These days, there's a lot of focus testing activities that happen online. It's great for marketeers, because we can set them up fast, get nearly instantateous results directly from the the type of people we're trying to reach and (most importantly) they're cheap. Well, relatively cheap, as we don't have to pay for one of those rooms with the one-way mirrors. Recently, Capcom did an online focus test of some potential Street Fighter IV ads, and a naughty, naughty testee grabbed screen shots of the images and sent them to Kotaku. Bad all around, guys -- the person taking part in the test shouldn't have done that and Kotaku really shouldn't have run them on their site. Our marketing guys were upset at first, only to have some of the sting taken out of the letdown by noting the generally postive comments that were being posted. Vindication never tasted so bittersweet. Or something.

Edge Online (must quit calling it Next Gen) also likes the SFIV ads! In an article entitled "Street Fighter IV Advertising Punching Above It's Weight," Thom Dinsdale refers to the marketing concepts as "an entertaining and remarkable print campaign," even going on to say "The ingenuity of these particular examples may also be unprecendented within the print medium." I don't know about all that fancy talk, but I know that I liked quite a few of the concepts that have been bouncing around internally. Thom has more to say on the ads, but some people around here are gonna be impossible to live with if I blog anymore praise (looking at you, Grant), so go check it out for yourself.