E.A.'s latest marketing scheme has been making its way around the "internets" for the last month or so and I thought I would share it with you guys because it lead to me to the realization that marketing can be awesome. I never thought I would say this, in fact I'm probably the last person who would think anything near this, but what these guys are doing is so creative and original I'm willing to admit that my distaste may have simply been a lack of imagination concerning what is possible.

Without getting too into detail, the marketing team for E.A.'s new game Dante's Inferno have been gifting prominent video game critics with strange items that present opportunities for them to express the seven deadly sins. For greed, they sent out two hundred dollar cashiers checks, for wrath, they sent our mysterious boxes that blasted Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Let You Down" until you destroyed them with an included hammer. They staged a fake fundamentalist Christian protest of the game that got major news coverage.

This kind of marketing is a reaction to our general apathy towards symbols these days. We've become so inundated with suggestive imagery, we've become very adept at interpreting it, effectively taking away it's subliminal power. The reaction of modern hipsterdom to blatant connotative marketing is nothing short of disdain. If a company fails to innovate with its marketing, it gets left in the dust. Often when companies realize this, and try to compensate, the results are pretty hilarious (see recent Adidas "party" ads).

What I'm trying to say here is I don't like being marketed too. If there are items that I need, I do research and buy them. I can't remember the last time I saw an ad on T.V. or in a magazine and subsequently purchased the product. But our society cannot function without advertising, and if it is going to be such an prevalent part of our modern lives then it should contribute not just to companies, but to culture at large. For almost no cost, E.A. has gotten my attention. In short, they win. Lastly I must comment that poorly done viral marketing makes me want to throw up, but thats an post for another day....