Scared moms and creepy Miis.
By Dalai 12 Comments
Well this is a marketing tactic I haven't seen in a while. I can remember the days where I'd browse through my latest Nintendo Power and see some advertisement boasting a game's cutting-edge graphics or its extreme attitude. One of the more interesting marketing tactics was to portray said game as too extreme or too gross for parents. And now, Dead Space 2 brings back that ad trick.
Your mom hates Dead Space 2? Maybe this worked back when the majority of gamers were teens and young adults, but what is the Dead Space 2 demographic? People who are old enough to buy video games on their own. This ad is clearly aimed at people who aren't old enough to walk into a Gamestop on their own and buy Dead Space 2. Unless you're 15 or younger, that tagline is downright stupid. And I think the young teens on this site might find it just as dumb. And does that mean your mom might like the upcoming Gears of War 3? Bulletstorm? Actually in the case of Bulletstorm, that might be dumb enough to work.
I just don't see this advertising gimmick working in an industry where violence and scary shit is fairly commonplace. Now if this marketing ploy makes it to the cable news networks, maybe I will eat a little crow since everybody knows news coverage is free advertising, but EA fucked up this time, in my opinion.
Yet the worst advertising I've seen this week goes to Mario Sports Mix and its creepy Mii mascots. YOUTUBE CLIP GO!
I guess it's great to see Nintendo actually recognizing that Miis still exist, but they couldn't have picked a creepier way to use giant life-size Miis. The whole SportsCenter vibe is pretty corny as it should be. It is just a Mario sports game after all. Yet they had to use Miis here? I think they could've went with a fake Stuart Scott/Scott Van Pelt combo yet they go with a stoned Mii with a pedophile mustache. And at the 0:08 mark, I think the lady Mii is flipping the bird.
So Dead Space 2 ad... seriously? Is this the best they can do?
And Mario Sports Mix ad... really? Big Mii head mode? Thoughts?