Moore is visiting the set of the first television spot for Xbox 360, part of the largest Microsoft marketing campaign since the Rolling Stones serenaded Windows 95 with Start Me Up. Its also a spot that has the corporate marketing guys shrugging their shoulders, Moore says, sitting in a directors chair. This is about taking an industry and hauling it, by the scruff of the neck, from young teenage males playing endless hours of time-killing games and bringing it into the living room.
Moore has banned technology from the commercial. He ripped up earlier storyboards for computer-graphic-heavy ads deemed too PlayStation. Instead, the TV campaign is supposed to evoke childhood memories of playing with friends. The idea is, if you arent involved youre missing something, he says. To be cool, in other words, you have to be part of the Xbox gang.
Moore did extensive consumer research to prove that this wasnt the case with the original Xbox. In one case study, Xbox and PS2 loyalists were asked to argue in front of a judge why their systems were better. The Xbox gamers based their arguments on technology: I have 7.1 surround sound. Im immersed in this sound, this color, this beautiful world, one said. PS2 owners, meanwhile, were more laid-back: It plays games, its simple, it works, said one, slouched in his seat. Moore believes that the ardent fervor for Xbox actually put up barriers to growth. We had the hard-core but nothing else, he says.
, eh?