Sharing is scaring
You can see why the creative team thought of it. It is, in fact, the most obvious answer to the question "How do we promote a game called Hitman via social media?" You can even understand why the agency seemed blind to the potential backlash, given that they'd done the exact same thing before and won an award for it.
In 2008, digital agency Ralph created The Dexter Hit List:
"Do you have a friend who deserves to be on the Dexter death list? Then send them a video that'll convince them a copycat killer wants them dead when all their personal details turn up at a police press conference. You even get the starring role as the killer in the video."
Sound familiar? That earned them two million views, a crapload of free press and a BIMA Gold for Best Viral. Oh, and it was a rehash of their Dexter viral from the year before when you could send a friend the message YOU ARE NEXT written in blood.
Sometimes going back to the well works wonders. This time? Not so much.
While some people might say the idea was doomed from the start, I'm going to humbly suggest Ralph fucked it up in the execution. The success of the Dexter ads shows there's clearly some tolerance for tongue-in-cheek death threats. Their mistake with Hitman was adding cyber-bully extras mocking targets for their "small tits", "strange odour" and "annoying laugh". That's not remotely clever. That's just cruel.
- Graham
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