Modern Warfare 2 Suffering from Lack of Brand Awareness
The dropping of the Call of Duty title from Modern Warfare 2 may have looked like a good idea at first, but it now seems this wasn’t as great as first thought.
According to tracking firm OTX, Modern Warfare 2 has lost a considerable chunk of brand awareness by dropping the Call of Duty moniker. OTX has said that Activision may damage retail chances by up to 20%. Nick Williams, of OTX, had this to say:
“Up until the beginning of May, OTX had been tracking the title as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. More specifically, we asked a representative group of gamers in the U.S. whether or not they had heard of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.”
He continued with this:
“At that time, approximately 40 percent of all gamers in the U.S. claimed that they had heard of this title. However, once it became clear that Activision was positioning the title as Modern Warfare 2, OTX removed ‘Call of Duty’ from the consumer survey, and the awareness levels dropped to 20 percent. In other words, the Call of Duty brand association essentially doubles the awareness for the game. That is quite a remarkable statistic.”
Recently, Activision made a statement that they would drop support for all PlayStation platforms, unless a PS3 price drop was made. You can read about that story here.
[Source]
13 Responses to “Modern Warfare 2 Suffering from Lack of Brand Awareness”
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June 24th, 2009 at 6:04 PM
Hah, serves you right Activision.
June 24th, 2009 at 6:07 PM
Bah this is exagerated. Nobody that plays COD doesn’t know about MW2.
June 24th, 2009 at 6:09 PM
I actually want to see OTX get proven wrong.
June 24th, 2009 at 6:18 PM
yep, thats modern warfare for you. Firing the Desert Eagle at speeds that could break your arm off or running while firing a 50cal Barrett Regardless, i think its exaggerated. Everyone knows MW is COD unless your new and chances are someone told you. This is just a weak attempt to burn it into players head threw the media.
June 24th, 2009 at 6:41 PM
I believe they will be putting the ‘Call of Duty’ name back into it…this was probably just a test by Activision/Infinity Ward to see if they could get away from the CoD moniker.
June 24th, 2009 at 7:19 PM
Hmm interesting, Now for sale Call of Duty crabcakes.
June 24th, 2009 at 8:00 PM
This is just absurd.
Jeneric Says:
June 24th, 2009 at 6:07 PM
Bah this is exagerated. Nobody that plays COD doesn’t know about MW2.
Your absolutely right. This game will be game of the year like the previous title.
June 24th, 2009 at 8:17 PM
Does not matter what they call it I still am getting MAG over this title… If Prototype is any indication as to what the graphics will be like then I will be waiting for MAG. I will also see if either beta or Demo will be available to see how it really looks.
June 24th, 2009 at 9:24 PM
What I find baffling is that companies and marketing departments spend most of their energy trying to CREATE a recognizable brand. What were they thinking with this bone-headed move? I’m guessing that someone in charge has a kid freshly graduated from Harvard business… They suggested this during his first week on the job – it can be the only explanation…
I game a lot (but I don’t play CoD) and I didn’t notice the new title until last week. I just kept seeing it called “the new CoD” in forums and didn’t realize they dropped the “CoD” part. Brand confusion is ALWAYS bad.
June 24th, 2009 at 9:36 PM
@capt.fodder,
Agreed. It’s very confusing, but i think it has more to do with Infinity Ward not liking Treyarch’s take on the series. This effectively makes COD a different franchise from the Modern Warfare one in their minds.
But like Matt said, they can always backtrack and add the “Call of Duty” moniker back on before the game releases, and just claim it was an advertising decision. Nothing else.
June 25th, 2009 at 4:56 AM
Whoever doenst know about Modern Warfare 2 probably doenst know about COD4.
June 25th, 2009 at 4:58 AM
Just joking but seriously COD4 was great and if u liked it u keapt track of future titles, if u dont u get left behind and MW2 will by pass u… Sad really by removing COD from the name and a great game gets lost!
July 9th, 2009 at 5:09 PM
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