What makes a good marketing campaign? Hell, if I no. I'm just some creepy dude writing about video games on a scabby laptop. But, according to about thirty seconds of internet research, I found out. Apparently, it has to be memorable, provocative and totally not bat shit insane. Simple stuff really. When it comes to ads for video games it has to show us some game, maybe some skin and reach out to the lights-off-headphones-in-Doritos*-crumbs-around-mouth gamer in all of us. Some companies get it horribly wrong. You remember that time that Sony did all the cocaine that tried to
pimp the Playstation 3 with a devil baby. Or that time
Nintendo thought that white kids could wrap. Or when
Panasonic did anything with the 3DO. Yeah, I try to forget too! The adverts following, on the other hand are the best of the best. They are the ones that got it right. WARNING! Tears, erections, laughs and a strange sense of duty may follow.
*Other awful for you gamer foods are available
10. Play More
The reason why this advert was banned is probably just. You can only assume that the public would be offended by a baby birthed at the speed of light, a naked preteen covering his preteen junk with his preteen hand and a old man falling into an open grave. Yeah, that's justified. However, controversy creates cash and this ad for the original Xbox did just that. Not only that, but it make you think. The tagline was simple, a motto that all gamers should live by.
Life Is Short. Play More. Yes Microsoft, I will. On the Playstation 2 I already own.
9. Going Commando
You got to love the Rachet And Clank series. It could have been just a bog standard 3D platformer, but, the inclusion of some 50 odd hilarious and destructive weapons, the games turn into something completely special.
These TV commercials, spread throughout the entire span of the series on the Playstation 2, show off the real world application of some of the weapons in the games. It shows that fact that you can only get in them the game because they are too out of this world. The ads are funny and they have explosions. What more could you ask for? Well, super hot lady, I suppose.