14 DAY TRIAL // It seems that with the pretty high price of gasoline in the world, a sure fine way of marketing products has turned out to be offering free gas for everyday people. Recently, Electronic Arts has managed to deliver such a publicity stunt, taking over a gas station in the United Kingdom and offering drivers 40£ worth of petrol. All this in order to promote their new game, Mercenaries 2, where petrol was the currency used in a devastated Venezuela, with different factions fighting for controlling it. Although some people expressed their disapproval of the campaign, most of the motorists out there were thrilled with the free gasoline and even bought a copy of the game. Nintendo followed the example and, in order to promote Wario World: Shake it, decided to occupy a Los Angeles gas station and invite people to play the game on scene while filling up their gas tank.
Sure enough, the news spread like wildfire and soon everybody was there, either filling their tank or playing on the several Wii consoles which were set up on the site. Contests were held and everybody had a great time, a nine year old boy even winning one of the Nintendo Wiis put up as prizes. Although the idea isn't original, following EA's attempt, it proves effective, loads of people buying the game and even a few consoles.
For those of you who don't know, Wario World: Shake it stars Wario, one of the primary bad characters from the Mario universe. Being developed as an opposite to everybody’s favorite character, Mario. Having starred alongside him in quite a lot of titles, he also had some of his own series, with Wario World: Shake it! being the latest title to feature him as the main character.