You will have seen them by now, frolicking by the pool, indulging in two-player DS action while trading light-hearted insults. The Vernon and Tess ad for Guitar Hero is the centre piece of Nintendo's summer TV blitz, a mainstream-targeted charm offensive that also features Zoe and Johnnie Ball tackling Sight Training, and Patrick Stewart bickering over More Brain Training with Julie Walters.
So what are Mr Kay and wife doing as the televised faces of the rhythm action series? Speaking to MCV recently, Activision brand manager, Ian McCellan explained, "Vernon Kay and Tess Daly had a great fit with the game - cool, fun, energetic and very mainstream. Our primary audience are 10 to 16-year-olds and both Vernon and Tess are very well known and liked throughout this age group."
What he doesn't mention is the way in which the relationship forms the focal point of the ad, not the game. It's the same with the other adverts in the series (and the earlier versions which appeared at the end of last year), all of them based around warm, playful friendships in which the handheld console becomes a social/conversational facilitator. The message is, games aren't something you slope off to do in private, they're something to be shared. They're normal.
The ads are also interesting in their use of a documentary-style presentation - they appear unscripted and 'natural', as though we're peeping into private moments, as though Patrick Stewart and Julie Walters really do share a love of brain training software. With the Guitar Hero one, there's an extra layer of interest - it purports to offer a glimpse, however awkward and contrived, into the married life of two attractive celebs. Add in the poolside setting, a familiar element of the paparazzi holiday snap, and you have an ad for a videogame employing the semiotics of a gossip mag expose.
I wonder if this is the future of game advertising? Instead of mimicking movie trailers, which publishers have always done in the past (but which completely dehumanises the experience), perhaps it's all about actually showing people playing games. It's sort of a new area for celebrity endorsement. Sure, a while ago film ads started to capture the reactions of cinema-goers as they left auditoriums, but celebs are rarely shown properly interacting with the products they're pushing - we may see Davina McCall gabbing away to her mum about Garnier Nutrisse, but we're certainly not going to see her leaning over the sink squirting the stuff into her bedraggled hair.
It says something, perhaps, that games work in this way - they form a natural and believable part of relationships, we can believe that celebs do actually play them - even Nicole Kidman. Ubisoft has caught on of course, with its Fern Cotton/Holly Willoughby ad. Will others follow?
