Feature: The Science Behind Portal 2’s Marketing

Portal 2 was easily among the most anticipated titles of the year and is now one of the year’s most acclaimed games. While being well received by critics is no small part of this success, the marketing campaign set the stage for the game and really brought the hype to a fever pitch. We talked with Doug Lombardi, Valve’s head of marketing, and discussed the multiple elements that went into marketing Portal 2.

The primary focus of the ad campaign has been on the robots Atlas and P-Body rather than Chell. What prompted this decision to focus on new characters in the co-op campaign?

We tested marketing collateral with Chell vs. collateral with the bots. The results showed the initiated Portal 1 fans liked both, while the uninitiated responded primarily to the bots. Science won.

What was the reception like to Gabe Newell’s initial reveal at the Sony E3 press conference and the first trailer?

Surprise followed by happiness, best we can tell. There are millions of PS3 gamers out there and it’s our pleasure to have made a game internally for them and to have been given the opportunity to do so with Steam support included. 

Portal 2 on PS3 has Steamworks and the free copy of the game on PC. Do you think these moves improved the reception of the game to PS3 fans?

Both the pre-orders and the week 1 sales of Portal 2 show the PS3 version is making up a larger share of the overall mix than is industry standard for a title in the core games category. So, the numbers would indicate that it has caused an improved reception.

Valve has worked with advertising firms in the past, correct? Why did Valve assume total control over the advertising of Portal 2 in this case?

Actually, that’s not the case. We have a long history of meeting with outside agencies and ultimately deciding to produce the creative internally (after being presented with a host of “me too” ads and/or ads that indicate the agency has no idea what the game is about). All the Orange Box, Left 4 Dead 1 & 2, and Portal 2 collateral was done in house. Portal 2 was just the first time the topic came up, so I think the assumption is that this is the first time we took the creative internal. That said, we have and still do work with outside agencies for media buying (a.k.a. placing the ads).

Talk to me about the creation of the Cave Johnson investment ads and what you think J.K. Simmons brings to the role.

The Cave investment ads were a stroke of genius created by a small team here at Valve (the Portal 2 writers plus a group of Valve animators). In January, we met and came up with the idea to produce a series of shorts. The big idea was to make a set of pieces that would help promote the game and potentially work as stand-alone pieces of entertainment. Weeks later we reviewed the roughs with a placeholder voice on Cave’s parts. We all knew, even then, that they were working. But when they were updated with JK’s voice, they really came to life. He’s a fantastic person to work with, and seemed to really enjoy the part. It was great to see him steal a bit of Mr. Merchant’s spotlight with these, though Merchant was also tremendous as Wheatley.

 Where did the idea for the “Romance Safety Compliance Guide” trailer come from? It’s hilarious, but it’s very random.

The extremely lovely and talented Mr. Richard Lord (a.k.a. the original voice of Wheatley and one of the super talented folks on the Portal 2 design team). He is a wonder and basically did the entire thing, by himself, in about 1 week.

What has the fan reception been like to the various alternate reality games you’ve had going on for Portal 2?

Over the course of the ARG, the Aperture Science web page received 9.9 million page impressions. You can grab a visual image of that from Alexa.com by calling up the web site. It’s hard to scientifically quantify the exact reaction, but this is one metric that points in the positive. In addition, our final week of pre-orders on Steam and at retail were higher than any other single week of pre-orders (on Steam and at retail) in the history of Valve games, as was our week 1 sell thru. So it definitely seems to have helped a successful campaign. We also learned a ton about doing cross-media promotion, something allowed by Steam and a direction we hope to explore further with future releases.

This has been an extensive and varied campaign . . . anything else I missed or that you’d like to add about the marketing?

From the ARG that announced the game last spring, to the Cave “investment” videos, to the launch ARG, we really tried to put a focus on making the marketing for this title a form of entertainment. It seems to have worked, which is a great result to the experiment. But it was an experiment in trying to move beyond the usual glorified trailer TV ads and basic banner ads, and it was a bunch of fun to produce.

Doug, thanks.

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