The viral spiral marketing campaign for Spore has gone into full swing with only five short days until Will Wright's latest creation ... er, creation hits shelves. Billboards, bush shelter ads, and complete be-stickering of public places (Harvard Square shown above) are being spotted, and our buddies at Big Download are keeping track of them all in one big, weird gallery.

Many of the designs and slogans used in the ads have actually been lining the walls (and, actually, pretty much every surface) of EA Maxis' Emeryville, CA office during the game's epic development process. Now the entire world, nay, universe will get to see what we've been treated to during our various visits to Wright's home away from home.

[Via Big Download]

Nothing goes together like drinking brewskis and the PlayStation Portable, right? Apparently, that goes doubly so if you're a sales representative in the land down under. Stella Artois is the number one international draught beer, but they haven't cracked the Australian market. So, instead of sending boring brochures and glossy guides down to the land of Oz, they sent 50 custom-made Stella-branded PSPs to the sales teams.

Not only were they in hand-stitched black velvet Stella bags, but they also had Stella themes loaded on them, and were packed with information about the beer. Plus, since they have wi-fi built-in, they can download updated beer data when they aren't playing God of War: Chains of Olympus or listening to Kylie Minogue MP3s. Now that's a marketing tool we can get behind. We wonder how long it'll be before one of these babies is up on eBay.

[Thanks, Dan]

Long gone are the days when Mario, Sonic, and Crash battled each other in hastily constructed plywood arenas in the dimly lit back corners of edge-of-town warehouses. Now, we've got Sonic and Mario sharing box covers while Crash ... well, at least he's still around.

But don't think the marketing mavens at Sony haven't taken notice of LittleBigPlanet's lovable Sackboy who, as luck would have it, is exclusive to the PS3. "We want LittleBigPlanet to lead the charge into a new genre of gaming and turn Sackboy into the next emblematic character for the PS3," says SCEA's LBP marketing maven Mark Valledor. There are plans that include tiny billboards, exclusive pre-order Sackboys and girls (Kratos and Nariko), plushies and, one can only hope, pajamas with feet.

[Eurogamer via PS3 Fanboy]

The UK's Advertising Standards Authority has dismissed complaints that a television ad for Bully Scholarship Edition trivialized bullying. The agency said that although some might find the game's content and name in poor taste, the content of the ad was "unlikely to cause serious or widespread offense."

It's funny that the ASA would take the stance that the Bully ads wouldn't cause "widespread offense" when it received a total of 31 complaints. Comparably, the banned ad for Kane & Lynch only received 26 complaints. The extra complaints isn't exactly surprising; remember that the original PS2 version of Bully actually changed its name to Canis Canem Edit when it was released in Europe.

Do you get pissed off when companies try to pass off piss-poor ports as original Wii games?. Well, urine luck! Activision's new "Wee 1st" program is designed to guide a stream of attention to games where the Wii has gone No. 1 in the developer's mind. Games like Little League World Series 2008, Rapala Fishing Frenzy and Dancing with the Stars: Get Your Dance On will be the first to try to make water out of the campaign. The program might seem like a piddling concession to the success of Nintendo's oddly-named system, but it's backed up by a national television and print ad campaign that will begin leaking out this fall. What a relief.

The life of a Joystiq editor is frought with difficult – and often perilous – decisions. Take this example: do we choose to run a story about in-game advertising statistics (we imagine a large majority of you are already rolling your eyes, scrolling down to see if there's something a little stronger waiting for you below) or do we simply run a post about another tattoo of [insert popular video game character here]? In this case, we've chosen to share the statistics with you, and we want you to know why.

In-game advertiser IGA Worldwide contracted the survey-mavens at Nielsen to conduct the "Consumers' Experience with In-Game Content & Brand Impact of In-Game Advertising Study." The results of said study may shock you, but here goes: according to IGA's study, a whopping 82% of gamers "felt games were just as enjoyable with ads as without" and a no less impressive 61% "increase consumers' favorable opinions of products advertised in-game post-play." What's this all mean? Why, that in-game advertising works, despite some marketers fears to the contrary.

Regardless of the wall of statistics contained in the press release (really, go check it out), we all know the key to successful in-game advertising comes from using a gentle-touch. MLG ads littered throughout the $60 Rainbow Six Vegas 2? No thanks, really. Some pre-roll ads before your free game of Quake Live, brought to you by none other than IGA? That we can live with.

Not content with simply digging up the 10 worst PlayStation ads (though we're still laughing about a few of those), our buddies at PS3 and PSP Fanboy have compiled a list of the 10 best PlayStation ads that show, despite their occasional mega-flops, the Sony Marketing Machine is capable of great promotion. Click here, get educated.

We've reported on a few of Sony's marketing quirks throughout the years (we still remember the goat). Our friends at PSP and PS3 Fanboy have compiled the ten most interesting ads (some would say "worst," but their existence just makes us too happy). If the recent ad (shown above, click here to see the Full Monty – NSFW) is any indication, Sony's marketing still has the occasional fumble. Check out the other highlights.

The image above is not the complete ad from Sony's European ad agency, TBWA\Wien, but we have placed the full monty (literally) after the break. When viewer's eyes wander south they will not be greeted by a penis, but by a well manicured thumb where a penis should be, which, believe it or not, is actually a thousand times more frightening.

Ads of the World posted this Austrian PS3 ad which continues to make us scratch our heads as to why Sony only fired TBWA from doing its American ads. As this blogger has received about 10 IMs in the last twenty minutes asking if I've seen the Sony Europe ad yet, one could say the piece is doing its job. Whether its doing the right job is a whole other debate.

[Via GayGamer, PS3 Fanboy]

Codemasters and in-game ad firm Engage have announced that the upcoming Race Driver: GRID will feature integration with the eBay Motors marketplace, allowing players to buy and sell in-game vehicles in a "realistic setting." GRID's love affair with eBay doesn't stop there, with the online auction house also sponsoring a race series in the game called "The eBay Motor Muscle Series," allowing players to the race the eBay Motors Mustang GTR concept car in downtown San Francisco, Long Beach, Washington D.C. and Detroit.

Codemasters describes the inclusion of the eBay Motors marketplace as an "essential element" and "a revolving plot point" in GRID which players will use to "continually upgrade or swap out vehicles," though whether or not sniping auctions out from under other drivers will be included remains to be seen.

We can expect ads to continue to be shoved down our throats in games from Electronics Arts as the company has extended its deal with Microsoft's in-game ad firm Massive to offer dynamic ads in games for the next two years.

While Massive will continue to offer in-game ads in existing titles from EA, such as the recently released Burnout Paradise, the new deal will allow more advertisers to continue to hawk wares in existing titles, as well as in upcoming games -- including the next two Madden, NBA Live, Nascar, and NHL releases. According to EA, ads will focus on appealing to guys between the ages of 18 and 34, but interestingly will just be served to versions released for the Xbox 360 and PC. For players on other platforms looking for a similar experience, might we suggest taping up ads from your Sunday circular to the television while playing -- at least that way you have the option to take the nuisances down.

Competition ahoy! Even though CEO Sir Howard "young people don't like advertising very much" Stringer is skeptical of in-game advertising, that hasn't stopped Sony from pursuing that path with some determination. After appointing Darlene Kindler to head up their in-game advertising efforts last October, AdAge is reporting that Sony will be "opening up" the PlayStation 3's advertising platform, allowing in-game advertisers Double Fusion, IGA, and Google's AdScape to sell dynamic ads.

Two years ago, Microsoft acquired in-game ad firm Massive which powers in-game advertising on the Xbox 360 platform. Sony's model is a "clear departure" from that – eMarketer's James Belcher says, "Making things open only makes things better for marketers or people who want to place ads because they aren't the mercy of a given network." With "baked in" ads, and competing dynamic services on the Xbox 360 and PS3 platforms, the reportedly $400 million game advertising business is going to become increasingly visible (for better or worse).

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick and Sony Group CEO Howard Stringer have expressed doubts over the marketable future of in-game advertising, arguing against the assumption that this new form of advertising is the solution to the industry's monetary needs.

Stringer reasons that advertisers' pockets are not as deep as everyone hopes, adding to this the fact that "young people don't like advertising very much." A bold statement, to be sure. For his part, Kotick states "I wouldn't go in that direction myself," causing us to look back at the heavy product placement in the Activision-published Guitar Hero III and Tony Hawk's Proving Ground.

These comments come in direct opposition to companies like IGA, who quite recently boasted about their upcoming integration of ads into the EA-published Burnout Paradise. We'll have to side with Stringer and Kotick on this one; we young people don't like advertising very much.

[Via PS3 Fanboy]

In-game advertising company IGA Worldwide outlined today how it plans to provide advertising to Electronic Arts' Burnout Paradise. Advertisers cited include Burger King, CompUSA.com, Diesel, Gillette and Sling Media, among others.

The Gamasutra article notes that advertising will consist of static ads, "including billboards, retail stores, radio stations and vehicles into the game." If they want to be very sneaky and intrusive, might we suggest a mission where you try to flee from an army of masked Burger King fanatics? It may not sell Whoppers, but it's a scary enough thought to make us drive as fast as virtually possible.

Proving that not all in-game advertising is used solely for evil, the Scottish government plans to spend £10,000 on virtual billboards to discourage drunk driving, the BBC reports today. The campaign will place anti-drunk driving messages in Xbox 360 racing games like Need for Speed: Carbon, Project Gotham Racing 4, and sports titles like Pro Evolution Soccer 2008.

The Scottish government is elated that the campaign will be going forward, as it believes that video games are a great way of reaching younger audiences. We couldn't agree more, and think that this is one of the smartest uses for ad dollars we've seen in a while. Kudos to the Safer Scotland campaign.