Boxing fans around the world, and myself included, have been eagerly awaiting the release of the latest installment of the Fight Night series of games by EA sports. EA is no stranger to building hype around the release of their games, and has often used sites such as YouTube for sending out sneak preview clips to tantalise gaming fans and create extra hype to boost sales. I have to take my hat off to there most recent marketing strategy however, as used the excitment around the Hatton vs Pacquiao fight to generate traffic and links to their website. This is a strategy known to online marketing experts as a ‘link bait’.

A link bait is a useful, entertaining, creative web content or web tool that encourages website owners to link to it.

The video above shows a video of Fight Night round 4, which is due for release on the 20th June (which coincides with the Haye vs Klitcshko fight), and they simulated the upcoming fight between Manny Pacquiao and Ricky Hatton. The fight ends in round 11 with a Pacquiao winning by knockout! This is very similar to the concept used in ‘Rocky Balboa’ where experts simulate a fight between Rocky and the current heavyweight champ Mason Dixon (played by Antonio Tarver).

I think this concept is fantastic. EA have used the current events around this years superfight to launch their game. Because of the nature of the video, it effectively acts as a viral campaign which has spread throughout all the social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. In turn they will have received 1000s of links and I would imagine a huge amount of traffic. As well as getting current fans of the series excited, it also exposes it to people who will never have heard of Fight Night before, and I would be surprised if they were failed to be impressed by the in game graphics. EA – I tip my cap to you!