It can be hard to remember what life was like back in 2007, but let’s give it a shot. It was the early days of something called social media, when a plucky site called Facebook had just dethroned the social media originator, MySpace as the reigning social media website. The original Apple iPhone was just reaching consumers, though I was still running up my parents phone bill sending texts from my LG Cherry Chocolate, and MSN Hotmail and AOL Mail were the two leading email providers. As 2007 came to a close, the stock market crashed and we entered The Great Recession. President George W. Bush’s non-regulation of financial institutions ushered the world into the biggest recession since 1929, but the young and inspired Democratic Presidential nominee, Barack Obama, promised change.
Throughout his presidential campaign, Obama used new tactics to reach more of the voting public. These tactics included being the first presidential candidate to successfully leverage social media platforms, and the first to advertise in the virtual world of video games. Not just any video games, though — the first video game that ever displayed a political ad was Burnout: Paradise, one of the greatest racing games of all time.
It was an advertising revolution, and it was in a racing game
Obama’s advertising team sought to reach the challenging 18-to-34-year-old male audience in 10 battleground states that allowed early voting. A tech market research analyst told Reuters in a 2008 interview that the 18-to-34-year-old male demographic doesn’t watch much TV or read a lot, which makes using conventional advertising tactics less effective in reaching them. That demographic did, however, make up the majority of hardcore video gamers, so that’s where the ads went.
Using player-submitted data including age, location, and gender, the ads most heavily targeted gamers in swing states, though some larger states did receive ads for a shorter period of time. Obama’s team advertised primarily in sports-focused games including 18 EA Sports and Microsoft XBox Live games like NBA Live ’08, Guitar Hero 3, The Incredible Hulk, and NFL Tour. It also included racing games like NASCAR 09, Need For Speed: Carbon, and Burnout: Paradise. In the automotive games, the ad appeared as billboards placed along the roads that players raced down. The Guinness Book Of World Records cites President Obama’s campaign ads that ran from October 6 through November 3, 2008 in the street racing game Burnout as the first time an American Presidential candidate used in-game advertising for their campaign. Now you have another random automotive trivia factoid to hurl at your loved ones who neither solicited it, nor desire it.
