'Call of Duty' Print Advertisement

As I will consider the narrative, structure and final versions of each of my 2 trailers right at the very end, I will take this opportunity to begin work on some of the other key elements needed for this project:
a) Print Advertisements
b) Box art, for all hardware consoles

Considering first, will be the print advertisements. I have gathered a collection of popular advertisement schemes from some of the top selling and most promoted games of 2010, as these demonstrate the better quality and range of what a publishing company can achieve. The first of these will be the record breaking and potentially the most 'sought-after' video game of all time - Call of Duty: Black Ops.

The game was released worldwide on November 9th over all 4 major console systems; this therefore needed a large scale advertisement strategy - that easily paid itself off. Within the first 24 hours of its release, the game sold in excess of 7 million copies, smashing the previous record of 2.5 million beyond argument from preceding record holder, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. This in no short way is all thanks to the CEO of Activision, Bobby Kotick, who openly stated that 'Black Ops’ will see a larger financial investment by the company than any other game that they have ever released', with a rumoured $100 million budget placed solely on marketing.

The print advertisement was more often than not seen over a 2-page spread, allowing the entire audience focus to be primarily on the game. Up to 6 months before the release of the game, the symbolic image of the man wielding 2 pistols was surfaced on secretive sites, and mailed to high priority status publications and video game players. This in instead gathered its own momentum as fan of the game began to speculate the release of another Call of Duty title, somehow allowing the game to begin its journey into its own marketing for free.

The vital elements of the advertisement are as follows:
* The FULL title of the game, though the game and its previous titles are all simply known amongst the gaming community as 'Call of Duty' or 'COD', the need to reinforce its name was necessary, as the game was facing a Christmas release and many buyers may of been a parent or guardian, as in fact the largest played demographic for the game is normally under the certification
* A short, quoted review about the game from a well respected gaming publication, in this example being 'GAMESMASTER'. Often this will have no relevance or description of the game itself; instead it normally holds a hyperbolic property of being exclamative and over exaggerated. Often holding very bold claims or statements, this is no different as it is being described as having the ability to 'rule 2010', regardless of other pre-releases or the overall opinion of the gaming market.
* Appearing mostly on larger spreads, as the release date draws closer, screen grabs of game play is featured on the advertisement with key elements enhanced within the game - perhaps it’s innovative and cutting edge new graphics, engine or plot. This advert however focuses solely on the multiplayer aspect of the game, as it is widely known as perhaps what the players really pay for when they purchase the game. It has itself broke records and is considered the best multiplayer experience for gamers for this generation- once again, a bold statement.
* Lastly, the most important and legal features of the certification, the consoles it will appear on (this was advertised in the Official Xbox Magazine, so only this logo appears), the developer (Treyarch) and the publisher (Activision).

One thing I can notice from the advert is the lack of information and knowledge on itself, a ploy to aid further consumers onto the website noted as well as doing further research of their own. This inevitably created a huge buzz in search engines, allowing the key word 'Call of Duty' and 'Black Ops' to dominate the Google Trend chart for up to 2 months before and after the release.

This timeline from Google represents the sheer scale of publicity and attention the game created around itself. The first notable rising in the scale were surrounding the release of the intention of creating another Call of Duty game as the popularity of Modern Warfare shattered records. The next few steady months were as the title was released and gradually more information was streamed into the waiting public, up until the momentous rise at the end of the year when the game came out.

What's Next...

Now I have began and finished at least 80% of my filming for the final video-based advert, I need to consider further means of advertising my game to a wide audience. As I have now the indefinite cuts and scenes to utilize in my 3-minute length trailer, I can begin to plan a shortened version of the trailer, as well as concepts for the box art and magazine advertisements.

Below is a case study into the overall advertisement into the 2010 release of 'Assassins Creed: Brotherhood':



This 2.42 minute long trailer was first released at the E3 Video Game Convention in 2010. The game came out just a few months later, but for press, fans and critics this was the very first they saw of the new release. It shows no hints towards major game play elements, instead it is rather ambiguous in what it does display knowledge wise. This therefore generates a large buzz around the game. It is far more theatrical and the quality of animation is barely distinguishable from actual real life recordings, which is highly impressive.



This much shorter trailer however is what was advertised on TV in the 2 months running up to the world wide release. The animation is now replica of game play footage and displays dense examples of skills and tactics that will be deployed throughout the plot. It is final excitement for fans as they now have a better grasp on the game soon to be released and hooks them in to buy the game.



This is a feature for the game on a majorly popular gaming magazine, where it featured a massive spread on the narrative, production and even a review/preview. It gained a large amount of publicity and in fact this kind of coverage can really make or break a game with impressive circulation figures of 70,000 in the UK and up to 425,000 in the US.



This was a very bizarre form of advertising as it features the Limited Edition copy of the video game software, and was more commonly seen than a more basic structure simply advertising the release. However this can also be explained when considering that the fan following behind the huge game series allows them to push the sales upon a more expensive edition of the game, as they know it will appeal to the greater interests of the masses - a very strategic move.



This is not advertisement of the game, but instead the final box art that was used on the cover of the software. It displays the commonly used logo and themes based from all of the trailers and magazine features. It displays the developer, publisher, certification, system requirements and even further information such as a blurb to the narrative and information about the online multiplayer. This is typically the type of box art you would see from a video game, and it does not break conventions of ambiguity and unknowing.