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A Look At Halo 3's $10 Million Ad Campaign

Posted by Zonk on Wed Sep 12, 2007 03:20 PM
from the you've-already-seen-it dept.
Via Next Generation, a post on the Brand Week website that goes into some detail on the massive advertising campaign for Halo 3 orchestrated by Microsoft and the McCann-Erickson group. "The goal of the campaign is to bring Halo fans and nonfans up-to-speed as to where we are in Master Chief's epic battle to defeat the evil Covenant. While most major game titles begin their ad campaigns weeks before launch to build buzz, Halo 3 differs greatly. This mass-market push is actually the end of the of Halo 3 campaign. The TV push is the grand finale of a five-pronged attack Microsoft quietly launched last December. The carefully orchestrated onslaught was designed to make casual fans interested and core fans rabid as Microsoft aims to eclipse Halo 2's record-breaking $125 million in sales on day one. To date, Halo 3 is already on the books for one million preorders and counting. "
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[+] Halo 3 Preorders Top 1 Million, Marketing Begins 111 comments
Gamespot reports that Halo 3 has broken the all-time record for videogame preorders in North America. There are now more than 1 million copies of the title reserved across the continent. "The figure means that the Halo 3 launch could potentially be bigger than that of Halo 2. The then-Xbox-exclusive sold 2.38 million units in the US and Canada in the 24 hours after went on sale on November 16, 2004, generating an estimated $125 million. Halo 3 preorder customers' passion for the game is such that cost is apparently no object. As part of today's announcement, Microsoft warned that, despite its premium price point, the collectible Halo 3: Legendary Edition is on track to sell out before the game launches. The bundle, which includes a miniaturized version of the Master Chief's helmet, retails for $129.99 in the US, but is already sold out at several online retailers in the UK."
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  • Redundant. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Seumas (6865) on Wednesday September 12 2007, @03:25PM (#20577621)
    A $10m ad campaign for Halo 3?

    Isn't that like having a multi-million dollar campaign to let everyone know the sky is blue?
    • by MyLongNickName (822545) on Wednesday September 12 2007, @03:34PM (#20577775) Journal
      What is this 'Halo'?
      • So grandparent first post is redundant and parent post is a troll? Yipes.

        Can I meta-moderate again today, please?
    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      A $10m ad campaign for Halo 3?

      Isn't that like having a multi-million dollar campaign to let everyone know the sky is blue?


      You know the Apple switcher ads? My thoughts on them are that they aren't to entice people to come to apple as they are so ridiculously silly as anyone who would switch would likely return the box because it didn't come with windows. The ads however comically play to What Apples user base already thinks. It re-enforces brand value in the people who already reside in the apple camp. So it
      • Some people (not me, I'm just speaking generally) take a broader conception of "redundant" and apply it to any overdone, overcliched kind of post about an issue. For example, saying, "Gee, not so final, is it?" on a story about the lastest installment in the Final Fantasy, would be considered "redundant" by some, even if it's the very first post. Why? Because it doesn't offer anything new that you haven't heard already.

        Then again, maybe that time you just referenced, it was just a vindictive mod.
  • Halo 3 (Score:4, Funny)

    by CrazyJim1 (809850) on Wednesday September 12 2007, @03:27PM (#20577653) Journal
    Playing this game will fix dead Xbox 360s.
      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        You know, PC gaming isn't the hallmark of ease and reliability either.

        360s have the best games. The best online content. And the worst reliability. It's also the most expensive console (this is an opinion, but I've certainly spent more on my 360 than my PS3 without counting games).

        The idea that a buyer of one console is a loser because he values the games over reliability (or he made a mistake in choice) is just ludicrous. Thank God every car is not a Honda Accord. We need variety even at the expense o
  • How much was Bioshock's advertising campaign?
    How much advertising did they get?

    • I don't know, but inside the my local brick & mortar store there was a 7 foot tall Big Daddy. I don't what it cost, but it's awesomeness surely pushed many people to at the very least ask about the game, and probably many to go ahead and buy.
    • by Applekid (993327) on Wednesday September 12 2007, @03:47PM (#20577991)

      How much was Bioshock's advertising campaign?
      Clearly not enough to get a story about how much advertising they spent.
  • Force multiplier (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Chris Burke (6130) on Wednesday September 12 2007, @03:36PM (#20577809) Homepage
    One of the best things about a $10 million ad campaign is that you can get news agencies/blogs/teh intarweb to discuss the advertising campaign itself, which is automatically advertising for the product the ad campaign is promoting that doesn't come out of that $10 million.

    Advertisers are sort of like Satan. I hate them for their unmitigated evil, but I do sometimes have to admire their savvy.
    • Advertisers are sort of like Satan. I hate them for their unmitigated evil, but I do sometimes have to admire their savvy.

      I have a guilty pleasure of studying advertising. I equate it to studying infosec attack methods. I'm not inclined to be involved in hacking random public targets (whether that target is a system or human nature) in such a manner. But I do find the techniques fascinating. And it helps to understand some aspects of the world around me - and protect myself from said techniques.

    • How do you know that the news agencies talking about the $10 million campaign isn't part of the $10 million for the campaign, as a sort of meta-campaign? It costs money having people call up news agencies and say "Hey guys, we're spending a ton of money on this campaign! Give us a story and we'll put rent some ad space with it!"
  • A Look At Halo 3's $10 Million Ad Campaign


    And Slashdotters care because they are marketing geeks?

    Or is this kind of an in-joke among the editors: Microsoft's spending $10M to promote interest in Halo3 so we'll give them free press on a mostly anti-Microsoft site too! (Heh-heh-heh...)

      • The first are people who are indifferent to the Halo franchise

        You forgot the category into which I fall, which is "Still disappointed at Bungie for defecting to Microsoft."

  • 10 million profit? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Turn-X Alphonse (789240) on Wednesday September 12 2007, @03:43PM (#20577923) Journal
    How much are you expecting to make back if you spend this much on advertising?

    All Halo 3 needed was a trailer every couple of months, a place holder website and to let magazine/online previewers play "demos" of areas every so often and it would still sell as well as it will now. It's like advertising toilet paper when you're the only people on Earth who makes it, why would you spend good money on such stupidity?
    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      Simply put, because it's an exclusive for a console. There isn't much to really discuss if it's on all consoles. Even if it's on one first, many if not MOST people have the patience to wait for a while. But it's different with an exclusive and a huge franchise one at that. The more you can get people hyped about it and talking and excited, the more buzz is generated around the console. Maybe those who got a PS3 are thinking that they'd like to play that awesome Halo game too. Perhaps thinking about bu
  • Math time (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Plocmstart (718110) on Wednesday September 12 2007, @04:02PM (#20578237)
    $10 million ad campaign... 1 million preorders... so roughly $10 of your $60 preorder goes to advertise what you're already buying. They should have skipped the advertising and lowered the price.
    • But with out advertising they ould have only sold 500,000 copies.
    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      If you wanna turn it into a little more fuzzy math, then you can consider that they are likely going to sell more than just the pre-orders on Day 1 alone bringing a one day total close to, if not greater than, the previous high of $125 million in sales in a single day.

      Not to mention this game is practically a part of pop-culture at this point (CMN.. it's been on /. like five or six times already)... point being that the sales are going to continue being strong even after the first day... atleast enough to

    • Take any technology story and you will see the terms 'evil' and 'good' bandied about as if they had any actual meaning in a discussion of technology.

      So are you saying that Slashdot is inhabited by 5 year-olds now? That seems a bit harsh. Usually it is best to cloak those sorts of remarks in more erudite terms and lace your posts with enough sarcasm such that they get modded funny. :)
    • For those of us who follow the story, shut up. The Covenant are still bad. The Elites and Hunters left the Covenant.

      Yes, I realize how geeky I am.
    • You guys used to rule the world, but you killed off much of your "importance" with WWI, and finished yourselves off with WWII. Hey, it happens.
    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      Normally I don't feed trolls, but I'm bored at work...

      Microsoft is mocking the gaming industry with their Halo 3 marketing campaign.

      I don't think they are mocking people...it may be stupid of them, but hey if they want to blow that much money on marketing a game that really needs no marketing, let em.

      They are essentially telling the gaming world we don't even need a decent game to sell millions.

      Games don't sell millions if they aren't at LEAST decent...

      If you take away the fact that Halo is Microso

        • Beh, I wish...at least back when I was 16 and working at McDonalds (as opposed to 23 and working at a Pharmaceutical Consulting group) I got free food...