Posts about advertising matters, something that I don’t like.
I’m going to assume that you’ve seen the new Halo 3 TV ad, which may or may not spoil the whole thing for everyone (Bungie has assured everyone that it doesn’t), and if you haven’t watched it you should. I’ll wait here until you’re finished.
When that’s done you need to watch this absolutely sublime parody, created by the Consolevania team:
Superb, and oh so true.
I found this advert for Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 in an old FHM, circa 2000, when I was in the barber a couple of years back, and only now that it’s started to fall apart after I liberated it (I did ask first) have I got around to scanning it for posterity. I thought it might be of some interest as a curiosity:
I’m a bit surprised that I’ve never seen it online before or since as those vitriolic ‘EA is teh evil’ posts always get hits. Quite alarming in retrospect and I can only assume that it seemed like a good idea at the time.
Isn’t coincidence a strange thing?
Since it probably won’t be up for long, here’s a screenshot of the front page of Sony PSP Connect from earlier today:
Gran Turismo HD (or even GT4?) really looks familiar, doesn’t it? I doubt anything will come of it because they’ll be content to let the bashing commence, but Microsoft’s lawyers could have a field day on that little incident.
So in addition to your standard accessories you can now get Xbox 360-branded ecstasy. Presumably 20g of the stuff costs as much as 200g of its third party rivals and only comes with 13g usable.
Of course MDMA with logos on them are nothing new and I can remember thinking how cool the Simpsons ones were in drug education, but could it be that despite their denials this is a deliberate marketing ploy by Microsoft? The use of PlayStation demo pods in nightclubs is often cited as a reason for the cool image that Sony rode to the front of this industry (games, not narcotics) and you have to suspect that this stuff is way more fun than Wipeout.
This is also a lot less likely to get you beaten up for being a nerd than spending your time in a nightclub playing a PSX. See? All part of their plan.
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at this one. There’s a huge palaver over a new billboard in Holland for the launch of the white PSP since it has a white, blonde-haired woman grabbing a black woman by the face while proclaiming that “White is Coming”. Hmm…
Now I hate all this political correctness shite (I’ll happily laugh at jokes about white people, black people, men, women, religions, gingers, blondes, the French, etc) but surely an ad agency had to know that people were going to find that offensive?
That was probably the idea since there’s no such thing as bad publicity, but coming after the shock news that LocoRoco is an allegory for white flight, complete with what appear to be fanged Rastafarian minstrels trying to eat the poor oppressed white (yellow?) folks, does this mean we can expect to see Ken Kutaragi goose stepping across the stage at E3 2007? It would surely be less controversial than his showing this time.
As I often do, I’d like to thank UK Resistance for the usual biting analysis:
The key facts of the matter are this: It don’t matter if PSP is black or white. It’s still shit and hasn’t got any games.
Can’t argue with that…
HD-DVD, the first HD video disc format is now on sale in the US and I want one, even to the point of considering importing one. A friend of mine actually did that ($800 including shipping!) and should be getting his player any day now, so I’ll probably be posting some impressions of the format when I get the chance to steal a peek.
What I really want to talk about though, is this report. Not how orgasmic Kong would look in 1080p, but this section:
Universal’s next-gen HD bonus content will fully integrate online interactivity into the movie watching experience, “opening up new promotional opportunities” for studios by allowing HD-DVD users the option to learn more about on-screen items in a movie and even make purchases online.
One example of HD bonus content Kornblau illustrated was for the studio’s upcoming day-and-date release of ‘Fast and the Furious: Toyko Drift’ due later this year. Viewers could connect to the internet via the player, “trick out” a car seen in the film, then reinsert their creation back into the movie. Users could also click on the tire of a car seen in the film, then go online to purchase it and other related products.
They don’t miss an opportunity, do they? It’s pretty low how they force copyright messages and ads at the beginning of DVDs that you’ve paid for, but I sincerely hope this doesn’t mean that when a new car appears on screen you’re going to get a Sky Digital-style “Press the Red Button to Learn More” in the top corner. Or a New York promo in the opening scenes of King Kong.
Not that a new Fast and the Furious is going to have much integrity to speak of (at least it’s not named as absurdly as 2 Fast 2 Furious), but crap like inserting custom promotional content into a movie isn’t a good precedent to set. Just let us pay our money and get the movie we pay for, and if you want to put this stuff in there you’d better be dropping the price of the movies. Which I doubt they will…
