Final Essay

Matthew Wiest

Ad analysis paper

3/12/15

                                                Leaving us wanting more

            Most days, we find that our lives are just passing by in seeing ads, not caring as to what is there on the screen or in the paper. Some companies, like the ones who publish and advertise video games, know how to grab our attention via empathy by making us feel and want more out of what we see on screen or in a poster. Various commercials nowadays focus on showing as much of their product as they can within so little time easily, so the contrast is startling in where commercials move and change their own points to giving us more to go off of in not showing us some, giving us just a taste so that we as consumers want more. The base desire to know something is what gives us more drive towards wanting these games, and is exploited by the video game industry around just about every corner. What kind of immersion do video games give us in just the small amount of time in their commercials? I hope to explore this in the advertisements for Dying Light, Dead Island 2, and Resident Evil: Revelations 2.

            Starting from the Dying Light commercial, titled “Run Boy Run”, they show us the start of a city with construction zones all around. The shot takes us to a view of a group of people of varying ages, genders, and ethnicities, with tight clothing and backpacks on along with irregular and makeshift weapons. They climb and jump and run across rooftops to the song “Run Boy Run” by Woodkid. The group stops and looks over to see a plane dropping down some form of crate with a parachute guiding its descent, the plane flying off into the distance above the city. The man in the front of the group looks briefly to them and runs off towards the drop crate, the group following quickly as they continued on from rooftop to rooftop, scaling scaffolding in the process. While still in the construction zones, the leader flamboyantly jumped and grabbed a wrench to kill a zombie which had come around the corner, getting excitement flowing and keeping a constant flow of action. While they still ran, the leader jumped off of the building only to fall through a makeshift roof made of cardboard and plywood, only for the action to change into an underground area with damaged walls with the same man in yellow to be holding a door shut, the fact that he’s still holding the wrench signing that it is still the same day. The door burst open with zombies piling in, the group starting to run as the infected overwhelmed one of their friends and briefly seen biting into him, some viewers feeling sorry for the death. The group still ran as one stayed behind to fight back at least one of the zombies, only to be tackled down and eaten. The leader gave a passing glance back while zombies still ran, where another angle changing like before was met with more zombies running towards them. The leader, like before, turned the other way to see one of their friends being attacked by a single infected, lighting up the wrench with some form of electrical modification and striking the zombie, which convulsed after being struck. The run continued through the sewers with various kinds of deadly infected roaring at them, leading to a jump which the last two of the group attempted, the leading man from before being the only one to make it as his last friend was hit and knocked down into the darkness of the sewers. After climbing a final ladder, he found the crate, only to be caught off guard when a man struck him in the head with a bat, knocking him unconscious to see the man walking up to the crate, the advertisement ending with a flash of the quote “Good night, Good Luck” in large letters overcoming the screen and showing the title of the game, “Dying Light”

Fig 1. Dying Light poster

            The advertisement itself is a full two minutes long and has a lot of exciting action within it, getting the viewer’s blood pumping as they watch and await what could happen next, always changing it up to see what could happen and who would go next. They change from place to place to give a feel for the open world of the game and excite the viewer with the freshness of parkour, a form of free climbing across rooftops. The death of the leader’s comrades is a narrative point that the world is dangerous, and that the player can help overcome this and wants them to help. The commercial’s main demographic seems to be people who enjoy action and want to do something for others, and attracts people from all ages and genders. The Gaming Industry as a whole uses this tactic well in describing what you could expect from the story and gameplay in even just a CGI commercial such as Dying Light’s. The same company uses the constant change in the action to keep the reader’s attention, which brings in the next commercial by the same game developer.

            Dead Island 2 is a sequel to Techland’s zombie action game, and the commercial they provide for the game is very illusionary. We start out by seeing a man getting ready for running: Getting his shoes on, making sure his music’s playing, pumping up and going on a jog. We briefly see a bite on his wrist before he covered it with a sweatband. This continues on with him jogging and people in the background being attacked by zombies all around, running while people are being bitten and attacked and killed all around him, a limousine skidding along before crashing, as we then see his body change with skin being ripped and bleed to show that he was really a zombie, only to end with him and most of the horde being killed by a large beefed up van, adding shock value to it while showing there are people surviving.

Fig 2. Dead Island Game poster.

            The Dead Island 2 commercial is in stark contrast to the Dying Light one, because it is more quirky and humorous than a dark reality. They give it the setting of a tropical place or Miami to set the feel of a faster pace and fun to be had, while simply throwing in zombies here and there to crush the paradise that there is. The advertisement also presents a good feel to making the most out of a situation in that the people in the van seem to be having a good time fighting the zombies to survive, appealing to the viewer’s sense of humor. It tells us that not all action or zombies need to be horror or dark and brooding, and make people want to know what it’s like to kill zombies and have fun doing so to see them flying and flopping around.

Fig 3. Resident Evil Revelations 2 poster      

To contrast the action form of zombies and killing, another company named Capcom made the Resident Evil series, and the most recent game this company made was Resident Evil: Revelations 2. The commercial drags the viewer in with a view of a dark room, indiscernible voices calling out and speaking with flashes of gory images while blood drips from a wall as the main footage. The shot then cuts back to a dinner party where people are having fun at the nice establishment before cutting back to a bloodshot eye seeing the main character through cameras, the power going out where she is kidnapped by men in combat gear presumably, returning to the dark cellar or dungeon where she wakes up with an odd device on her wrist, only to be forced to explore the area, making the viewer feel sorry for her. This continues on with views of locations in the underground, only passing by for a few frames each to keep the viewer active and engaged to see and wonder what it was that they saw, ending with the statement “Evil is watching” with the title of the game being spoken out loud in the end.

            The Resident Evil commercial draws veteran horror gamers back into the nostalgia of feeling lost and alone, and having to work to overcome those trials and possible failures, allowing people to feel excited and scared without the actual danger that the game shows. The commercial ultimately gives the goal of finding out what happened, and discovering how to survive and feeling afraid in the cold depths of the underground. All of this is shown very quickly in brief images of pain and fright that the commercial breaks with views of actual gameplay and locations.

            The commercials together all follow zombie themes, something that when shown, people typically seem to have no sympathy for; and, from a gaming point of view, the games all have their tastes for different levels, but all follow the same movement of a constant flow of action for the consumer to be immersed in, encouraging them to buy the game and find out more themselves and to feel compelled to help and do better than those before them. It’s all about little heroic achievements and various tasks that help the consumer feel accomplished versus actually get a real reward out of the product. Ultimately, video game publishers in the modern day continue to draw the viewers in with a constant and upbeat change with a sense of mystery that encourages us to buy the game in order to answer the questions posed to us.