The highly anticipated swan song to Bungie’s Halo is well on the way towards its September 14 release date, and Microsoft wants to ensure that everyone knows about it. Microsoft is reportedly going to easily surpass the $6.5 million bill that Halo 3 was able to accumulate in marketing expenditures.
Halo: Reach marketing began with perhaps the biggest plug back in April; the multiplayer beta was able to rack up over 1.2 million unique players on the first day alone. Bungie is also known for their alternate reality games, and a new one has been developed for Halo: Reach, with live action segments included in the mix.
"We're trying to get people to connect back to their lives, not computer graphics or something overly sci-fi," Taylor Smith, director of global marketing communications for Xbox, told Ad Age. "Live action is a way to capture that." In particular, director Noam Murro has created three live-action short films that depict life on planet Reach before the Covenant invasion.
The core audience might be getting some really intriguing marketing for the game, but regular consumers will also be flooded with reminders for the Fall of Reach. Consumers will be told to “Remember Reach” as they consume Pepsi products. The partnership between Microsoft and Pepsi has been revived and some 300 million Mountain Dew bottles and 30 million Doritos bags will be branded with Halo: Reach insignias beginning next month.
The kick off begins at 3AM eastern, August 24 with a monument to Noble Team. The viral site RememberReach.com will feature a user-generated light sculpture of Reach’s Noble Team, created by a KUKA KR 140 robotic arm. The KUKA has been outfitted with an LED, allowing visitors to the site to plot the 54,000 points of light that will form the “monument.”
http://www.industrygamers.com/news/halo-reach-marketing-budget-likely-to-surpass-halo-3-budget/
