Scoring a double whammy with the elusive young male demographic, Vivendi Universal Games bundled the first-ever Microsoft Xbox game demo with The Hulk DVD release.
“In terms of demographic, it matches up really well because the film wanted to skew an older crowd by using tactics that would appeal to that traditional 18-34 male DVD-buying audience,” explains Chandra Hill, spokesperson for Vivendi Universal Games. “We chose Xbox because it has the oldest demographic for gaming systems — 26- to 28-year-old males. This was an opportunity to showcase a game that had great appeal on a casual level — it had a nice pick-up-and-play value to it.”
The DVD dropped in stores in late October, and consumers picking up the double disc were rewarded with a DVD that they could place in their Xbox system to test out an entire level of The Hulk video game. “It was really neat to be the first to put out a demo of this kind; in many ways we were a guinea pig,” Hill says.
Vivendi Universal Games avoided additional replication and licensing fees, by using DVDs for all promotional content, not gaming disks.
The 5 million bonus DVDs also included exclusive behind-the-scenes film content complete with never-before-seen deleted scenes; an inside look at the creation of the film; a glimpse into the technology that brought the Hulk from the comic book pages to the big screen; commentary by director Ang Lee and other bonus content. This was the first dual bootable disk of its kind, and was made possible by custom code developed by Microsoft Xbox at the request of Vivendi Universal Games.
“We conducted a lot of testing with focus groups and asked which features were important — my understanding is that the opportunity to demo a video game definitely ranked within the top five most requested features,” Hill says.
Listening to consumer focus groups paid off as sales of the DVD continued to climb. In September, before the October promotion dropped, 2,300 game units were sold. Another 4,100 units sold in November after the promotion launched, resulting in a 16% sales increase.
To call attention to the bonus Xbox demo, The Hulk DVD packaging featured the Xbox logo and mentioned the playable demo on-pack. Five million packages featured a Hulk booklet with other merchandise and a $5 mail-in incentive, whereby consumers could send in a receipt and the Hulk game insert to receive cash back on the purchase of any Hulk game title. Retailers also called attention to the demo by way of in-store P-O-P displays.
In order to generate consumer awareness for the bonus DVD, all three partners actively pitched the first-ever playable demo to core publications. Vivendi Universal Games secured coverage on a number of game sites (ign.com, gamespot.com and gamepro.com) and publications; Universal Home Entertainment reached out to general publications with DVD news sections; and Microsoft took on the technology publications and sites.
Vivendi Universal Gamesplans on packing additional muscle, in the form of game demos, into future DVD releases of Van Helsing and The Chronicles of Riddick.
According to Hill, “We plan to add value and extra content, such as bonus features, with future DVD promotions to stimulate more sales and trial.”
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