In 2007, as the Xbox 360 was just starting to take off in sales, two years after its debut, the “Believe” advertising campaign was launched, ready for the last two weeks before of the release of the video game Halo 3. With a budget of 10 million dollars, the campaign featured 5 commercials, four of which were shot in one style and one in another. To give some quick insight before explaining the commercials, Halo is basically a video game popular among 12 year olds and adults between the ages of 25 and 30 (generally). The series revolves around a war between aliens and humans, with a distinct human protagonist known as the "Master Chief". With that said, let's move on to the ads. These ads were commissioned by Microsoft-owned game development company Bungie, with the aim of satisfying the target audience's desire to both "finish the fight" (experience the next chapter of the trilogy's story) and take on the role of one of the most famous characters. video game heroes idolized to this day. By building such elaborate war stories and action-packed scenes for the commercials, Bungie's intent was to entice viewers to step into the shoes of the brave war hero Master Chief. While the diorama ads present a scene of chaos and brutality with Chief as a tangible beacon of hope, the live action ads paint a mental picture of a time-honored veteran who is clearly memorialized, having never been found. If Bungie wanted to appeal to a broad audience of story lovers, action junkies, and sci-fi nerds, they would definitely hit the nail on the head in that market, because this campaign was a phenomenal success. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essayHalo, precisely analyzing the video game market with its first installment in 2001 and its sequel in 2004, attracted both a relatively young audience and an older audience. Although the game was marked and branded for those over the age of 17, these ESRB restrictions never stopped the young minds of children like me from idolizing and flocking to this action-packed sci-fi universe. A big armored space marine who fights aliens and speaks in a deep voice? It might as well have been the comic book era again, because I know for a fact that when I first played Halo 2 at age 10, it was what me and all my friends wanted to be. So it can be approached from that perspective, or it can be approached from yet another angle. The game had a pre-existing fan base from its previous two installments, dating back 6 years. This means that when Halo 3 came out, there were players who were at least 17 years old when the first installment of the series hit shelves in 2001. Follow those players to the third installment and you have people who might be in their mid to late teens '20 and can't wait to start this new game. This means that ads are now being delivered to audiences ranging from early teens to adults under 30, who may share the same gaming tastes but appreciate different gameplay elements. So, one ad is created with a very childish appeal to explosions and carefully modeled alien models, while another is created to appeal to heroism and the longing for a rich story in a young adult. Sometimes they overlapped, giving a live spot the chance to show some replicas of old weapons or healed war wounds from a battle many years before, or carefully transforming.
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