14 DAY TRIAL // While the 2010 Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival may not be the stage for any interesting game announcements, there is some interesting news regarding the way the latest motion-control hardware from Microsoft, Kinect, will be used for publicity on the Xbox 360. Chevrolet will be collaborating with the advertising department from Microsoft to promote the company's electric car model, Volt.
Consumers who view the Chevrolet Volt video ad on Xbox Live will unlock a virtual model of the car to be used in Joy Ride, one of the games that will launch alongside Kinect this fall. This may not be all, as the two companies are planning a potential true multi-screen campaign for Volt across all Microsoft platforms: Windows Phone 7, Xbox 360 and Windows 7.
The gaming-related methods that Microsoft Advertising and Chevrolet said they could be using in the future were the setting up of Kinect kiosks at Chevrolet's promotional events and car showrooms where potential buyers could have some fun playing Joy Ride using Volt. Afterwards, they could save and share the photos of them driving the car in a virtual environment that Kinect automatically shot. Chevrolet chose Kinect because it involved video-game interaction without the need for video-game experience.
During last week's Electronic Entertainment Expo, this subject of new ways of advertising was not really discussed by the publishers, but all of the three new devices that were seen during the conference have a huge potential to be used in advertising campaigns. One example was the demo of the next Forza Motorsport racing game that allowed players to explore the cars in-game using no controller through Kinect and they could be picked up in the future by various manufacturers. Also, 3D ads on the Nintendo 3DS could also look very interesting. With the continuous growth of the video-game audience, companies that seek to promote their products may have to rely more and more on interactive entertainment software to win new customers.