Game Marketing: THQ VP Questions Effectiveness of Big Budget TV Campaigns

When it comes to advertising, the first thought or idea that pops into many peoples minds is television. Nearly every home contains at least one television and it’s one of the longest running entertinament mediums in existence.

During a recent interview THQ’s Vice President Danny Bilson said that video games and television marketing might not go so well together. This is despite EA spending a whopping three million dollars on a Dantes Inferno advertisement during the 2009 Superbowl. Bilson said;

“But as far as bigger marketing cost against bigger game is, I think it’s about smarter. One of the bigger questions we have to ask ourselves is how important is television? How important is television to a core gamer on a non-television brand? So I think television has some relevance on WWE and UFC because I consider those TV brands. But our other stuff, I question it severely.”

In lamens terms, how important and relevant is television to everyday gamers when it comes to non-television related brands like Call of Duty, Halo or even racing games like Split/Second and Blur. Bilson then went onto comment on the ever expensive of cost of television advertisement by saying;

“It’s incredibly expensive, and what I can do with two million dollars, which will buy a few TV spots on a big sporting event, what I can do in outdoor, or on the web, or direct-to-consumer is way more exciting.”

To wrap things up Danny Bilson basically threw television out into the old recycling bin with his comment of;

“You know I’ve grown up with television; I stopped watching it years ago, except for sports. I used to make television. I made it for many years. Some people love it, but I know I’m playing games, I’m not watching TV. You know where I want to market? I want to market on Xbox Live. I want to market on PSN, because every night that’s the switch I turn on at my house. And that front end comes, and those windows come, and all that marketing’s getting right to me because I’m a core gamer. That’s where I want to invest. Television is a big question mark for me.”

I am inclined to agree with him. I only watch television for sports programs, and even then I avoid anything Australian. I am more than likely to record a television program with my Tuner Card, then watch it at a later date so I can skip the ads. And when people are paying thousands of dollars for programming advertisements, they want them to penetrate the audience.

[Via IndustryGamers]