XICAT Interactive
This video game publishing company was in the business of acquiring games in production, bringing them to completion, and taking them to market. Like so many video games, most of their product fell into the first person shooter category in one form or another. We found that marketing most of these was pretty straightforward. However, What do you do with a game about.....fishing? Not a whole lot of action compared to the shooter games of flight sims.
After thumbing through some popular gaming magazines, we realized most marketing efforts centered around an elaborate, embellished illustration conveying the general theme of the game or included big shots of exciting gameplay. Neither approach would work here, and being believers of not following the heard, we decided to go with some kind of live photography. We also discovered that fishing enthusiasts are fanatic about fishing (the same can't be said for first person shooter games). So we tapped into the fishing psyche and played into the zealous nature of avid fishermen. But we also wanted to appeal to millennials who enjoy going just a wee bit over the edge.
The end result was a photograph of an average, shirtless millennial with a tattoo and a pierced nipple. The twist was the piercing came from a fishing hook with an 8" fish lure attached to it and the headline: "Fish Fetish?"
The approach proved successful as much buzz was made and even some angry mail from concerned parents.... always a home run when marketing to teenagers.
Online banner marketing did not offer equal real estate to pull off this risqué ad. And, the objective here was to announce the game's pending release on GameCube for which a date had not yet been set. The line "Good things come to those who wade" resonated with our intent. A little animation to "lure" the reader in bingo! Yes, sir.... the reaction we caught was THIIIIS BIIIIIG!
-ADDY Award Winner
