You can’t fail to notice the current marketing push for the new Ford Focus ST if you’ve seen it, given that the billboard adverts across many cities are adorned with the very hot and popular hatchback in its famous and highly visible orange paint job screaming across the image.
What is most striking is the logo on the billboard mentioning that the car was seen in the recent Need For Speed:Most Wanted video game - a brilliant bit of mutual advertising with feet in both the virtual and real worlds. What better way to allow large numbers of people to ‘test drive’ a hot new car before its real world launch than to put it in a video game, especially one with a big fan base, clear love of cars and impressive visuals such as the Need For Speed series.
For the video game makers (Criterion) it works as well by allowing them to promote the inclusion of a car that hasn’t even hit the streets yet in their game (a unique selling point if ever there was one) and also sees their game promoted on major billboards across the country alongside a major real-world product launch.
It is really encouraging to see a major brand such as Ford embrace video games as a potential marketing outlet and tool for promoting their product. Hopefully more companies will follow suit as gaming becomes more and more mainstream. Well done Ford...as a former Focus owner this makes me want an ST even more!
