14 DAY TRIAL // Ubisoft is ready to launch a very strong holiday line up with games such as Far Cry 2, Prince of Persia, Shawn White Snowboarding and EndWar will be out from now till Christmas. In order to gain a competitive advantage over the other big publishers, Electronic Arts and Activision Blizzard, the France-based one is preparing to start an extensive advertising campaign, to the tune of some 10 million dollars.
The main delivery vehicle for the ads will be the South Park television show. Ubisoft has bought up the entire advertising pace for the first episode of Season 8 and will also run ads in the second episode featuring Shaun White. The first episode will also carry ads that detail Far Cry 2 and Prince of Persia.
Danny Ruiz, who is a brand marketing associate at Ubisoft, said that “It's the first time they are going to see the game, so we wanted to give them a nice grasp of what it looks like. This is a better alternative to running a bunch of 30-second ads that piss people off because they've seen them so many times”.
Shaun White will also make several television appearances, the biggest profile one being on ESPN, to promote the game and a “White Out” campaign is also scheduled to debut on MTV, Spike and Comedy Central, with the screen being covered in snow at a certain hour and with the game trailer showing shortly after that.
Ads will also run during National Football League matches and during Family Guy. The big push is aimed to create a buzz amongst potential gamers who are not necessarily always reading coverage of the game as reported by news sites and videogaming magazines.
It's interesting to see that Ubisoft is focusing on its snowboarding title, when hardcore gamers seem to pay more attention to titles such as Prince of Persia and Far Cry 2.