This is only my view on the matter, and opioun.
While I’m excited for what is in store I feel like 343 Industries is taking a rather slow approach at the marketing side of Halo 4. While being a ex Marketing Researcher for Ruffian Games/Microsoft Studio (2009-2011), I can’t help to notice how blunt this approach is to the marketing campaign.
Lets say you go to a video game cafe and started taking a survey on how many people have knowledge of the Halo 4 activity going on you will find that very few people know the knowledge on the base. While at the same time you took the same survey with the new upcoming famous shooter they would have a better understanding of the game. Take for instance Call of Duty Black Ops II (No hate just a(n) example) I see more of Call of Duty on the Xbox Marketplace and Xbox Home then I do of Halo 4. Halo 4 is one of Microsoft Game Studios titles, it should be the most advertised game on their console.
Regarding the LAT (Live Action Trailer), I think it’s a little late in the game to start filming for that when it could have been filmed back in last year and ended early Fall. It could have launched the whole marketing career for Halo 4 this June and took crowds by surprise.
Though they do have a lot of sponsorship for example: Pepsi Company. They have a chain of soft drinks that could launch with advertisements of Halo 4 on them, along with their amusement parks. Another would be their sold products such as Smart Phone operating system(s),Internet browser, and computer operating system(s). I have yet to see an advertisement on their browser as well.
I believe it is a little late into the race to launch this and it will end up being a total failure, of course people will buy this no doubt; On the other hand, could there have been more people?
Thank you for reading this entry, as though I no longer work for Ruffian Games/Microsoft Game Studios I had the pleasure of delivering you the base knowledge of what I know, and look forward to see how 343 Industries will pull this off. I have faith in them, I just wish they would look at their marketing campaign and see how this may later affect them as a starting company.
June is a bit early to start airing them IMO. That’s 5 months out from release. Early Fall is ideal probably.
I do agree that it is surprising that Call of Duty seems to take up more ad space on Xbox Live than Halo but maybe that’s just because no major trailer has been released in a while.
Don’t worry, E3 will be HUGE.
I agree with the OP, It seems as if they started really late into production for advertising, and releasing information to the public, and for what?
I wish I knew.
> Don’t worry, E3 will be HUGE.
I could imagine so, but it’s a little late. Don’t you think?
Well I haven’t been on my xbox recently, but the only Black Ops stuff I’ve seen is the reveal trailer, on YouTube and an interview hosted by some site I have never heard of.
However Halo 4 has a huge, cover-story article in Game Informer. SO how is COd more advertised again? Why are we even asking these questions so far from launch?
> > Don’t worry, E3 will be HUGE.
>
> I could imagine so, but it’s a little late. Don’t you think?
No. Outside of the enitial trailer, we didnt get a good glimpse of halo 3s campaign till e3 of the release year. The first landfall was released.around then, but the whole thing was released near the launch.
The reason why halo reach was different was that bungie was confident that it was in good enough to show just before e3…or was the campaign vidoc after e3?
Either way, I partially agree otherwise, I would love to get a glimpse of halo 4. And im sure the feel of the first level will help ease the minds of some skeptics.
This is a very interesting post. I like it.
> Well I haven’t been on my Xbox recently, but the only Black Ops II stuff I’ve seen is the reveal trailer.
If you were to go on the Xbox Home screen you would see it advertised in multiple places, especially the reveal trailer. I have seen the trailer for Halo 4 several times advertised but never a ongoing placeholder for the advertisement slot on the Xbox Home.
> Why are we even asking these questions so far from launch?
Other titles already have a better chance in sales if they start advertising more earlier than games that don’t. Take a look at World of Warcraft for instance. Tremendous marketing program going on, from advertisements on websites to Facebook ads they are everywhere. Halo 4 could be having the same effect if marketing was more viral and was out there a little bit more than where it’s at.
Think about it, there are more pre-orders for a game that has a trailer to their name and some content for a already released game than the game they just released. Halo 4 has about 10,000 pre-orders (just an estimate). Halo 4 has more content out, it’s just not viral enough.
I closely followed both Halo 3 and Reach preceding launch just as much as I am Halo 4 now. And so far the amount of advertising seems completely normal.
And do you need to be told that CoD is a sellout? Obviously they are going to advertise more.
How does lots of advertising = sell out? Not a COD fan at all haven’t played it since MW2 but I don’t follow your logic.
Im not worried, I feel like releasing info at E3 will work just fine. Blow COD out of the water.
> How does lots of advertising = sell out? Not a COD fan at all haven’t played it since MW2 but I don’t follow your logic.
Sellout might be the wrong word. But I believe CoD is a lot more dedicated to “selling copies what people do with it after be -Yoink!-” than Halo is.
Put simply, its a bigger game (or rather its predecessors are, hopefully that will change, however unlikely) so they are going to have more advertisement.
And the logic I don’t follow is the OP and the people who agree with him. How is Halo 4 any less advertising than any game that isn’t CoD?
releasing all the Live action stuff now would be dumb. Why get people excited way before release?
I really really think that you are wrong. MS has a plan for this no doubt, we will get our first real trailer at E3 and then hold on seatbelts people.
It is way to early to start now, imagine seeing a -Yoink- tralier on TV, getting super excited, checking out when it is going to be released, in 6 months!?!?, way to long and I will be pissed off. Trying to keep everyones attention during that time would be really difficult.
They are handling it just fine, MS will advertise the crap out of this game, don’t you worry.
> > Don’t worry, E3 will be HUGE.
>
> I could imagine so, but it’s a little late. Don’t you think?
I don’t know if it is late, but if it is big enough, it could work at anytime. (except, of course, the 3 weeks)
It has to explode and people should see Halo 4 EVERYWHERE!
I think Halo is a pretty cool guy. Eh killz alienz and deoesn’t afraid of zanything.
Oh, and too late for advertising? I would rather them have waited another month or so, to keep us salivating.
I think E3 is just about the right time to crank up the info and the hype for this game. The last month was a more steady trickle which got a few interested but one, maybe two trailers should really explode at E3 and get people talking about this game.
I hope!
Also, 1000th post! Woop!
BF3 had a 100 million dollar marketing campaign.
There was only 1 trailer before E3, we know more about Halo 4 now.
At E3, everything went berserk.
That was when the BF3 vs MW3 madness started.
There were many trailer at E3, BF3 was voted the best game at E3, 60 awards.
Many awesome trailer came in the coming months, including the Caspian Border trailer.
The game went on to be extremely successful.
> BF3 had a 100 million dollar marketing campaign.
>
> There was only 1 trailer before E3, we know more about Halo 4 now.
>
> At E3, everything went berserk.
>
> That was when the BF3 vs MW3 madness started.
>
> There were many trailer at E3, BF3 was voted the best game at E3, 60 awards.
>
> Many awesome trailer came in the coming months, including the Caspian Border trailer.
>
> The game went on to be extremely successful.
Great point Bursting.
The same will most likely happen to Halo 4. And to the people saying the Marketing is slow, it is meant to be at this time before the E3 surge.