Wheels Keep on Spinning Round...

Two marketing posts in a row, I know, I am sorry. This is at least about GTA IV though, that counts for something right? After playing for three hours I am still having a blast. It dawned on me that I had missed the huge marketing wheel, paid advertisements, contests, ARGs, etc etc, I mean this game has to be as big as Halo 3 right?

Then it dawned on me, I didn’t miss the marketing wheel, it was going on the whole time. The PR team for GTA IV rolled the dice in a lot of ways and it looked like it paid off. Look back a year, when people were still clamoring to “finish the fight” it looked like no matter where you went all you heard about was Halo 3. I mean an open beta, teaser trailers everywhere, its customary ARG, even its own Mountain Dew (which tasted like gross in my opinion).

Rock Star on the other hand did something quite differently. They said nothing about anything. Open beta? Hell no, reviewers had to review the game in a hotel room with guards. Huge paid advertising? Why would you need it; after all Rock Star servers crashed after releasing the 1:03 trailer “Things will be different.” The hype wasn’t needed.

What is something a community loves the most? Speculation. Rumour sites for movies, games, hell even D&D exist and thrive because people love to speculate. Rock Star spoon fed that, carefully controlling the release of information and making sure that whenever information was released it was done for free and built a lot of hype.

This is the kind of marketing Apple employs. Community generation is tough though, and they can do more harm than good if your product is in the least bit inferior. Luckily most of the 10/10 reviews abate that.

Once it was launched they let the reviews do all the advertising and started airing paid advertisements to get those who were in a coma to buy.