Did anyone see a Portal 2 billboard?
I saw one on the southern portion of the I-15.
Were there only billboards in the US, or were they worldwide?
thanks for pixs
I never really thought of billboards as an effective advertising medium. Anyone who’s remotely interested in video games rely on internet source, at least that I know of.
Oh well, it gives people something to look at.
Portal 2 is actually a game for other people than gamers too. So even parents will play it. So this sort of advertising is just right.
While I agree that non-gamers would and do enjoy the portal games, I really don’t see how those billboards are going to help non-gamers. All it says it Portal 2 and sometimes shows a picture of a robot, how is a non-gamer supposed to care, get interested in it or even know what the hell it’s about. They might even think it’s some movie about portals and robots. The marketing seems to be geared toward gamers who already have some sort of idea as to what it is. That, and maybe the occasional person who bothers to Google vague ads that they see on a normal day.
Guarantee someone thought it was a movie. When you’re on the road you don’t really have time to look for the fine symbol that says, “PS3” all the way at the bottom.
There’s been Left 4 Dead 2 billboards around for ages - I think Valve has a habit of buying up billboards around Seattle 
I haven’t seen any Portal 2 hoardings, buses or anything in England yet. Not even a TV ad.
Billboards within sight of a motorway are illegal in the UK. Still get them in cities, but they seem to be occupied exclusively by mobile phone companies
But there is a TV ad I saw the other night
I don’t think you know how advertising works. It’s not necessarily intended to pique someone’s interest, just give them a sense of familiarity so they are more likely to buy the product. Sounds silly, but it works.
I have only seen Portal 2 ads on Danish gaming sites, no billboards, and as for highway billboards, I think they’re a concept limited to the US, I have never seen one anywhere else.
That last part was just me wondering.
No, they’re not.
As for Portal2 ads, I’ve never seen a gaming related ad IRL here.
Here in England, we had L4D2 buses a while back
I know how it works, but like I said, the current marketing is directed toward gamers. What is recognizing the name going to do for a non-gamer? Most probably won’t get the chance to associate that recognition with anything else. They’re not going to see it unless they go into a game store or down the gaming isle in an electronics store. If it isn’t properly marketed in-stores as well once it’s released, then even those gamers exposed to it might not even know it’s a game if they didn’t know of it from before.
I want to ride that bus…
non-gamers will see people talk about it on the internet and be like, OMG I TTLY SAW DIS IRL LOL
i dont think people who wouldnt buy a game are suddenly gonna start buying games because of an ad
That’s the whole point of ads. There’s no need to waste money on ads if you’re just going to preach to a choir that will already buy the game with or without it. That being said, it’s more or less my point that these are kind of preaching to the choir.
If you buy a TV ad where you can show some of the interesting parts of the game, you may very well get a bunch of people who had never scene it before to at least get interested in it. If instead, however, you simply put up an ad that says PORTAL 2 - APRIL 2011, then you’re only making people uninterestedly aware of the name–of something that looks more like it’s a movie anyway–so that they might be able to recognize it if they were to see it in a store or for sale online.
Think about how big the market is today in gaming. It’s bigger than the movie industry now. Portal is on all platforms, which really throws the number up really high of people that are involved. (Gamers or not)
There are a large number of people that are non gamers the ad can target. Parents who have kids that play and friends of people who play games. And maybe their gamer friend mentioned something like. “Oh man! Portal 2 is coming out I want it!” There is word of mouth advertising which is reinforced by billboards and buses. So, if you question the effectiveness of all the advertisement you might wanna rethink that.