With just some 20 days or so until the election, the Obama marketing engine has shifted into high gear. Ok, so the puns are pretty lame but I am again impressed with how well the Obama team is utilizing all types of media to get in front of our eyes.
*** Video gamers who have recently played the racing game Burnout Paradise may find it offers more than a high-speed driving simulation: advertisements for Senator Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, above, have begun appearing in the game. Players of Burnout Paradise who are connected to the Internet are also connected to an in-game system that allows real-life sponsors to place advertisements on billboards and other surfaces in its digital world. Jeff Brown, vice president of communications at Electronic Arts, which publishes Burnout Paradise, said Mr. Obama’s campaign had purchased ads to run in the Xbox 360 version of the game, which he said is most popular among male players ages 16 to 30.
The EA representative said that the ads would appear in only 10 different states, most of them contested battleground states. Paradise City residents in Ohio, Florida, Iowa, Colorado, Indiana, Montana, North Carolina, New Mexico, Nevada, and Wisconsin are being targeted by the campaign. In the 2004 presidential election, all of those states except Wisconsin went to Republican incumbent George W. Bush. Mr. Brown said SenatorJohn McCain’s campaign had not purchased in-game advertisements, but added, “There’s still three weeks before the election.” source NY Times, Gamespot
