14 DAY TRIAL // The pre launch television advert for Call of Duty: Black Ops, which sought to highlight the multiplayer side of the game by populating a desolated battlefield with a set of characters taken from real life, including basketball star Kobe Bryant and television personality Jimmy Kimmel, is judged by an add analysis firm to be highly effective, scoring better with men than with women.
Ace Matrix says that men rated the clip 277 points higher than women on the proprietary scale which the firm uses.
The company says that the ad scored on average 714 points on the 950 scale that Ace Matrix uses, scoring better than the average score for video game oriented advertising.
Peter Daboll, who is the Chief Executive Officer at Ace Matrix, has stated, “This ad definitely caught people's attention, having recorded one of the highest attention scores that we’ve seen. The ad did better among males than females, but females under 35 still reacted positively.”
He added that, “Women 35 and older did not like the ad, with many commenting about the violence, but then again they aren't likely to be in the market for war-based video games.”
The media said that the ad, because of the violence level and because of the use of recognizable characters, served to glorify virtual war and send a wrong message about the role violence should have in modern society.
A lot of gamers who saw the ad liked its virtual and real mix and the sober tone it used to introduce the multiplayer side of the new Call of Duty.
The video game is on track to be the biggest video game and entertainment launch of the year, managing to bring in more than 650 million dollars in revenue for Activision in the first five days, with more than 5 million units moved to gamers on launch day.