Nick's Tech/Multimedia Marketing Mash

Cross media marketing is a form of marketing where a product being released (e.g. a book, record, movie, video game) is being released in other forms at, or around, the same time with those other forms helping to promote the initial or main product. An example of this would be a cross media marketing campaign done for a car dealership that is examined by the folks over at the Better Response Blog (click on the link to the slideshow for more details).

Within the video game industry Electronic Arts has been a big leader in the cross media marketing space with big multi channel pushes coinciding with their Dragon Age and Dead Space games. For the Dead Space series, the main product (the video game Dead Space) was being promoted and supported by other products that branched off of the IP ( they released a comic book series, a animated film, and created a website where users could interact in a world closely linked to that of Dead Space). Dead Space ended up selling 2 million units (across all platforms) by the end of 2009.

A wallpaper released to promote the second installment in the Dead Space franchise - Dead Space 2 (found @ http://deadspace.ea.com/#medialist/wallpapers/group=&mediaid=beat4keyartwallpaper-20101208102836919)

As previously mentioned, EA has also employed this cross media marketing strategy with the Dragon Age series by creating a free flash game (a game that can be played on the internet and only requires a browser) that tied into the purchasable PC and console game with achievements that you could use to unlock in-game items. With the release of its sequel, Dragon Age 2, coming up EA is again using a cross media marketing strategy but this time with a web series based on Dragon Age. The web series will follow an elven assassin tasked with dealing with a rogue mage and should tie into the stories of characters that are featured in Dragon Age 2.

As for my personal opinion, I find the concept and idea of cross media marketing to be quite intriguing but I’m not entirely certain of how effective these campaigns are. Although it cannot be denied that having the universe of the game extend into other forms of media certainly excites fans and people who are looking forward to the release of the game. I am not entirely certain that this sort of strategy (at least in the way that it is being employed at the moment) is as effective as it could be when it comes bringing in new consumers and extending the audience for the game. For example, since I love RPGs (role-playing games) I was intrigued by the flash game released for Dragon Age and decided to give it a try. In the end, it served to increase my level of interest in the game but I feel that, for the most part, it attracted people who were already familiar with the genre and the game. A definite, personal example of this is my relative disinterest for Dead Space and the accompanying failure of any of the cross media content to attract my attention. I imagine that all the additional content completely drew those who were already engaged in the series even further in but it didn’t catch my attention at all.

As it often occurs in marketing, it all comes down to planning. Companies who employ a cross media marketing strategy should carefully consider whether they want to further draw in their current customer base or extend that customer base (0r maybe even both!). Depending on the end result that they desire they should then tailor the additional content that they release (more in-depth into the universe and characters, or more accessible and broad for those who are new to the universe) so as to achieve that end result. That is the key to making a cross media marketing strategy a successful one.