To understand how Peter Moore is going to make you want an Xbox 360, you have to travel to a littered parking lot on the lower east side of Manhattan. A pack of kids and a BMX biker are jumping rope, double-Dutch style. As he walks near the jumpers, Moore says, “Please tell me there are no shiny happy people here,†a reference to the typical Microsoft advertising campaign that features clean-cut, smiling models.
Moore is visiting the set of the first television spot for Xbox 360, part of the largest Microsoft marketing campaign since the Rolling Stones serenaded Windows 95 with “Start Me Up.†It’s also a spot that “has the corporate marketing guys shrugging their shoulders,†Moore says, sitting in a director’s chair. “This is about taking an industry and hauling it, by the scruff of the neck, from young teenage males playing endless hours of time-killing games and bringing it into the living room.â€
Moore has banned technology from the commercial. He ripped up earlier storyboards for computer-graphic-heavy ads deemed “too PlayStation.†Instead, the TV campaign is supposed to evoke childhood memories of playing with friends. “The idea is, if you aren’t involved you’re missing something,†he says. To be cool, in other words, you have to be part of the Xbox gang.
