While journalists were the victim of the Watch Dogs stunt it is PRs who will suffer
Following last week’s PR stunt which saw the bomb squad called to Ninemsn’s offices Lee Hall looks at whether it was a disaster for the company, or unintended victory.
Stunts are a PR’s ‘go to’ whenever a client is looking to launch a new product or service and comes to an agency saying they want to create a ‘buzz’ about what it is they are offering. And let’s face it; stunts are one of the most fun things a PR can be involved in.
Not so much if you’re Ubisoft though. This week, to publicise the highly anticipated launch of new video game Watch Dogs, the Ubisoft PR team decided to employ a stunt that borrowed loosely from the secretive, hacking nature of the games premise.
Ubisoft … between the ears,if you thought this was a good idea at any stage.
“Considering we live in a world where the threat of terrorism has never been higher…”
History would suggest an entirely different picture, as in there hasn’t been any terrorism conducted in Australia for 28 years, but don’t let that get in the way of a good rant.
Gum trees are statistically much more dangerous, just so ya know.
Part of this capitalised on the same sort of sensationalism as Wicked Campers. Pushing the legal limits so to speak. I don’t think it was deliberate, however. I think it was a mediocre, but dumb, idea gone wrong.
Or right, as the outcome might demonstrate. Wicked Campers can sustain this sort of attitude, because they are not so entwined with the media companies as Ubisoft would be. Using a reviewer as media bait is not a good look.
Nice one JG – I see what you have done there. Although I don’t argue it was a good idea, in fact quite the opposite I think it was poorly conceived and executed and didn’t really fit with the premise of the game. What I do argue is it achieved coverage which, ultimately, was the end goal. Whether you consider any coverage ‘good coverage’ is another issue.
Thanks Bec – I’ll be sure to add gum trees to the list of things to steer clear of along with ticking, unlabelled safes.
Perhaps because Australia has not been the subject of a terror attack in so many years we fear it more? Either way, you can’t really argue that the global fear of terrorism hasn’t, in some small way, impregnated Australian society – if it hadn’t then perhaps Nine Msn and the police wouldn’t have called in the bomb squad.
@Lee – IGN also received one of these packages and worth noting the device was never at any point ‘ticking’. It was a heavy steel safe that beeped when a code was entered into the keypad.
With regards to fitting the premise of the game, Watch Dogs revolves around hacking devices and gaining access to secret information, so a cloak-and-dagger theme with computerised access codes does make sense.
Overhead in JB Hifi on the weekend:
“This was the game that did that bomb scare sh!t. Awesome.” And they grabbed a copy of the game.
Industry geeks can get on their soap box and go on and on about whether its a good or a bad PR stunt but the sales speak for themselves.
@Lee
Yes, but ya didn’t say that… you perpetuated the silly myth that we’re all at the risk of terrorism, which annoys the shit out of me because old ladies point out people with beards to me on buses and mutter, “he left his bag at the front. Should we call the police?”
And governments exploit the above fear to pass all sorts of shit legislation that wipes lots of rights off the table and … yeah.
Please don’t.