Black Ops: A New Era of Advertising

November 9th brought with it the release of a tremendously anticipated game: Call of Duty: Black Ops.

A few weeks ago, I made a post outlining the game and comparing it with its chief rival franchise: Halo and the new Halo Reach. Let me say with utmost certainty, it has lived up to its name. The customization is back, the intensity is back, and by god the Xbox Live shit talk is back.

I'm 21, but I show no mercy.

More importantly, the release of Black Ops brought with it a new era of video game advertising. The commercial titled "There's a Soldier In All Of Us" doesn't depict a bunch of overweight nerds getting overly excited about killing each other. Rather it shows everyone not only playing, but enjoying Black Ops. Ultimately, I want to end up in the video game industry, designing ads exactly like this. Hell, I was more excited about my career than I was about the game when I first saw that ad. 

You have a chubby middle aged woman clearing a room with a shot gun.

You have Jimmy Kimmel trying to fire an RPG with "NOOB" hastily scribbled down the side. 

You even have Kobe himself taking a break from winning NBA championships to fire a grenade launcher.

"Kobe!"

Unbelievable. 

The last time I was this impressed with a video game commercial was when Gears of War first came out with the "Mad World" Spot. That was the commercial that made me want to create advertisements for games. When that came out, I was a sophomore in High School. I went to GameStop an hour later and traded in my Playstation 2, a dozen games, and dropped a hundred bucks in order to buy a 360 and Gears of War.

All I can say is, I can't wait to design a campaign for Call of Duty 19: Alien Invasion. That's mine, I call dibs now.

Heineken Redesign

So Heineken is redesigning their traditional stubby bottles. Everywhere that is, except the United States.

Apparently import drinkers prefer the stubby bottle.

I think that this speaks to two things: 1) The importance of research. 2) The pretentiousness of the American Consumer.

Same hair, same tan, same wax... Import Bottle.

It's interesting that they determined sales would decrease should the bottle change in America. I guess elsewhere in the world the bottle is not particularly unique. Many foreign beers actually use the same design, or have a similarly unique shape. Changing it elsewhere is probably smart. But making it look like everything else in the US beer world is stupid. I get that.

But come on guys. If you like import beer, like it for the taste, not the bottle. I'm actually not that fond of Heineken. I'm a Shiner Bock kind of guy.

"In other words, massive ad campaigns drive awareness in Women"

No shit?

I just finished up reading this article on Ad Age concerning the Brand Awareness of several different brands in the minds of women.

The conclusion?

Massive ad campaigns drive awareness in women.

I can't help but say... duh?

Hershey, Kindle, and Lincoln all apparently dropped big bucks this past quarter in advertising to the feminine target audience. As a result, a recent poll shows an increase in Brand awareness amongst women.

The Hershey ads told me to!

What's that? Advertising works?

....

Guess so.

Anheuser-Busch Drops Publicis

And switches to Mother.

I can't imagine what Publicis must be thinking - they just lost a 40 million dollar account to a much smaller agency. I guess this is the age of technology after all. An age where the smaller, more modern agency can not only compete with the big dogs, but reign supreme.

I've studied a little bit of Mother in Introduction to Creativity. I like their style. And I actually find it appealing that the advertising business can be driven by creativity rather than funding. I'm sure Publicis has the bigger budget, but I guess Mother just had the ideas.

And hell, Mother is already in charge of one of Anheuser -Busch's subsidaries, Stella Artois.

Maybe they can keep the account for longer than a year - that seems to be the running record!

An old school AB ad. I wonder if Mother can do better?