I was up watching Sportscenter on ESPN when I was rudely interrupted by a commercial break. The first commercial in the set was a self promoting ad put on by members of the Sportscenter journalist. Then the next was a Commercial for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.
I was very pleased with the overall presentation of the Commercial.
The main thing that actually appealed to me about the commercial was when the two characters where talking about how much they were advancing through the levels of the game. Then the one guy says, “You will never reach this level”. It allowed me to connect with the characters in the commercial because I often trash talk with my friends about in-game progress and achievements.
This ad in particular is not trying to use “puffery” to sell sex or a perfect image. I think that it is mainly trying to sell Wal-Mart as the perfect retailer. It is saying to gamers “Hey you don’t have to wait in long lines at Video Game Specialty stores”. I remember that Wal-Mart ran an ad when Madden 10 came out which followed along the same lines.
From that stand point I don’t feel as if the ad is affecting me as a consumer to shop at Wal-Mart mainly because I have a personal bias against the retailer, but I feel as if the commercial does an effective job in showing off the product (Modern Warfare 2) and it does make it appealing to me.
I think that the main target audience for this ad was males ages (17-25). I choose this age group because the game is rated M for mature and I would say that most gamers are males. At the time that I saw the commercial it was about 10 o’clock so I think that was an appropriate time slot to expose the age to the target market. Sports and violence go hand in hand i.e. Football, Boxing, MMA, Wrestling and Hockey for examples.
Usually TV ads depict character’s in stereotypical ways but I did not feel as if this ad portrayed characters as such. If I had to decide on a stereotype based solely on this ad, I would say that it is how competitive they make the two guys in the ad. I feel as if this is a normal thing because I am competitive with my friends but at the same time I realize that not everyone is that way with their friends. Maybe it’s a guy thing which would make sense if their target market is males ages 17-25.
The ad was effective for me but it did not make me go out and buy the product. I have gotten away from playing video games as often as I did when I was younger so I don’t really buy games that often. But I am intrigued by the game itself and I would be more than willing to go and rent it and see what all the hoopla is about. So in effect, they did get me.
Filed under: video games | Tagged: 360, leisure time, playing, video games, xbox
I don’t play video games either but this commercial was really entertaining. And good job analyzing the targeted demographics.
That was hilarious and genius – Product placement within product placement (Walmart in COD MW2). The funny thing is that snow mobile level is very early in the game, so that guy playing it must be a pretty terrible player to not have beaten it yet.
I’ve never seen this commercial before. This is perfect. It focuses on entertaining, and shows a real understanding of the intended audience.
It basically takes the Sonic Drive In approach to advertising… two guys interacting about the product, representing their audience. Not to mention the dialogue is hilarious. This definitely hits home with the gamer community.
great blog! i could tell that you liked writing this!