A recap of Dante's Inferno's weird, awful (effective?) marketing
AdFreak's chronicle of the Dante's Inferno guerrilla marketing campaign is one hell of a good read. The piece covers ad agency Wieden + Kennedy's almost year-long viral and guerrilla campaign for the game, which allegedly cost $200,000 and "yielded 47 million impressions of coverage." The ad agency had a $20,000-a-month budget according to EA, but AdFreak tells Joystiq that W + K likely spent more (of its own money) in the pursuit of industry awards.
Although the final months of the campaign didn't really pop up on our radar, loyal readers will likely recall a few of the earlier ones: the misguided fake E3 protest, the apology-inducing "Sin to Win" contest and Mass: We Pray. Interestingly, the $200 check we at Joystiq decided to donate apparently caused the ad agency to come up with a third resolution to its "Greed" stunt. It's always fun when we're the ones to keep marketing on its toes. Whether it's bound for heaven or damnation, the Dante's Inferno campaign is certainly an interesting case study in modern marketing.
