10 Insane Marketing Stunts That Were Used To Sell Video Games
7. Pigeons Were Spray-Painted With The Game's Logo (Virtua Tennis 2)
Quite how someone came up with this idea is beyond us, but rest assured, this is a real thing that really happened in real life. Really.
As the name implies, Virtua Tennis 2 is about tennis, which gave the marketing folks over at Acclaim Entertainment a pretty great idea: why not take their game to Wimbledon, the most famous tennis tournament in the world, watched by millions around the globe each year?
But rather than just putting up billboards, handing out pamphlets or setting up a demo booth, the company decided to spray-paint 20 pigeons with the game's logo, training them to fly in and out of the tennis courts at the event. Acclaim made it clear that the birds were not harmed in any way, and that they would not be released during actual matches - just during warm-ups.
What's more, the pigeons were reportedly trained to fly up to people in the crowd and flap the game's logo in front of them. Because of this, they were dubbed "flying billboards" by the press, which seems like a missed opportunity to us. Why not "flying bill-birds"? Bill-birds. Right? Guys?