Promotional Consideration: Black Hole Advertising
Promotional Consideration is a weekly feature about the Nintendo DS advertisements you usually flip past, change the channel on, or just tune out.
Considering that you've put up with the dozens of posts we've published for Advance Wars: Days of Ruin so far, we're sure you'll forgive us for revisiting War Worlds again so soon with this column. This week, Promotional Consideration examines the print ad Nintendo rolled out in 2003 for Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising. Position your units, end your turn, and peek past the break for more text.
Click the resized picture for a larger version.
"Silent cannons, soon to cease your silence,
soon unlimber'd to begin the red business." - Walt Whitman
This simple, creative concept of the Game Boy Advance SP's shadow revealing the handheld's capabilities effectively sold the product -- war games in your pocket. Accompanying the bolded text and tiny screenshots at the bottom, the ad copy was kept short, lightly-armed with only three lines to communicate its message:
"Mobilize your ground force over all-new terrain, mount a masive aerial assault against new enemies and coordinate a campaign designed to shock your enemy. You are the commanding oficer. Let the relentless bombardment begin."
Even with its limited word count, the paragraph successfully filled in the gaps for anyone unfamliar with the series while also explaining to returning gamers what to forward to with the GBA sequel. Despite the miniature screenshots, there was enough there to seduce anyone interested in turn-based strategy titles.
