“Wow! Blatant commercials!”
Well, deep down, you knew it was going to happen eventually.
Given the success of Microsoft’s [MSFT] Xbox 360 and its Xbox LIVE service, as well as the apparent success of the NXE, it was inevitable that eventually, somebody over at Microsoft and the Xbox LIVE group (most likely in marketing or advertising, ‘natch) would realize that putting commercials directly into the NXE Dashboard would make a lot of sense.
But how to make it something that gamers would actually want to watch? Hmm… How about use a lot of humor and a more aggressive brand enforcement? Sounds good!
I suspect the Nike’s [NKE] Kobe Bryant “Ankle Insurance Co.” commercial will be quite popular due to the humor factor, and it is certainly an effective way to send up a targeted ad campaign to a curious gamer demographic. Although, to be fair, the hardcore 24 x 7 gamer is probably not spending much time playing basketball or going outside and wearing Nike basketball shoes. Nevertheless, given the widespread Xbox LIVE coverage worldwide, having a large captive audience to expose to such advertising is fantastic.
Hopefully, to maintain a decent applicability edge factor, the advertisers will continue to provide relevant ads in this exciting venue. The ability to opt-in to view the commercials gives the gamers the much-desired choice to engage with the ads (or not), which is something that many TV audiences have clamored for.
