Ubisoft Pays For Influencers To Travel To LA, Visit Disneyland As Part Of ‘Star Wars Outlaws’ Marketing Campaign
A new report has revealed that, in an ostensible attempt to elicit favorable fan coverage from, Ubisoft is spending big to on the ‘online influencer’ angle of their Star Wars Outlaws marketing campaign.
The depths of Ubisoft’s wallet in regards to promoting their upcoming Star Wars game were first brought to light courtesy of German video game and sci-fi YouTuber Cyberpunk 20xx.
His curiosity piqued both by Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot’s declaration during the company’s Q1 2024 earnings report that Star Wars Outlaws would have the “biggest marketing campaign ever so far for a Ubisoft game,” as well as recent accusations being floated on media that some online content creators had been “bought by Ubisoft”, Cyberpunk 20xx began looking into just how effective inflating the game’s marketing budget had worked out for it.
To this end, said YouTuber’s initial investigation revealed that, between himself, a number of his fellow YouTubers, and everyone’s respective audiences, far fewer knew that Star Wars Outlaws was launching at the end of August than the game’s marketing budget would suggest.
However, after watching a video from fellow German creator Kartoffel König in which he revealed that he had not only been “invited by Ubisoft to come to Los Angeles and spend a few hours in Star Wars Outlaws for a few hours”, but while there also spent “a day at Disneyland”, Cyberpunk 20xx proceeded to turn his attentions away from standard news and video coverage and instead began searching out vlogs related to said event, as in his logic, “because someone who is invited to Los Angeles, will surely have made a blog about it.”
Lo and behold, in doing so, Cyberpunk 20xx that not only had Ubisoft hosted a number of influencers for this Star Wars Outlaw promotional event, but that those who were invited were treated to such amenities as a “whale watching tour“, a “VIP tour at Disneyland“, and having their flights and hotels completely paid for.
“You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand that when a company puts a lot of money into something, it will of course only do so if it benefits from it,” argued the YouTuber. “This of course, this is not done out of charity, as we all know that business is not that good. Nevertheless, one cannot speak here of buying opinions, but rather of an attempt to influence.”
“Whether, and if so how well, this works depends on many factors,” he continued. “So, if you want to know whether a creator has been influenced, you have to take some time and look at his stuff. You should usually get a pretty good feel for whether someone is influenced or not. But yes, the bad taste remains, whether you like it or not. That’s why professional journalists and media categorically reject such things and pay for their own travel, accommodation and meals.”
Cyberpunk 20xx then declared, “This is obviously not the end of Ubisoft’s strategy.”
“Ubisoft has bought advertising from many content creators, not the usual placements at the beginning or in the middle of the video, but or in the middle of the video, but entire videos,” he asserted. “In return, of course paid for according to the reach and clicks achieved. There are a lot of figures that are buzzing around, but we’re talking quite decent amounts. We’re not necessarily talking about peanuts here.”
Ultimately, what this means for players is, as noted by Cyberpunk20xx, it’s important to always vet the individuals from who they get their information, lest they end up being taken for a ride by someone who would trade their integrity for a few days of all-expenses-paid fun.
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