I chose to evaluate the ad campaign for the world of Warcraft’s Cataclysm that was released on Dec. 7, 2010, as an avid World of Warcraft player I thought this would be fun to do! First I will link to you the official website I have looked at for this ad campaign seeing as the homepage of it is the ad campaign for it. www.worldofwarcraft.com/cataclysm

The most common aspect I noticed in all the visual elements (this uses screenshots, graphics, and videos for their ad campaign) is dragons, Fire, and the color red. This would definitely make sense. In Cataclysm the lore is Deathwing returns (Deathwing is a dragon who destroys the world by fire so using dragons, fire and red definitely would be smart on their aspect) even some of the font is in a dark blood red color, some of the fire is very animated like on the homepage.  Blizzard entertainment always has an interesting way of doing their ad campaign’s but it keeps people interested in their current games and wanting the expansion packs.

In World of Warcraft there are 12 million subscribers (This fact might seem irrelevant, but important at the same time) and if Blizzard entertainment did not do interesting ad campaigns for the upcoming expansion packs I doubt they would get anywhere near having as many members as they do at the moment, the number is on the rise every day more and more subscribers join the game. The ad campaign for cataclysm is great because it deals with the story and fits the story perfectly about a dragon that wakes up after a thousand years to destroy the world of Azeroth (the name of the world of Warcraft’s world). They portray this perfectly in the trailer they created for this ad campaign. I think the main thing I would change is I would show the dragon flying above the ground and burning it, innocent people dying in the process because I am sure people died because of the dragon (though this has not been reported in any of the lore behind it.) There is so much behind the game. Behind the lore of cataclysm that it would take me an entire book to list every reason why I feel this ad campaign fits. I am providing the link to find more about Deathwing so that you may see what I mean for yourself:  http://www.wowwiki.com/Deathwing

Overall, I feel that this is the best ad campaign Blizzard entertainment has done, it shows you what is going on, explains in grave detail the powers, when I look at the campaign I can almost feel the emotions, the power, the fear course through my veins. This gives a sense of realism even though it is not, and makes me crave it even more. This is what makes for a good ad campaign. The dragons, the fire, the explanation of the story…are what make this a complete campaign.