Marketing Genius (Bravo Blizzard)

I pretty highly regard the marketing of Apple and Nike. I've often thought if I were to rate companies on a scale from 1-1000, that I wouldn't be able to decide who to put in first but Apple and Nike would be numbers 1 and 2 (in whichever order) and would be in the 970 area. Whoever number 3 would be would be at about 750. So, I think those 2 companies blow everybody else out of the water.

Since the release of World of Warcraft, I would have to say Blizzard has been climbing up the ranks. I don't recall ever seeing a single commercial for Starcraft 1, Diablo 1 or 2, or Warcraft 1, 2 or 3 (to be fair, I lived in a small town that didn't have a "gamer" channel like TechTV or G4 until like 2000). But now they've launched cool commercials for WoW that include the Office Space one, the Mr. T one and the Verne Troyer (Mini-me) one. There are others, I'm just choosing not to go hunt them down on YouTube.

At any rate, there have been a few MMO games that were gonna be "the death of WoW." A couple that come to mind are Vanguard: Saga of Heroes and Lord of the Rings Online. The newest game to be saddled with that burden is Warhammer Online, which I've written about previously. Warhammer Online officially releases on Thursday, September 18th. After having months of speculation of when Blizzard would release the next expansion to World of the Warcraft, entitled Wrath of the Lich King, they officially set/announced the release date on Monday, September 15th (for those wondering, the release date is November 13th).

What a stroke of genius! Right as gamers minds and energies are being focused on Warhammer, Blizz dropped the bomb that will make sure that their name and game is in the headlines and on the front pages of gaming sites.

Blizzard is no Apple or Nike when it comes to marketing, but they sure do know how/when to release information to stifle their competition. Bravo Blizzard, Bravo!