£1m TV campaign for Red Faction

THQ is spending 1m to get sci-fi lovers excited about Red Faction: Armageddon.

Cinema advertisements will run from May 30th to July 7th, with spots appearing around screenings of X-Men and Green Lantern.

A new Red Faction film, subtitled Origins, will air on TV channel SyFy shortly after the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC game is released on Friday, June 10th.

THQ will also be executing a two-month print campaign in consumer magazines, with online ads designed to attract gamers, sci-fi and Red Faction fans. POS materials and the pre-order SKU for Armageddon are available to retailers across the UK.

The marketing focus is around engaging sci-fi gamers, many of whom are existing fans of Red Faction,” said THQ’s senior brand manager Mark Fisher.

By engaging with this audience fully, which we are doing through a number of means, including our attendance at events such as the SFX Weekender and the MCM Expo, we anticipate word-of-mouth to spread from this audience into the more mainstream gaming community. One of the key focuses is to reach Guerrilla players and convert them into day-one Armageddon purchasers.”

The original Red Faction was released in 2001, and the series has accumulated sales of over 3.5m units.
The last game in the series, Red Faction: Guerrilla, has topped 1m sales since it was released in 2009.

However, THQ says it performed even better than this. Tracking software shows the game was played by three times as many people than those who bought it.

Armageddon is available on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.