Entertainment and video games have often crossed over during the various videogame eras that have followed one another over the decades. Successful sportsmen have frequently lent their faces and performances to promote the various video games of soccer, basketball, American
football, as well as many famous actors have appeared in various now memorable commercials.
With this small ranking we want to remind you of just a few of these incredible advertisements, with characters that were already very popular at the time or would soon become so. Let's discover together ten crazy commercials that have remained in the collective imagination of all videogamers!
In the 90s SEGA was at the peak of success after Master System and with MegaDrive on the launch pad. In our country at the time it was Giochi Preziosi to distribute the well-known Japanese brand directly and exclusively: the group, founded by the current president of Genoa Calcio, has even come to represent the fourth world distributor of games after Hasbro, Mattel and LEGO. Enrico Preziosi certainly did not skimp on advertising expenses (about 70 billion lire a year on private networks), and it was precisely an image man of those years who helped to make SEGA and its consoles famous, the legendary Jerry Calà ! His phrases are very famous, which still echo in the ears of many nostalgic enthusiasts: "lust!", "Double lust" and "lust with bows" were a must of the time. And, of course, with the famous final gloss "Ocio, however, are Giochi Preziosi!"
9 - Zelda
The story behind these famous commercials is almost touching. A young Robin Williams called his daughter "Zelda", as confirmed by himself years later, precisely because of his great passion for the Link and Princess saga.
Nintendo could not miss the opportunity to use their faces and their performances to advertise the company and the game itself, which succeeded on Nintendo 3DS many years later with a remastered edition. In the video of the late Robin we see the Hollywood actor playing together with his daughter at Miyamoto's masterpiece, exclaiming at the end a sweet "welcome back my friend!", Since Ocarina of Time was previously released in 1998. of the most famous commercials of recent years, which aired all over the world to celebrate Nintendo and the Zelda saga starting in 2011.
SEGA had signed the "King" of the Italian comedies but the historical rival Nintendo certainly wasn't watching, hiring the "Prince" of rap at the time, a certain Lorenzo Cherubini. Rising star of Italian music, Jovanotti had just returned from a successful season from Aquafan in Riccione and Radio Deejay, where he often found himself presenting while creating his first albums. He was already a much loved character, especially by children and young adolescents who represented the target audience that Nintendo was primarily targeting. We remember him in the legendary Ninja Turtles "Christmas game" advertisement, but also in the Super Mario Bros one where he confirmed that he was one of the most loved boys by the female audience.
7 - Pitfall
In 1982 Nintendo and SEGA had yet to emerge from the primordial soup of the first mass hardware manufacturers. At the time, the rulers of the scene were Intellivision and Atari, as well as many other companies trying to enter the world of video games. It was Atari who, to advertise his famous console "2600", hired an actor little more than a child for a famous commercial on his console and Pitfall, the flagship title in 1982. They could not have known that that boy, many years later, would be became a Hollywood icon and pop star: it was a skinny little Jack Black who opened that famous ad.
6 - Target & NES
It was 1998 and "Target" was already one of the hottest large-scale distribution companies in
the United States: together with WalMart and Kmart they were responsible for more than half of video game sales in all US states. It was no coincidence that during the holiday season of that year, Target chose to advertise the Nintendo Entertainment System that was rampant around the world, it was simply the flagship product of Christmas. The company chose a truly unexpected testimonial albeit grandly famous and perfectly in line with the Christmas spirit, namely the immense Aretha Franklin. Suffice it to say that between the previous year and the holidays of 1988, the singer was the first woman to enter the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and win a Grammy Award for best female R&B performance. Nintendo and Aretha Franklin represented a duo that many Americans still remember with pleasure today.
5 - Battletanx
We want to tell you about one of our favorite commercials, which at the time N64 saw the protagonist not a actor or singer on the crest of the wave but ... a very famous puppet: the "Coccolino" of softeners. The reference to the fictional character was obviously not officially declared, but evident enough to be perceived by all. The mythical Coccolino was very famous all over the world after a German subsidiary of Unilever created "Kuschelweich", a teddy bear that inspired tenderness and softness. The name was changed abroad (fortunately) and became known in a short time, also generating a series of commercials for the Nintendo 64 video game BattleTanx, where the cute teddy bear is first destroyed by a tank, then recovered by a team of scientists who transform it into a sort of Cyber-Plush (look for the rest of this spot on youtube!).
4 - Atari 2600
Back in 1981 Atari was an incredible commercial powerhouse, so much so that it could afford the luxury of hiring three absolute stars of world sport to advertise its "2600" console. If before we saw a young Jack Black having fun with Pitfall, this time an Atari advertisement was centered on three already ultra-famous characters all over the world: none other than Pele, basketball player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Formula 1 driver Mario Andretti. Obviously, no introductions are needed for the first character. For those not accustomed to basketball, on the other hand, just think that Abdul-Jabbar at the time had already been the undisputed star of the Los Angeles Lakers for several years, and together with Kobe Bryant, Magic Johnson and Shaquille O'Neal they will be the only ones to enter the Hall of Fame. as an NBA seasonal MVP. Mario Andretti, on the other hand, was racing in F1 with the Alfa Romeo team after also passing by Ferrari and Lotus, an absolute star along with Prost, Mansell, Patrese and Villeneuve.
They didn't remember so many stars put together to advertise a video game since 1981, the year in which the aforementioned Atari commercial saw light. Much later it was Activision and Blizzard who "massively" sponsored their creature World of Warcraft, with a series of crazy characters that appeared on TV and on the web. The advertisements for the first edition of the hugely popular role-playing game starred Jean Claude Van Damme, Ozzy Osbourne, Mr. T, Mr. Bean and even Chuck Norris, an actor who has become a real living meme of our days. The World of Warcraft commercials have made the history of this video game and of the way to advertise the media itself.
2 - Megadrive, MasterSystem and GameGear
Let's go back to our beautiful country to remind all the children of the 80s a series of commercials that aired during their teens. Jerry Calà was not the only testimonial that Giochi Preziosi paid to promote SEGA: at the time there were also other commercials that even saw the current coach of the Italian national team as protagonists, Roberto Mancini under Sampdoria and Walter Zenga, icon of Inter. The two actually shared some television sketches also with Gianluigi Lentini, at the time a bomber in the national team and registered with Turin and Milan at the time. Let's remember them in these wonderful commercials, light-hearted and carefree just like the time they came out on TV.
1 - Cyberpunk 2077
Let's take a quick leap forward talking about a very recent commercial that has aroused a lot of media hype and from which we were inspired precisely to roll out this special top10. After presenting the Cyberpunk 2077 press conference event at E3 2019 and lending himself in "digital" to appear in the awaited CD Projekt video game, it was Keanu Reeves who lent himself to appear in the spot aired on October 1st 2020 during Game 1 of the NBA Final between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Miami Heat. The TV commercial with the Hollywood star was as unexpected as it was disruptive: Keanu's "second youth" and his recent return to big box office performances made him even more popular than before. Cyberpunk 2077 couldn't have had a better testimonial than him.
