World at War?

Ever since I was little and can remember, I have been in love with video game entertainment. I can remember my cousin's Atari in the basement of my grandmothers house and us playing it for hours. Video game entertainment has come a long ways from the archaic Atari to the eye poping graphics that comes with systems like Microsofts Xbox 360 and Sony's Playstation 3. Its also big business now with 48.9 billion in sales and is on pace to outsell musical content by the end of 2012.

With that being said, we now look at one of the most popular games out rite now, which is the Call of Duty franchise series. These games are like the Iphone of the video game industry which sets sales record with each new installment. The latest game, which was released November 8, 2011, set a sales record of 6.4 million copies in a 24 hour period in just the US and UK alone. It was said to have made close to 400 million on the release day alone. As this game became popular and popular, they started to run commercials with popular athletes and stars. The commercial in this clip is of the Call of Duty:Black Ops, and has the stars of NBA star Kobe Bryant and late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel in it. The commercial shows Kobe Bryant and Jimmy Kimmel shooting guns and rocket launchers in a field against other people. The commercial is trying to show how there is a soldier in every one of us and this game is how you can pull it out. As in terms of marketing, I thought it was very effective because you appeal to the target audience with the likes of Kobe Bryant and Jimmy Kimmel and a chance to gain new markets with the commercials being a bit violent and controversial. Some people believed that the commercials are disrespectful to those fighting across seas and too violent for children to be viewing. Also with the stars of Kobe Bryant, people believed he should have been removed because he is more of a role model to little kids.

I think these commercials are effective and reaches the right target group it is trying. With many stars asking to be in these commercials, I believe the Call of Duty franchise will be around for a long time.

Eddie Miller http://youtu.be/LwOHX9gQ7Z8