EA Mercs Shut Down London: Free Gas Stunt Causes Outrage
Publicity stunts are a bit part of the marketing world. No one wants to buy your game if they don't know it exists right? Well, Mercenaries 2 has been getting a major push. I don't know many times I've caught my roommate singing "Oh no you didn'" (while cute, gets old pretty fast).
This is just the tip of the ice burg for the PR campaign, and certainly not the most reviled. In both London and LA, EA offered up free gas to anyone who was able to make it in. The result; gridlock traffic. While EA may not have anticipated that free gas would cause traffic issues, the people getting the short end of the stick certainly were not amused.
Liberal Democrat MP Lynne Featherstone has been quite public about her outrage about the situation in london:
Whilst a lucky few might have got some free petrol, hundreds of local residents have faced misery on their daily journeys this morning.They deserve an apology for being the victims of such an ill-thought out media stunt.
Norman Tidiman, a witness of the chaos, testified to the madness:
I saw a girl who stopped because she wasn't going to make the lights, and the man in the car behind her got out his car and started to bully her."I shouted at him to stop. He was being outrageous.
"It's quite a dangerous junction as it is, I'm surprised there hasn't been an accident."
Fortunately, the cops came and ended the mayhem once it got out of control.
Free petrol stunt causes chaos [Telegraph]
[via GamePolitics]
Asterick
Posted to Video Games on 5 September 2008
· Comments (2)
Other stuff like this: ea, fail, free gas, london, mercenaries 2, publicity stunt
This is genius! Give petrol to a few people, cause gridlock, then you'll be on the evening news and then everybody will find out about the game! This is free advertising on national TV!
I really say, good move on there part. I'd promote whoever came up with this idea.
Good, I love it when London gets it in the neck, they get everything in this country.
The olympics, sorry the LONDON olympics, not the English olympics, like Chinas was the Chinese olympics in the hype, and was in all but the sign, nope it's London.
Yeah I'm bitter that as a taxpaying northerner I have to fund this against my will.
Anything that makes their day a little more miserable is good for me.
Also, now that I got that out my system, I agree with Brendon, it's a genius move, free advertising, good advertising gets no exposure, so hinder a few people and get what you want, it's clever, and remains so as long as it doesn't affect me.