Advertising P4 (b)

Advertising:

AB use a wide range of advertising methods to attract players to their titles, mass media is the most traditional option e.g TV, Radio and also Cinema.

Live Action Trailers:

Ever since Blacks ops 1 2010 release it has become a custom for Activision to release a live action trailer, often featuring A-list Hollywood celebrities such as Jonah Hill, Robert Downey Jr also Youtube stars such as FPSRussia who has a very similar audience to CoD. The high standard of these trailers means they're shown on TV, Cinema and the internet as these are the forms of media sued by the target audience for CoD.

Call of Duty Black Ops 1:



Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3:



Call of Duty Black Ops 2:



Call of Duty Ghosts:




Call of Duty Advanced Warfare:

Internet:

The internet is also a massive part of advertising ABs titles, sites such as Youtube show videos of people playing these games some of which have huge fan followings and attract a lot of attention in the gaming world. Games are also commonly advertised on gaming sites such as IGN, sites such as these also review these titles, positive reviews from critics such as these can have large benefits as the press will get to preview the titles a few weeks before release. 

These reviews can often persuade a lot of buyers. Before the release of a new title Activision's goals are to drive awareness of pre-order incentives for the upcoming release and to drive video views to all new trailers leading up to the launch therefore increasing brand awareness and fan excitement for the release. The target audience of these games does vary dependent on the title however for many of these games the general target audience are males aged 18-34.

Twitch is another example of this as this allows gamers to live stream games to viewers and has become massively popular in competitive gaming (eSports), Starcraft II is an example of a game that has huge followings in the gaming world. Other forms of advertising on the internet could also include web banners and pop ups however these are considerably less effective and far more expensive. The benefit of this is that advertising is seen on an international level which attracts large amounts of attention for the game which usually results in higher revenue.

Youtube and Twitch are especially effective as their a gamers who have millions of fans who broadcast gameplay, reviews and other content on both sites and have big impacts on their buying decisions.

Other Forms:

Another method used by AB to advertise their games is through game conventions, these are becoming increasingly popular. These events allow for AB to announce new titles, show footage and talk about the game to large audiences as some events such as GamesCon cologne attract up to 300,000 visitors. Activision even host their own event specifically for Call of Duty known as the Call of Duty Championship, which has become more and more popular in the competitive scene giving teams the opportunity to win a $1 million prize.