newspaper scared the life out of commuters in Dublin with a story of the invasion of America at the hands of the Chimera.
Fallout 3
If we’re going to discuss Resistance 2‘s real-world, retro adverts then we can’t leave out Fallout 3‘s either. However, where Resistance 2 went with the all out invasion of Earth, Fallout 3 barely even references the fact that what you’re watching is an ad for a videogame. The ads consist of retro style commercials for characters, items, locations and even gameplay mechanics found in all of Fallout 3, but they’re all based before the apocolypse occurs. Instead of focusing on the 1,000 pound gorilla in the room (the end of the world as we know it) the Fallout 3 ads create a deeper and richer history for the game itself.
The footage that was showed during E3 in particular showed this idea off best. For all the fans of the Fallout series, it also established that Bethesda wasn’t taking the franchise away from its retro/futuristic roots. Still, the true genius behind this campaign is the fact that the ads for a game that takes place after a nuclear holocaust are set before the death of the world ever occurs.
