Report: Ubisoft Launching $10 Million Shaun White Ad Campaign

Ubisoft is promoting its upcoming titles with a massive $10 million ad push. The company bought all of the ad inventory for comedy show South Park's October 8th series premiere and will run ad spots for Shaun White Snowboarding, Prince of Persia and FarCry 2. "It's the first time they are going to see the game, so we wanted to give them a nice grasp of what it looks like," brand marketing associate director Danny Ruiz told BrandWeek, who reported extensively on the campaign. Ubisoft will run three separate two-minute spots for the games on the first premiere night, and run only Shaun White ads during the second episode. "This is a better alternative to running a bunch of 30-second ads that piss people off because they've seen them so many times," said Ruiz. According to BrandWeek, Ubi's mega ad push also will put Shaun White himself on ESPN shows on November 16th to talk about the game. Next, Ubi rolls out a "White Out" campaign across several Viacom channels including MTV, Spike and Comedy Central, taking them over at 10:00 PM with snowy screens and airings of the game trailer. The report says Ubisoft will also run ads during NFL games and the show Family Guy, and run print spreads in athletic magazines that offer Shaun White-themed snowboarding decals. Finally, White's sponsor Burton Snowboards has created a film called "It's Always Snowing Somewhere, and its showings during the film's 10-city theatrical tour will begin with -- you guessed it -- Shaun White Snowboarding ad spots.