Topic: EA Ends Relationship with SEE Advertising

[Bloodworth]

New advertising partner to be announced in coming weeks.

EA and SEE Advertising End Long-Term Relationship; SEE Finishes Strong with EA's Winter Advertising

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 17, 2005--Electronic Arts (NASDAQ:ERTS) today stated that after more than ten years of partnership with SEE, they will not be renewing their contract with the agency after it expires March 31, 2005. EA will continue to work with SEE on its winter lineup of titles, including EA SPORTS(TM) Fight Night Round 2, NBA STREET V3, MVP Baseball(TM) 2005 and EA's PSP(TM) launch titles, amongst others.

"SEE has been a major part of EA's history and has worked closely with us to grow EA's brands and business into what they are today. We are appreciative of their contributions over the past ten years" said Carolyn Feinstein Vice President of Marketing Communications, EA. "We would recommend SEE to anyone who appreciates the intimacy of a close agency partnership and the strategic vision that comes with that."

EA will announce a new agency of record in the coming weeks, it is not open for bid.

[nickmitch]

Quote
"We would recommend SEE to anyone who appreciates the intimacy of a close agency partnership and the strategic vision that comes with that."

So EA doesn't appreciate SEE?

[NWR_Lindy]

In other words, "We're dumping this ad agency, but we don't want to make them look too bad, so we'll throw them a bone in our press release."

At this rate, EA is probably starting their own ad agency.  Or they just bought one.

silks

[Hostile Creation]

They want blind, broad, autonomous advertising, not a "close agency partnership."

[Shin Gallon]

Given their recent habit of just buying out all their competitors, they probably don't see the need to advertise as much. I'm officially adopting a hostile attitude towards them and will try to dissuade anyone I know from buying any of their games.

[Infernal Monkey]

EA could release a game called "MCDONALDS HAS HAMBURGERS" where the game is nothing more than a fake loading screen with a McDonalds ad. When the little bar reaches the top, it starts all over again. They could charge $80 US for it. It would sell.

[TheYoungerPlumber]

Quote
Originally posted by: Silks
At this rate, EA is probably starting their own ad agency.  Or they just bought one.

That's exactly what I was thinking.  They could mooch off of their sweethearts at USC and hire USC film graduates for an ultra-hip advert team.
 

[VideoGamerJ]

It's becoming more and more evident that Electronic Arts are going to be a big factor in bastardizing the future of electronic video games. If you thought it was bad now, just think about next generation. At least EA is being somewhat fair and unbiased in the console race. While their development staff may lean torward one particular console, if they were to pull their lineup from a specific console (say GameCube in this case, well being it's low 3rd party sales), it would kill the console. That's very dangerous.

Okay, so that was completely irrelevant. I find it funny that EA is doing press announcements of their advertising.

[Shin Gallon]

Infernal Monkey: Awesome, your icon is by one of my favorite artists, I love his stuff : )
And yes, they probably COULD sell a "game" just like that...