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Fallout 4: Brand partnerships and advertising
Fallout 4

Fallout 4: Brand partnerships and advertising

Fallout 4 has been named ‘the game of a generation’ and is released technically today with some stores opening at 11:30 pm. With the rising popularity and technological advances of consoles and games, game releases rarely come and go quietly. Fallout 4 isn’t one of these.

Adverts have been plastered all over the London Underground for a while now but last week this emerged at Oxford Circus station. A lot of adverts tend to be overlooked like wallpaper on the underground, but this can’t exactly be missed, can it?

Fallout 4

Alongside this, there have been bus wraps all lit up with Fallout 4 emblazoned on the side. Again, not exactly easy to miss.

When Bethesda Softworks announced the coming of Fallout 4 there was also an exclusive app available (Fallout Shelter) to build the intial excitement and to fill the void between 3 and 4.  Giving users an additional opportunity to promote the upcoming game online without even knowing the release date.

The most exciting part of the pre-promotion of Fallout 4, for me any wayis a recent brand partnership with Carlsberg. A limited edition version of the beer was made available to fans to pre-order on Amazon and even availble to purchase in some stores. This again created an additional opportunity for fans, and online publications such as the Drum, to create organic chatter online.

Brand partnership with @carlsberg for the release of #fallout4. I have made @garyu69 very happy

A photo posted by Ashleigh-Jayne O’Connell (@smashleighjayne) on

 

On Instagram alone, the hashtag #Fallout4 has had 161,961 posts, some of the most recent even shows avid fans already in the queue for tonight’s release.

Online promotion hasn’t been limited to user generated content. The idea of being S.P.E.C.I.A.L has been the key concept of multiple promotional videos released on the official Bethesda Softworks YouTube channel. The first video (Strength) has received over two million views and all videos have been shared extensively through platforms such as Reddit.

Other games, ‘bigger’ games, have been released and are due to appear before the Christmas rush but, personally, I feel Fallout 4 has lead the promotion game. We’ll just have to see how far it goes tonight.

What’s your favourite example of game advertising? Tweet us and let us know @WolfBexp!