Iron Sky: Operation Highjump > Tasks > Advertising the production

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Advertising the production

This task is closed

Created at	January 26, 2010
Created by	Matti Delahay
Closed	June 21, 2011
Shots given	7

Thumbs ranking

Spencer Lunsford	Game-Informer	6/24%
Thierry Gschwind	Interview	6/24%
Jani Salomaa	Guerilla marketing "hasta la victoria...	3/12%
Pasi Pitkänen	Old-school	3/12%
(null)	Focus on gamers, programmers, graphic...	3/12%
Seppo Hiltunen	Short movie of posters in youtube	2/8%
e-punc	schools/academies/universities	2/8%

Closing Note

Closing this task out of the way for new ones, thanks for the amazing ideas, we're still planning to use them. :)

Description

We're very glad to have this many active members already, but of course It would be cool to get even more people brainstorming with us. So, how would you spread the word?

Note that for now we're focusing on advertising the production rather than the game itself, there'll certainly be a separate task for game advertising when the time is right. :)

This task is closed.

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Thierry Gschwind July 25, 2010 13:40 6 Thumb-ups

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Interview

Interview we recorded at WAM festival:

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Comments

(null) August 10, 2010 22:16 Flag

Great work Thierry, very professional.

Matti Delahay July 26, 2010 08:20 Flag

Thanks for filming and posting this Thierry, it was nice meeting you in person at the Wreckamovie Festival.

Angela R. July 25, 2010 16:39 Flag

*applauds* Well done!

Spencer Lunsford February 12, 2010 06:15 6 Thumb-ups

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Game-Informer

I could make a full page ad or a 2 page full page ad for the Game Informer Magazine.

I could make up a Prototype Ad, but I need some Game graphics... maybe just a PNG image of one of the Main Characters.

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Spencer Lunsford March 16, 2010 11:42 Flag

Okay. Just checking... :P

Matti Delahay March 16, 2010 07:29 Flag

Spencer: Sorry, nothing I'm allowed to go public with yet - bureaucracy takes it's time. I'll let you know as soon as I know something new.

Spencer Lunsford March 16, 2010 05:41 Flag

Did you get any Graphics yet?

Matti Delahay February 12, 2010 19:04 Flag

Spencer: That's what Wreckamovie is all about. :)

Spencer Lunsford February 12, 2010 18:24 Flag

Ok. I'm just throwing out the idea. :D

Matti Delahay February 12, 2010 17:41 Flag

Spencer: Where and when we end up buying advertisement space isn't really my call, but I'll certainly run it by our PR people.

Spencer Lunsford February 12, 2010 16:54 Flag

Game Informer is a great magazine... if you advertise with them, you will reach a game community of millions, possibly more.

Peter Vesterbacka February 12, 2010 09:14 Flag

Great idea! Maybe we should have a separate task for making magazine ads. It would be really cool to have a whole bunch of ads, could even make them look like they have been in real magazines already;-) Kind of making ads that have appeared in the future...

Angela R. February 12, 2010 08:04 Flag

"Risto is currently working on some artwork including the main characters..."

"'ll send you some graphics for the ad as soon as I get my hands on them."

Ooohooohoooohooo... *starts drooling* *coughs embarrassed*

Matti Delahay February 12, 2010 06:45 Flag

Sounds very good! Risto is currently working on some artwork including the main characters and we're planning on publishing some graphics for reference purposes soon anyway, I'll send you some graphics for the ad as soon as I get my hands on them.

e-punc February 19, 2010 13:34 2 Thumb-ups

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schools/academies/universities

High!
I think you should try to get the news to schools/academies/universities where they teach programming computergames. There you have highly morivated people who might like to join a project parallel to their courses.
one in berlin would be http://www.games-academy.de/

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Matti Delahay February 22, 2010 09:35 Flag

That's a good point, especially schools that have study programmes for game 3D-art could be a great source of enthusiastic members.

Using outside programmers in this kind of commercial production is somewhat more difficult, since they would require a lot of information, code and libraries from us to be able to contribute effectively (and there's a limit to how much we can share). We might well be able to have volunteers write scripts for us, but at this moment 3D, designers, 2D-artists and so on are easier to utilize.

(null) February 09, 2010 22:08 3 Thumb-ups

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Focus on gamers, programmers, graphics enthusiasts, open source enthusiasts?

If this is advertising the production itself, as Jani said we'd need to focus on the people most likely to contribute. Apart from schools and universities you might also want to contact various media outlets:

-Finnish gaming magazines and sites, they usually love to hear about games produced by Finnish dev teams (I know WAM is international, but the core dev team is indeed Finnish). Having spoken to Matti D about Pelit, I suspect you've thought of this already though... ;)

-Linux magazines and sites. You said this game would be released on Linux, which is something a bit unusual for a mainstream commercial game. This could provide interest from the Linux community, and Linux fans are also more likely to be interested in collaborative productions.

-Graphics magazines and sites. A lot of tasks in ISOH are graphics-oriented, and presumably more of these will be appearing in the future?

...and commercial sites and mags would be more easily contacted by the ISOH team rather than us fans, so this is something that perhaps your PR person should handle?

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Matti Delahay February 10, 2010 05:30 Flag

You're very right of course and we most certainly will do this - we've still got some last steps of bureaucracy to deal with before we're all set, but very soon we're ready to spam every single potential media. :P

Seppo Hiltunen January 27, 2010 11:11 2 Thumb-ups

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Short movie of posters in youtube

The posters for this production and some antarctic pictiures (creative commons) and some preliminary sketches and drawings could be sampled together and a music score added. And some texts at the last seconds of the presentation to tell what it is all about and when it is estimated to be published. That could help viral marketing. Connection to Iron Sky the movie could boost the campaign too.

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Comments

Matti Delahay January 29, 2010 08:14 Flag

Pasi: How did you guess that? :P Thanks for the understanding. :)

I'll probably make a new task of the idea behind this shot too (expect to see it early next week if I don't have time today), it'd be nice to get some video-wrecking going too in the production. :)

Pasi Pitkänen January 28, 2010 15:27 Flag

No worries Matti. I bet you have your hands full with this so you are excused.. :)

Matti Delahay January 28, 2010 11:07 Flag

Pasi: We're very interested, thanks for the offer! Just listened some of your music a while ago and it sounds great!

Sorry for not replying faster, I was so enthusiastic on writing that task about conspiracy news I wanted to finish it on one go. :)

Matti Delahay January 28, 2010 10:57 Flag

Here's the new task on some faux historical news:
http://www.wreckamovie.com/tasks/show/997

Thanks for the idea, Seppo!

Matti Delahay January 28, 2010 07:54 Flag

Peter: I like that idea a lot, there's certainly a lot of potential in the backstory for some viral conspiracy theory.

Seppo: Yeah! That's not a half-bad idea. Jani already made the logo for our Wahrheit Heute too: http://www.wreckamovie.com/shots/show/4284 so it'd be a waste not to put it into use. :) I think I'll make a task about making news for our version in the immediate future.

Edit: Now that I think about it, using the German logo in these news would be a bit of weird since it's not really the Nazis who spread conspiracies about their secret base. We should probably begin with some fake 1947 news in English. Still, in addition to the English faux news articles, we could do a couple of German-language news articles that would absolutely deny everything unusual about Antarctica. :)

Seppo Hiltunen January 28, 2010 06:45 Flag

Truth Today, the "hisctorical" vintage copy from the time of Operation Highjump, year 1947 could be nice too...to be spread out in gamers conferences and presentations and it could be also a nice piece of easter egg to put in the CD/DVD -box with the game CD/DVD. Perhaps we could do some mockumentary news with conspiracy things in it. Aerobics for our imaginations to invent alternative history...

Peter Vesterbacka January 27, 2010 23:02 Flag

Could also be a series of really short, mysterious videos with subtle references to the conspiracy around Operation Highjump. The Iron Sky Truth Today got nice visibility on the conspiracy sites, why not do something along those lines...

Pasi Pitkänen January 27, 2010 20:48 Flag

I would be available music wise if needed. :P

Matti Delahay January 27, 2010 12:06 Flag

This is a good idea too, viral marketing is very cool (pun only half-intentional) when done right. :)

Pasi Pitkänen January 27, 2010 20:50 3 Thumb-ups

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Old-school

We make some flyers, we print them and we spread them around the world. The flyers need to state that you can join the production here on WAM and maybe some other info too.

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Matti Delahay January 29, 2010 07:13 Flag

Markus is definitely right about the dangers, of course - I don't doubt we'd also get a lot of people who have no interest in the production other than a free lottery ticket. In that sense it'd be better if we could reach more specifically to all those people out there who want to participate in making this game but haven't heard about the awesome chance we're offering yet. ;)

One solution, of course, would be to give out something with little money value but some kind of interest to those with potential interested in this kind of project - not sure yet what that would be, but we could probably think of something more interesting that autographed energy drink cans. :D

Later on, of course, we can offer different kinds of extra carrots for those genuinely interested - interviews, developer blogs and things like that to give people glances at the "backstage" too. Lotteries and suggestion/content creation competitions among all members in the community aren't impossible either.

Markus Koskivirta January 28, 2010 18:24 Flag

The lottery might backfire though. I've seen a couple attempts at getting publicity this way end up being a negative effect. If the snowball becomes too big to handle, new people are gonna join just for the "Free game? Cool!" aspect and it's gonna a) clot the site and b) produce fodder for people who aren't exactly polite in their behaviours on the internet.

Getting famous is good, just don't let the word reach out everywhere just yet, that can bring in unwanted material, so to speak.

Otherwise, I'm all for the old school flyer thing, just would prefer some other carrot than the possibility to get something as "big" as this awesome game for free.

P.S. Besides, I want my shot at getting a free game too ;P

Pasi Pitkänen January 28, 2010 15:31 Flag

The lottery aspect sounds very good indeed. Let's make this happen.

Angela R. January 28, 2010 08:37 Flag

Indeed simple, and effective. Sounds like fun, too! :D

Matti Delahay January 28, 2010 07:55 Flag

Agreed, old-school is nice and effective. The lottery aspect Peter suggested isn't impossible either, I'll have to bring it up with the rest of the team too.

Peter Vesterbacka January 27, 2010 22:59 Flag

Agree. And maybe add a competition / lottery aspect, every member that signs up for the production and mentions the secret word on the flyer can win the game or whatever other cool stuff we can come up with.

Jani Salomaa January 26, 2010 13:27 3 Thumb-ups

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Guerilla marketing "hasta la victoria, siempre"

You guys are already active in Facebook and other social mediums, so I'll only tackle the physical marketing part.

One good way to spread the word to the people most likely to contribute, would be to post posters of different WAM productions on the info boards of related schools (universities, technical unis and colleges, art institutes, etc., maybe even senior highs).

What would be needed is:
a) A co-ordinated effort by someone.
b) Posters of productions with 'join the production at WAM' -line and the web address.
c) A separate WAM poster to explain what this is all about.
d) A way to print the posters and to deliver them to the volunteers. Or a way to give some money back to people who print them themselves.
e) Volunteers to spread them. Should not be a problem.

I'd really like to hear your ideas on how to practically do this (in a cost-effective way)!!

Going guerilla is cool, too: ''It is not just a simple game, it is a weapon of the revolution.'' - Che Guevara after hearing about Operation Highjump ;)

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Matti Delahay January 28, 2010 07:16 Flag

Peter: Magcloud sounds very interesting, thanks for the tip! We'll have to check it out, magazines would be very cool indeed :)

Peter Vesterbacka January 27, 2010 22:57 Flag

And why not create a small magazine with some information about the project to go along with the posters? We could use the http://magcloud.com service and make it easy for anybody to order the magazines and hand them out to interested parties. But of course need some content and design to fill the pages;-)

Matti Delahay January 27, 2010 11:44 Flag

This would certainly be one very effective way of spreading consciousness. :) Takes some planning and organizing, of course, but should be doable.