Marketing of Halo 3 - Development

Development

Jerret West, a global group product manager from Microsoft, said at a marketing conference that Halo 3's marketing team had a mandate from Microsoft executive Peter Moore: "Don't screw up." Much of the marketing organization was handled by Microsoft's former corporate vice president of global marketing, Jeff Bell. A key challenge the team identified early on was that core gamers knew the game was coming out, but there was "a perception problem... we wanted to invite people into the console and into Xbox 360 and to play Halo 3 as a mass-market entertainment product," according to product manager Chris Lee. Since Halo 3 was released as an Xbox 360 exclusive, part of the marketing push was to sell more Xbox consoles, which had encountered sluggish sales.

Microsoft planned advertising and promotions to appeal to both casual and hardcore gamers in a five-pronged marketing strategy. The first stage was to kick off marketing via a television commercial. The second stage was a beta test of the game to drive preorders and press attention. The third stage was the start of an alternate reality game. The fourth phase was partner promotions, capped off with a final advertising campaign, titled "Believe".

Though Microsoft used forms of viral marketing for promotion (including the alternate reality game or ARG), the main focus of the company's efforts was traditional media outlets. Because there already was interest in the title among the gaming community, Microsoft did not feel the need to run a social media campaign, instead banking on the gaming community to spread the word itself. The focus on traditional media would help expand the fan base beyond established gamers and convince the public that the game was a cultural milestone. To build public interest, Microsoft made public statements that Halo 3 would surpass media sales records, including the July 2007 record of $166 million set by the launch of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Microsoft's target was to sell 1.5 million copies of the game. Marketing research suggested that the "Halo faithful" could only be counted on to buy 75% of that amount, meaning that 375,000 copies would have to be sold to non-fans. Thus marketing goals were to attract an audience beyond the Halo nation, and to break sales records; in short, to "make Halo 3 a true cultural phenomenon". The team upped their goals to not only selling the target number of copies, but making Halo 3 the biggest entertainment launch ever.