By Jonti Davies
I’ll admit to not knowing how UK TV ads for games have progressed recently, but when I was last there long enough to sit down and watch some telly – about three years ago – adverts for games were still just a small niche area of ITV, Channel 4, and Five’s commercial breaks. Here in Japan, though, game ads seem only to be outnumbered by promos for beer and Tampax. Depending on the time of day and the programme being broadcast, adverts for games can appear as often as every second commercial: frightening frequency.
It’s not just the number of game ads on Japanese telly that’s impressive, though, it’s the variety of styles, the brash enthusiasm of the advertisers, and the sensory assaults that so many of them get away with. If you’d like to see an overview of the game ads being broadcast on Japanese TV this week, get your index finger into clicking mode and follow the links:
DS Mejikara Training is not another brain training title – it’s an eye training game! And it’s being advertised here this week with a series of six commercials, all based on the apparent eye-strengthening properties of this software. Generally, ‘light user’ stuff such as this is advertised with the dulcet tones of a famous narrator and a simple explanation of exactly what the title provides. It’s marketing for senior citizens. And it’s been proven to work just fine.
The Wii version of Big Brain Academy is promoted here in a similar way, but with a slightly younger appeal.
Westerners often show up in Japanese TV ads (Cameron Diaz and Brad Pitt have been doing the rounds for mobile phone provider Softbank since early last year) and Capcom has gone down that road with the subtitled TV spot for Biohazard 4: Wii Edition. Have a lookhere. We’ll have to wait ‘til next week to find out whether this approach can pay off, as it’s only released today.
In a more traditional style, Sony has a Japanese golf sensation, Ms. Miho Kozeki, to promote the new GPS-compatible version of Minna no Golf. The advert is very green and very direct. And Sony also has an edge with the bizarreness of this ad for the PlayStation Store. 99 green men = 1% short of a perfect download. Or something. Good old Sony.
A bit disappointingly, though, the TV spot for Ouendan 2 (which is an utterly brilliant game, by the way) isn’t half as crazy as it should have been. In spite of this tame effort, though, Ouendan 2 has been doing the business at retail, selling through more than 70,000 copies in its first week on the shelves.
I’ll admit to not knowing how UK TV ads for games have progressed recently, but when I was last there long enough to sit down and watch some telly – about three years ago – adverts for games were still just a small niche area of ITV, Channel 4, and Five’s commercial breaks. Here in Japan, though, game ads seem only to be outnumbered by promos for beer and Tampax. Depending on the time of day and the programme being broadcast, adverts for games can appear as often as every second commercial: frightening frequency.
It’s not just the number of game ads on Japanese telly that’s impressive, though, it’s the variety of styles, the brash enthusiasm of the advertisers, and the sensory assaults that so many of them get away with. If you’d like to see an overview of the game ads being broadcast on Japanese TV this week, get your index finger into clicking mode and follow the links:
DS Mejikara Training is not another brain training title – it’s an eye training game! And it’s being advertised here this week with a series of six commercials, all based on the apparent eye-strengthening properties of this software. Generally, ‘light user’ stuff such as this is advertised with the dulcet tones of a famous narrator and a simple explanation of exactly what the title provides. It’s marketing for senior citizens. And it’s been proven to work just fine.
The Wii version of Big Brain Academy is promoted here in a similar way, but with a slightly younger appeal.
Westerners often show up in Japanese TV ads (Cameron Diaz and Brad Pitt have been doing the rounds for mobile phone provider Softbank since early last year) and Capcom has gone down that road with the subtitled TV spot for Biohazard 4: Wii Edition. Have a lookhere. We’ll have to wait ‘til next week to find out whether this approach can pay off, as it’s only released today.
In a more traditional style, Sony has a Japanese golf sensation, Ms. Miho Kozeki, to promote the new GPS-compatible version of Minna no Golf. The advert is very green and very direct. And Sony also has an edge with the bizarreness of this ad for the PlayStation Store. 99 green men = 1% short of a perfect download. Or something. Good old Sony.
A bit disappointingly, though, the TV spot for Ouendan 2 (which is an utterly brilliant game, by the way) isn’t half as crazy as it should have been. In spite of this tame effort, though, Ouendan 2 has been doing the business at retail, selling through more than 70,000 copies in its first week on the shelves.
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Comments
Joji 1 Jun 2007 17:30
1/1
Cool, I'll check those ads out.
I have Ouendan 2 and it's awesome stuff. Please however Spong, let whoever handles your games database know, that Ouendan 2 and Elite Beat Agents are two different games, and not that same game under two names.
Fix that mistake, people.
I have Ouendan 2 and it's awesome stuff. Please however Spong, let whoever handles your games database know, that Ouendan 2 and Elite Beat Agents are two different games, and not that same game under two names.
Fix that mistake, people.