MI6, the association dedicated to supporting marketing, promotion and advertising professionals in the video game and interactive entertainment community, hosted a festive awards show to honor the best marketing work in the video game industry, wrapping up the action-packed fifth annual MI6 Conference. Comedian Ryan Stout hosted the evening and kept the crowd laughing. Assassin’s Creed 2 took home the most gold with seven MI6 Awards, including the highly competitive “Outstanding Overall Integrated Marketing Campaign” award.“The winning work featured at this year’s MI6 Awards showcased how game marketers are creatively leading while strategically adapting to the shifting media landscape,” said Jonathan Block-Verk, President and CEO of MI6. “This community is driving the growth of the game industry by expanding the reach and definition of gaming, while continuing to appeal to the traditional gaming audience.”
In addition to Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed 2 picking up seven gold awards, Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles and NBA 2K10 were each awarded four gold Awards. Award categories include everything from “Outstanding Promotional Trailer,” to “Best Swag,” to “Most Effective Buzz Creation.” The full list of MI6 Award winners can be found here.
The 2010 MI6 Conference was buzzing all day with over 400 top marketing executives from the industry. A keynote presentation from Senior Vice President of Marketing and PlayStation Network at Sony Computer Entertainment America Peter Dille kicked off the event. Dille discussed how PlayStation is ready for 3D and how the company is “Redefining the Digital Living Room,” which was the title of his presentation. Additional panels and speakers featured heavy hitters including Rich Hilleman, Chief Creative Director of Electronic Arts; David Perry, CEO of Gaikai.com; Mark Skaggs, Vice President of Product Development at Zynga; and Ed Ulbrich, President, Commercials Division and Corporate Executive Vice President at Digital Domain.
Also this year, game consumers had the opportunity to weigh in on which game had the best marketing campaign of 2009, answering the question: “The MI6 Game Marketing Conference wants to know: Which of these games did you most want to buy last year?” More than 11,000 readers of MI6 co-sponsor IGN.com cast their votes and selected Killzone 2 with 43% of the vote as the winner. To see the full results of the poll, visit www.mi6conference.com.