Merciless Marketing

By RICHARD MULLINS The Tampa Tribune

Published: Sep 25, 2007

Even if you never buy or play Microsoft's futuristic shoot-em-up video game "Halo 3" for Xbox, you'll have a hard time escaping its marketing onslaught during the next few months.

Like an alien invasion strategy, Microsoft's marketing plans call for flooding the American landscape with "Halo 3"-themed products, word-of-mouth marketing campaigns, and pervasive mass market advertising.

"We very much want to treat this like a blockbuster movie launch," said Jerret West, Microsoft's global marketing chief for "Halo 3." "We want the title itself to transcend gaming and turn into a pop culture phenomenon."

Microsoft is spending millions on "Halo 3" promotions and cross-marketing deals. Consider the "Halo 3" Gatorade "Game Fuel" drink, the "Halo 3" Slurpee drinksold at 7-Eleven, the "Halo 3" Pontiac car, the "Halo 3" concert series with the band Linkin' Park, the "Halo 3" french fries sold at Burger King, and 27 other corporate licensing deals.

There will even be a "Halo 3" racecar zipping around NASCAR tracks this autumn.

Microsoft expects to spend about $10 million on marketing the game, West said. The company is hoping the launch ranks among the largest entertainment debuts of any kind - movies, books, music or concert series - this year.

The game went on sale last night at midnight.

"Leading up to the launch there will be a crescendo of promotions," West said.

Played exclusively on Microsoft's Xbox game console, the plot of "Halo 3" centers around the midlevel soldier "Master Chief" fighting an intergalactic battle between humankind and an alien civilization called "The Covenant" that is characterized by fractious religious extremism.

Microsoft knows the core target audience will be avid gamers who have been anticipating this game for years: 18 to 24-year-old males who regularly buy first-person shooter games. That demographic has already bought more than 14.8 million copies of the original "Halo" and "Halo 2," and many pay monthly fees to compete with other players via the Internet.

"They're really put on a great, brilliant online viral campaign to get those gamers," said Jennifer Murtell, strategy chief for the San Francisco brand consulting company Neutron LLC. "They had all this secrecy surrounding the game, then codes to translate clues and secret leaks about the game to blogs to get the dedicated 'Halo' players to become real evangelists."

That viral campaign started in early summer appears to have paid off: gamers had ordered more than 1 million copies in advance of its release.

Shooting For Broader Market

Microsoft, however, wants to reach a much broader audience with "Halo 3." The target is what's known as the "casual gamer" - men and women in their 30s and 40s who may not even own a game console yet.

With the release of its Wii gaming console last year, rival video game maker Nintendo proved you can attract people older than 30 to gaming by offering simpler games controlled by a wand. These days Nintendo faces shortages of its Wii console.

The broader audience is the target of the pervasive marketing effort, which may not be as well thought out as the company might hope, Murtell said.

In theory, Microsoft gains massive exposure in every U.S. Burger King and 7-Eleven, and those retail companies gain some hip cache through association with "Halo 3," Murtell said. That kind of cross-marketing deal doesn't necessarily hurt, she said, but there are costs.

"I think that kind of almost arbitrary placement everywhere may not be their best use of investment," Murtell said. "Marketing like that is already so pervasive, and the landscape is so packed visually."

The question for American culture, Murtell said, is if more gaming companies follow Microsoft's example and launch marketing campaigns that carpet the landscape with a barrage of promotions on everything from drinks to chips and NASCAR racecars.

Instead of that approach, she would advise gaming companies foster what marketers call "tribes" around a product. Instead of targeting an age group with a certain income or other demographics, she would aim the marketing effort at a larger pool of people who share common interests.

Auto maker Mini Cooper accomplished this by attracting customers who simply enjoy life and love to drive, whether they are 16 years old or 70, male, female, wealthy or not, she said. Apple created a tribe that appreciates independence and creativity.

The Stakes For Microsoft

Microsoft is betting more players will buy the Xbox console to play the game, and the company could use a good holiday-timed rush of business. Microsoft recently took a $1 billion charge to cover the costs of defective Xbox consoles, and extended warranties to three years to address repairs.

Still, a big product launch does not necessarily ensure big revenue over time. Microsoft spent millions to promote its Zune digital music player, yet sales of Zune are still dwarfed by Apple's market-leading iPod.

Ultimately, Microsoft would hope to turn "Halo 3" into a phenomenon that transcends video games altogether said Michael Peters, president of the Tampa brand consulting company Spark.

"They want to move beyond video games to where brands are like 'Star Wars,'" or Harry Potter or "Shrek," he said. "The movies are there, yes, but so are all the toys and other licensing deals, and the movie just reinforces the brand."

One sign that "Halo 3" had reached a pinnacle of success, Peters said, would be if Disney announced plans to build a 'Halo'-themed ride at their theme parks.

Microsoft "would want 'Halo 3' to become a self-sustaining phenomenon."

Reporter Richard Mullins can be reached at (813) 259-7919 or rmullins@tampatrib.com.