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News

  UK Gov't Intelligence Agency To Advertise On Xbox Live
by Leigh Alexander
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November 20, 2009
 
UK Gov't Intelligence Agency To Advertise On Xbox Live
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MI5 and MI6-linked UK government intelligence organization GCHQ hopes to attract new recruits by reaching out to them with an Xbox Live advertising campaign.

According to a report in the UK Guardian, the organization's six-week ad campaign aims at the 18 to 34 demographic. It draws parallels between skills and experience required in gameplay -- like "quick thinking, problem solving and team work" -- and those required to work with GCHQ.

Ads will run on Xbox Live's Dashboard and in-game, through streamed video banners, according to the report, and it can be inferred that UK government job ads will run in the UK only.

GCHQ describes its work as "helping government departments, such as the Ministry of Defense, to protect their information and communication systems," but concedes that many individuals who would make good candidates are unfamiliar with the details of the organization.

"Using video on Xbox Live helps carry our message to the right people in a creative and innovative manner," a GCHQ spokesperson explains.

The report also notes that the organization has run an ad campaign once before with Microsoft in 2007 that was limited to PC online games.
 
   
 
Comments

Walter Lippmann
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How interesting.

You know, I saw an MI6 ad -- alongside ads from think tanks, university programs, and the like -- in a recent issue of Foreign Affairs. But that is an infinitely more relevant place to advertise than Xbox Live.

I just don't understand what GCHQ is expecting to find from the morass of overweight, cheeto-inhaling 14-year-olds-who-love-to-talk-smack that is Xbox Live. Are they hoping people will have played Splinter Cell and thought that it was pretty cool?

And why not advertise on the PS3 as well?

Kimberly Unger
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I can see the connection here, the thought processes that go along with gameplaying, the out of the box thinking that can be engendered by a logical approach to games (not, perhaps, so much the trigger-finger reflexes, but the kind of thinking that finds ways to beat problems that the devs may not have thought of... You *know* you're seen these things show up in playtesting, where the player jinks right instead of left and gets the drop on the baddie before it aggros). I think they're going to have a high ratio of unqualified applicants, but they may reach some people they might otherwise have missed.


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