Uncharted 3 is probably the most anticipated PS3 exclusive this year, and all indications are that it will live up to the hype. Check out the latest TV spots and a trailer detailing the multiplayer ‘buddy system.’
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State Farm has launched a destination URL called “Chaos In Your Town” that allows fans to enter in their name and address and create a personalized movie trailer. Inspired by a recent TV commercial, the engagement uses Google Maps street view and the user’s address to create a War of the Worlds type video.
Shanda has announced that CEO, president and chairman Tianqiao Chen has offered to buyout the company. He is offering a 29 percent premium on the company share price.
He’s looking to buy up the 68.4 percent is already controlled by the board for $41.35 per American Depositary share, or $20.675 per ordinary share in cash. If the deal goes through, it could be worth around $457 million.
Advertising technology company Clickable has announced that it has secured $12 million Series C funding. This was led by American Express as a way build out its Facebook ad platform.
“With our new funding, we will continue to aggressively accelerate Clickable’s product innovation and market development throughout our entire portfolio of online advertising solutions,” said co-founder and CEO of Clickable David S. Kidder. “We’ll continue to market our products directly through the Clickable brand, as well as expand through premier partners like American Express OPEN. You can expect to see unequivocal leadership in emerging channels, like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, FourSquare and others. We intend for Clickable to become the dominant marketing platform that simplifies and integrates every major online channel, and deeply connect with the social graph.”
Clickable’s platform is designed to let agency clients and advertisers manage their ads on search engines and social networks. It is possible for clients to either use the platform themselves or take advantage of Clickable’s benchmarking and other add-on services.
The company will invest the funding in product development and growing its sales and marketing team. “Social will be the biggest area of acceleration over the next 12 months,” said Clickable’s VP-marketing Max Kalehoff. “Facebook is relatively simple when you’re first starting out, but once you start hitting scale is where it gets complicated.”
Source: AdAge
Herman Cain has made a splash in the Republican Presidential nomination race with his “9-9-9” tax plan, denoting the percentage he would apply to housing tax, commercial tax and industrial tax. To some, this was reminiscent of the tax plans in SimCity, and Electronic Arts has seized on the moment to make SimCity 4 available for $9.99.
“We encourage politicians to continue to look to innovative games like SimCity for inspiration for social and economic change,” said Kip Katsarelis, a senior producer at EA Maxis. “While we at Maxis and Electronic Arts do not endorse any political candidates or their platforms, it’s interesting to see GOP candidate Herman Cain propose a simplified tax system like one we designed for the video game SimCity 4.”
THQ has teamed up with Crooks & Castles for a set of clothing based around Saints Row: The Third. Available at Karma Loop, these items are designed to reflect the “gangster lifestyle” of Saints Row: The Third.
BuzzLogic is pushing the philosophy that reaching customers is a matter of using content that encourages the right emotional mind-set. With that in mind, they have launched a new tool called Spectrum which delivers page-level ads in real time which are based on the emotional effect the content is expected to have on the audience.
“There are three things we know about a page of content,” said Dave Hills, BuzzLogic’s CEO. “How influential it is, how authoritative it is, and, most importantly, we understand—and the thing that we’re most focused on—the emotional connection that’s made between a piece of content and a reader.”
Most ad platforms look to reach target audiences through content verticals like autos, health, or technology, but BuzzLogic says that emotional weight isn’t taking into consideration. For instance, if there’s a sports story on ESPN, the emotions of the audience could be different if the story is about a victory, a defeat or an athlete being arrested.
“Being an ex-agency guy, the challenge I always faced was there were always two sides of analytics that I had to work on and they were very disconnected. There was the research and consumer insights that powered the planning product—getting to understand your consumer, getting into their minds, figuring out how do you excite the consumer based on the brand value proposition and who they are,” said John Donahue, BuzzLogic’s CTO. “But once that plan is baked, it went to the buy side, and it was extremely disconnected . . . It’s really just about buy optimization.”
BuzzLogic seeks to look at how a web page factors into a brand or campaign’s goals, like using Spectrum to find appropriate places for hybrid-car ads. The client can search for topical terms and appropriate phrases, uncovered using a cognitive analysis to uncover the word associations representative of the desired mind-set to make sure that the ads conform with the emotions of the page they’re displayed on.
“If brands are going to actually do branding online, they’re going to have to really have a very deep understanding, at a page level, of relevance—and we think that relevance is defined through influence, authority, and understanding the emotional connection that piece of content makes with its audience,” Hills said. “And since it’s a real-time world now and since the consumer is in total control of the media experience, we build this system to address this at the page level and in real time.”
Source: AdWeek
The long rumored Devil May Cry HD Collection has been confirmed. The collection will release on PS3 and Xbox 360 and will have Devil May Cry, Devil May Cry 2 and Devil May Cry 3: Dante’s Awakening all enhanced to look better in HD.
“Hope you got some HD in that big body of yours.”
The release will feature all of the “stylish action” of the original, along with Achievement/Trophy support and other extra content. The release is being pegged for early 2012.
The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords is out now on the 3DS. As part of their continuing collaboration, Robin Williams, his beard, and his daughter Zelda have returned for a new spot.
