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Paris Hilton Sued for Lack of Promotion
Posted by Veronica Santiago Categories: Comedy, Celeb News, Celebrity Controversy,
Funny. I never thought the phrases “Paris Hilton” and “lack of publicity” could ever be used in the same sentence.
A lawsuit filed Tuesday in Miami’s District Court claims Paris Hilton failed to live up to her contractual obligations. The heiress, who received an acting and an executive producer credit for National Lampoon’s Pledge This!, reportedly dropped the ball when it came to the film’s marketing.
According to Worldwide Entertainment Group Inc., the company is owed $75,000 because Hilton did not provide “reasonable promotion and publicity” for the 2006 sorority movie.
Now, given that Paris Hilton’s most recent film (The Hottie & the Nottie) failed despite her talk show appearances - what kind of numbers were the Pledge This! producers expecting to get?
MSNBC
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Warner Bros. Uses Viral Marketing Strategy for Dark Knight
Posted by Robin Paulson Categories: Warner Bros, Action, Adaptation, Adventure, Classics, Mystery, Political, Sequels, Thrillers, Distribution, Rumors, Upcoming Releases,
Acting upon the success of Cloverfield‘s online viral marketing, Warner Bros. has recently implemented their own take on the strategy for this summer’s The Dark Knight.
It all started as a simple jack-o-lantern and appropriately turned into a game on WhySoSerious.com. Now the company has also released IBelieveInHarveyDent.com and RorysDeathKiss.com. The former being a simple campaign site for Harvey Dent that invites you to submit your e-mail and phone number (try it!) and the latter being a Joker-driven site where fans are able to upload images of themselves as, well, Jokers.
There is also IBelieveInHarveyDentToo.com, which used to portray the image of Harvey Dent with Joker makeup smeared upon his face. (The site has changed and now appears to have an error; however, if you highlight the page, you’ll find something interesting.)
As cool as this may be, I honestly don’t see why Warner Bros. is wasting their time on these sites—everyone and their grandmother is going to see this movie, and if they’re not, they ought to be slapped until they’re right in the head. Either way, words cannot describe how excited I am to see this movie, especially with such an outstanding performance by Heath Ledger.
The Freelancer’s Toolset
Posted by Jenny Lewis Categories: Internet, Misc. Tech,
While perusing del.icio.us bookmarks over the holiday, I came across technology and productivity blog Codswallop’s fantastic Freelancer’s Toolset. Yoav Ezer posted this list of 100 tools for freelancers back in May, and barring a few recent developments in the web app universe, it’s exhaustive and incredibly helpful. With apps covering organization, calendaring and to-do’s, money, storage, project management and productivity, writing and design, security and privacy, mobility and contact, marketing and networking, business and legal, contact and feedback, website tools, printing and packaging, revenue building and giving, and more - just about anything that a freelancer can use on the web to further their business can be found on this list.
Read More 
| Codswallop
Inside Halo 3’s $10 Million Marketing Push
Posted by Paul Hamilton Categories: Corporate News, First Person Shooters, Release Dates, Xbox 360,
Microsoft has known how important Halo 3 will be to their success this generation since before they even announced the Xbox 360. Halo 2 sold $125 million on the first day, but then the original Xbox was just struggling for recognition in the wake of the PS2 juggernaut. Now the 360 holds a tenuous lead in installed base and isn’t selling the way Microsoft may have hoped. If it’s possible Halo 3 may have become even more important to Microsoft’s strategy than they originally hoped. Fortunately, they’ve been planning ahead.
In an article released today on Brand Week, the calculated ten-month marketing efforts behind Bungie‘s trilogy finale is dissected starting from the Starry Nights TV spot launched last November through the public beta this spring/early summer. They talk about the Project Iris viral campaign and the efforts they’ve gone to secure strategic branding partners. This has included the Mountain Dew Game Fuel limited edition soft drink that comes plastered with Halo 3 imagery plus a total of $5 million from Pontiac to help push the launch of the game on September 25.
And they aren’t done yet. Microsoft will begin the full blitz with the new Believe campaign that will lead up to the launch taking place at midnight in over 10,000 stores to give Halo fans a chance to grab the game as soon as possible. It’s an interesting read about the science behind building a monster.
Read More | Brand Week via Kotaku
Peter Moore Has Big Plans For EA Sports
Posted by Paul Hamilton Categories: Corporate News, Electronic Arts, Sports,
Peter Moore, long known as the public face of Microsoft‘s Xbox division, stepped into his new digs as EA Sports president last week and started off saying he wants EA Sports’ brand to compete in a broader arena than just the video games market, facing off against general sports brands like Nike and ESPN.
Despite selling millions of copies of its flagship titles each year, EA Sports has struggled to expand effectively and EA seems to be banking on Moore to help them widen their reach. “That could mean broadcast sports, sports camps, the ability to license consumer products around the EA Sports brand,” he told the New York Times. Moore is also looking to leverage EA’s technology to create social networking and news sites, all centered around sports and of course the EA Sports name. “I think we have an opportunity to aggregate information and bring it to life with video technologies,” he said.
“If we look at this connected world we’re entering, sports is a sort of social and cultural glue that reaches across the globe,” Moore continues. “There is an opportunity for EA Sports to evolve beyond a games brand to become a true global sports and entertainment brand, and I think we can compete there.”
Read More | New York Times via Level Up
BioShock Art Book Available Online…for Free!
Posted by Steve Van Neil Categories: Action, Adventure, First Person Shooters, Games for Windows, Microsoft, Take2, Xbox 360,
Coming hot on the heels of a truly tremendous Xbox Live demo, 2K Boston/2K Australia (formerly Irrational Games) has posted a free PDF file which contains sixty-odd pages of concept art from the game to be printed out at your leisure. How cool is that? Word of warning, however: Ken Levine’s forward to the book contains spoilers, so tread carefully.
BioShock is poised to blow minds on Xbox 360 and Windows in just seven days.
Read More | 2K Games
Halo 3 Pre-orders Top One Million, Merchandising Blitz Begins
Posted by Steve Van Neil Categories: Bungie, Corporate News, Culture, First Person Shooters, Microsoft, Xbox 360,
Halo 3 won’t be out until September 25th, but the hype machine is already well in gear. Microsoft has just announced that pre-sale numbers for Bungie‘s upcoming behemoth have already exceeded one million copies. Chris Di Cesare, Microsoft’s director of creative marketing, says, “This September, Halo 3 will push video game entertainment into the forefront of mainstream culture.”
And he’s not kidding. Microsoft is backing up its big gun by way of some big merchandising deals with major brands. For starters, Pepsi is releasing a Halo-branded version of Mountain Dew, called Mountain Dew Game Fuel. 7-11 is getting in on the action with Halo-themed Slurpee cups, as well as a Doritos promotion. Not wanting to be left out in the cold, Burger King will be doing its own in-store promotions, Pontiac is launching a Halo 3- themed contest, and Comcast will offer its subscribers all kinds of downloadable Halo goodies. Phew! A marketing campaign of this depth and scope is truly unprecedented in the gaming industry.
Read More | Next Generation
Chris Aarons Leaving AMD, Starting Word of Mouth Marketing Firm
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Editorial, Features, PC / Laptop,
I imagine that just about all our readers might be a bit puzzled at the headline, or why it is relevant. This post is more of a behind-the-scenes look at something we deal with on a daily basis here at Gear Live. You see, we get multiple inquiries, phone calls, and emails per day from marketing and PR firms who want our attention. The thing is, most don’t know how to approach us in a way that makes us want to give them our attention. Chris Aarons of AMD is one of the people who “gets it.”
Click to continue reading Chris Aarons Leaving AMD, Starting Word of Mouth Marketing Firm
The Bleeding Edge 155: Andru Edwards, Chris Pirillo, Robert Scoble, Steve Broback on Blog Marketing
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: CES, CES 2007, Features, Internet, Videocasts, Videos,
Read More | The Bleeding Edge
Bleeding Edge TV 155: Andru Edwards, Chris Pirillo, Robert Scoble, Steve Broback on Blog Marketing
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Full Episodes, Gizmatic, Features, Internet, Videocasts,
We take a break from gadgets in this episode, as we present an impromptu roundtable discussion between some of the major players in the blogging space, focusing on marketing and what major companies need to do to start engaging today’s consumer. With the way information is consumed these days, along with the way our generation consumes media, companies need to approach marketing a bit differently. This video features Andru Edwards, Robert Scoble, Chris Pirillo, and Steve Broback discussing these topics in two parts - first, I talk with Scoble, Pirillo, and Broback one-on-one, and then we bring you the full roundtable.
A big thank you to Chris Aarons of AMD for asking us about this topic, which is what motivated us to get some of our friends together for this dialogue.
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