Cristiano Ronaldo not only graces the cover of the upcoming FIFA 18 game, but also stars in the first promotional trailer which spearheads a phased, multi-platform campaign
Real Madrid’s all-time top scorer is the cover star of the latest iteration of the mega-selling EA Sports game – which will launch worldwide on 29 September.
But to leverage peak football fan passion generated by the European season climax and the Champions League Final, the game’s integrated marketing programme kicked off in early June with the launch of the ‘Fuelled By Ronaldo’ teaser.
Created by Frostbite and set to a track called ‘Energy; by Avelino (featuring UK grime stars Stormzy and Skepta), the FIFA 18 spot blurs the line between the virtual and real worlds as it ‘brings to life the heroes, teams, and atmospheres of the world’s game’.
The promo not only aim to build hype ahead of the release but also to drive pre-orders of the limited ‘Ronaldo Edition’: those pre-ordering get access to play the game three days ahead of the official global release.
The campaign content debuted on YouTube and across EA Sports’ other digital and social channels: including Facebook
Instagram,
and Twitter.
#FIFA18. Fueled by Ronaldo. https://t.co/GWT04cLgo1 pic.twitter.com/cgLVMCQEzK
— EA SPORTS FIFA (@EASPORTSFIFA) June 5, 2017
The world’s game fueled by the world’s best #FIFA18 @Cristiano
Ronaldo Edition https://t.co/LWJm5OBw2e pic.twitter.com/7vQseYcY1i
— EA SPORTS FIFA (@EASPORTSFIFA) June 5, 2017
The iconic cover star slot, an honour formerly bestowed on rival Lionel Messi, meant that Ronaldo himself was keen to push the pre-release promos personally across his own channels.
“It is an honour to be on the cover of FIFA 18,” he commented. “It is an incredible feeling, I am thankful to have been chosen.”
While EA Sports FIFA senior developer Aaron McHardy added: “The best player in the world has helped us to come on in leaps and bounds on the pitch. We are thrilled to be able to count on Ronaldo, as working with him has helped us learn about his unique style of play and understand what makes him so special. “His passion, energy and international fame makes Cristiano Ronaldo the best ambassador that FIFA 18 could have”.
Choosing Ronaldo for this year’s cover slot seems a sensible choice. Not only is he the reigning FIFA Men’s Player of the Year and the winner of this year’s UEFA Champions League and the Spanish title, but he also scored his 100th European goal this season (the first player ever to do so) and he also has the biggest social media reach of any sports star with 200 million+ followers.
To create the commercial, EA recorded data relating to Ronaldo’s acceleration, run cadence, skills, and shooting techniques during a recent training session in Madrid to ‘bring veracity to his likeness and personality in FIFA 18’.
The Ronaldo-led first teaser was swiftly followed by the roll out of the follow-up official gameplay trailer, ‘The World’s Game’, which dropped ahead of the brand’s own annual ‘EA Play’ (which this year took place on 10 to 12 June).
These were further supported by additional trailers such as ‘Fut Icons’,
and ‘The Journey’.
All these trailers drive pre-ordering and those who pre-order the Ronaldo Edition of FIFA 18 on PS4, Xbox One, or PC not only get access to the game three days early, but also get $60 worth of additional content.
While EA Access and Origin members get up to 10 hours of play time starting Sept. 21.
FIFA 18 will be available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 systems.
Activative Comment:
FIFA was the best-selling console game of 2016, according to EA Sports’ own results, with more than 10 million people playing game’s new story mode,
And you know a product release is a big deal when its launch trailer racks up 16m views on Facebook and 5.5m on YouTube, plus a further 700k on Instagram (not to mention another 3.7m likes on Ronaldo’s own Instagram feed) within its first week
The fact that EA leveraged its online and physical live events within the core launch campaign is a clear sign of the general direction the business is moving.
At a packed late may event in Berlin, 32 skilled FIFA players competed to be crowned the best in the world at the ‘FIFA Ultimate Team (FUT) Championship’.
This pillar drives the company’s expanding competitive gaming strategy as it extends from being a gamesmaker to an eSports rights holder.
FIFA’s competitive gaming commissioner, Brent Koning, exudes enthusiasm for his role in “driving the competitive gaming strategy from the EA Sports studio” and he’s thrilled with EA’s FIFA eSports expansion.
“That step up really came down to a burning passion to competition from the community,” Brent told Goal from Berlin ahead of the finals, which take place across Friday and Saturday between 16 Xbox One specialists and 16 PS4 experts. “The pro community had really been looking for a way in-game to showcase their skill. What we’ve done with FIFA 17 is combine that in-game with our FUT Champions series.”
“We tend to look at it a bit like a pyramid,” explains FIFA’s competitive gaming commissioner Brent Koning.
“The casual players at the bottom of the pyramid, such as people playing on the couch together or online. As we grow it up you look at the people who play more seriously online. And as you continue to go up you see the best in the world.”
Brent’s boss is Todd Sitrin, senior vice-president and general manager of EA’s CGD, which he’s been running for 18 months. He thinks the key to EA’s success with FIFA 17’s venture into eSports is the game’s accessibility compared to existing industry success stories.
“In FIFA, you have a game that people already understand,” adds EA SVP Todd Sitrin.
“You have players on the field that they already have a relationship with. You have the teams that they’re already fans of. So it’s just natural that with FIFA we’d have a lot of success very quickly. We’ve just started down the road of achieving our mission statement, which is to make stars of all of our players. And that’s a really different type of vision with the key word being ‘all’ there.”
And, not to be ignored, long-time competitor Konami’s rival Pro Evolution Soccer franchise (which also put Ronaldo for the cover of its 2012 and 2013 editions) is also launching its promotional push with a tease campaign that unveils a debut in-game appearance from none other than global sprinting super star Usain Bolt.
"Anything Is Possible I Don't Think Limits" #PES2018 pic.twitter.com/CnajBle7VK
— Usain St. Leo Bolt (@usainbolt) June 13, 2017
Games Arena has put the trailers for two leading football games together in a head-to-head ‘FIFA 18 vs PES 2018 Trailer’ mash-up.
Links:
EA Sports FIFA
https://www.youtube.com/user/EAsportsfootball
https://www.facebook.com/easportsfifa
https://twitter.com/EASPORTSFIFA
https://www.instagram.com/easportsfifa/
