How EA Sports’ response to a fan’s video acknowledged a bug in its latest golf game…and won fans

through David Radd

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A year gone, a YouTube enthusiast posted a video depicting what he called the “Jesus Shot” in Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2009. This video showed off a bug in the game where players could catch of fish a shot while established on water. Electronic Arts issued a response to this with its own video, showing that Tiger does indeed Walk on Water.

Now, EA acquirement in on an Internet meme might be under the necessity the appearance a little like your dad ‘friending’ you on Facebook. It’s worth noting, though, that this ad got the attention of ESPN’s E:60 show and has gotten over 2.1 million views on YouTube. To any marketer, attracting that sort of heedfulness is classified in the same proportion that a success.

We talked with Praveeta “No Relation to Vijay” Singh, product manager for Tiger Woods PGA Tour at EA Sports, by regard to making Woods float.

The human side of a cyclopean, between nations corporation

The Tiger Woods “Walk on Water” ad seems somewhat unusual for a company like EA. After totality, the ad is an acknowledgment of a bug in one of their games in a tongue-in-cheek sort of way. It also, though, fits with the more comely EA Sports ads of this season and Singh definitely approves of the direction.

“It was certainly our advertising agency that brought it to our attention; they thought we could carry into effect something with it involving Tiger. We looked at it and we thought it would be pretty funny, so we gave it the go-ahead,” said Singh. “One of the nice things was that people adage the human lateral of EA. I like to saying that I work with a bunch of overgrown five-year-olds! People here really have such passion for sports, and to be in this environment, you have to have a sense of humor.”

“We filmed it here in Orlando in June in one of the menses here. It was before [Tiger] pulled out of the PGA for the rest of the year. Tiger was to a high degree cool with the ads,” she continued. “We laid out the storyboards to him and we sent them a lot of examples showing what we wanted to do. When they saw it, they saw exactly what we wanted to do right off the stick, for a find to one’s mind reason there wasn’t a lot of clarification or debate.”

Millions be delivered of seen Tiger walk on water

Another unique fact about the ad is that it was truly released first without ceasing the web control it became a TV ad spot. Part of the reason for this was that it was an pertinent response to a video that originated on the web, but it’s about additional than that. As we’ve noted here in Ad Watch, the eyeballs aren’t necessarily there in the TV space anymore, so wearisome to reach out to fans by way of a viral web promotion was a very savvy move on EA’s part.

“It’s really important as we look at our marketing list to capability new marketing mediums,” described Singh. “People are put in succession the Internet and one of the things we consider is that, by TiVo, people skip over commercials. You think about all the things you’re doing in a epoch, you might not watch TV, otherwise than that you’ve probably been online. As marketers we’re looking for different ways to approach our customers. We want this new Tiger ad to be appealing and show that in that place’s a new game without there.”

“We attend to it as a wont of reaching [our customers] on a different level. But it is also more personal and shows a different sect to EA,” she continued. “We’re always inundated with information and our study spans are getting shorter, so I think putting the clip on the web works to that as well. It’s funny because while the multitude anticipate for a clip they go to video on YouTube first and not through ‘conventional channels.’”

So cure me Jesus

EA has been moving in general more towards connected common features with its games. Skate had a prominent part that allowed players to upload their videos with haste and easily and NCAA Football 2009 allowed players to play dynasty mode online. It’s these attempts at reaching fully and connecting with fans in a physical way that EA will continue to look into.

“Last year the game came out with the Tiger Net features, and now we’re making it easier to put in the mail clips, so anytime you’re in any portion of the game, these videos made by other players will be running as you’re playing,” described Singh. “The user generated content makes it a a great deal of more personal experience, allowing players to see what others are doing, like do you try to get the best score or do wacky shots off of trees? We want to make the experience like fun as possible; instead of us effective you what’s fun, you tell us what’s fun.”

“I think overall we’re very pleased with how this and the Rubik’s Cube one have done; they’ve gotten good traction and it proves our theory that this is a costly marketing entrance. I have power to affirm that it’s something more we’re looking to do with our titles,” she concluded.