Mass Effect 2 viral ad attracts 100 applications

Marketing for Mass Effect 2 is in full swing

Electronic Arts (EA) Australia is claiming a win for its viral marketing campaign for its upcoming gaming title, Mass Effect 2. The company received about 100 ‘applications’ for a fake advertisement offering positions as “Biotic Powered Super Soliders”.

EA, via its marketing agency Razor, posted a job ad on Seek.com.au asking for candidates for a “team of elite assassins to join the fight for mankind”.

Senior product manager at EA Australia, Justin Olivares, said a combination of the game’s audience demographics, story and characters had lead to the viral campaign.

“Our audience is males between 16 and 34 and these guys live online,” he said. “These guys are tapped into viral, mobile and online. We let a few people know about [the viral campaign] and it just took off. The [game's] community was all over it.”

Olivares said the ad had received 12,000 views and about 100 applications in just over two hours before Seek requested that it be taken down.

“There’s a lot of tongue in cheek, but it is all part of the fiction of the game,” he said. “[The fans] know this product and the story of Mass Effect and they are playing along with it, just as any Star Wars or Star Trek fan would.”

The company has posted some of the job applications on a related blog, with one applicant claiming to be literally born for the role of Biotic Powered Super Solider.

“By the age of five I was conversant in 12 intergalactic dialects, including the most universal of them all: physical force,” the application reads. “Chuck Norris was my mentor, until I bested him in one on one combat at the age of nine. Since this time I have been honing my skill with physical and mental weaponry.”

Another, described himself as proficient with more than 200 forms of weaponry and five styles of unarmed combat.

“I don’t think I am perfect for the position you currently have open, I know it,” the application reads. “You have three standard days to reply with positive confirmation or I will find you and I will take my job from your cold dead hands.”

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