The document provides potential exam questions about video game marketing campaigns. The questions focus on identifying unique selling points, creating buzz and anticipation, and using various media platforms including social media. Examples of successful campaigns for Call of Duty: Ghosts and Dark Souls 2 are discussed, highlighting how they appealed to different audience groups through TV, online video, social media, and print advertising. The document also notes that Call of Duty Ghosts used different pre-release and post-release strategies, creating mystery before launch and emphasizing price after.

1. POTENTIAL QUESTIONS

2. Note that there is no 100% guarantee that these will be the final questions.
We have not seen the exam paper in advance.
1. We think that successful marketing campaigns for video games focus on
the following:
• A unique selling point
• Creating a sense of buzz and anticipation leading up to release
• Covering a range of media platforms and using e‐media and social media
Using examples from the two campaigns you have researched, tell us whether
you agree.
2. Describe the promotional campaign that you have planned for either
Dancefloor or The Detectives. Remember to include a big budget television
advertisement.
3. Explain why your campaign will be successful.
4. Show us your storyboard for our big budget television advertisement OR
design a website to promote the game

3. • The promotional campaign for Call of Duty: Ghosts targeted
several different audience groups. In the ‘Call of Duty Time’
trailer, an example of direct media, they represented
players as belonging to several different professions
including doctors, dentists, cleaners, and kitchen workers.
•
• This enabled groups such as Symbols of Success and Ties of
Community to relate, according to the Uses and
Gratifications theory, to these representations and see
themselves as potential players of the game.
•
• This direct media advert was shown on prime time TV
which means that not only did it appeal to the above
groups; it is also very likely to be seen by them. The advert
focused mainly on product although the release date was
featured and the platforms the game could be played on
were highlighted which could be an example of place.

4. • The campaign for Dark Souls 2 used all three media platforms to
communicate its message and target as many audience groups as
possible. The launch trailer, featuring cinematic footage, was shown
at E3 in front of a studio audience simultaneously broadcast on the
web and later available on YouTube so that the video could be
shared via social media creating two step flow.
•
• Channel point-of-presence activities were combined with social
media including a twitter feed by the ‘Dark Souls knight’ who
wandered London tweeting photographs of himself in amusing
situations. The Experiencer VALS type could relate to this because of
their own impulsiveness.
•
• Closer to release the campaign moved to print with an editorial
cover story in Edge magazine that claimed the game was “the last
great current-gen adventure”. This was accompanied by TV and
cinema direct media advertising which focused on gameplay and
aimed to create desire. Pre-order bonuses were announced in order
to support this, hoping to get impulsive Experiencers to take action
and make a purchase.

5. • Call of Duty Ghosts used different strategies pre
and post-release. The pre-release phase was
mainly about creating awareness and interest as
many of the details were vague such as in the
‘Masked Warriors’ trailer which included no
gameplay and created a sense of enigma. This
contrasts with post-release during which the
campaign focused on price with the one-day price
cut and Season Pass trailer which aimed to get
value-conscious VALS Believers to buy into the
DLC packs ahead of time.