Britain's newest recruitment method

According to Massive Inc. "the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) launched the UK and World's first in-game recruitment advertising campaign." This campaign was launched with TMP Worldwide, who is GCHQ's recruitment advertising partner. TMP apparently led the strategy and partnered with Massive, which happens to be owned by Microsoft. This campaign is supposed to "promote career opportunities in the British Intelligence services via online in-game ads on selected games in the UK."

It is debatable whether this is the first usage of in-game ads as a recruitment tool. The United States Army developed not a campaign but an entire game geared towards promoting the Army and encouraging recruitment.

The one month campaign began at the end of October. According to Massive's press release they will give GCHQ a "highly effective and relevant means of promoting exciting career opportunities to the online gaming audience, through real-world scenarios and realistic street and billboard advertising placements in selected PC and console games in the Massive Network."

In-game advertising has been used successfully to promote companies and some global brands and increase sales and awareness. However, a one month campaign will not be very effective given the shortness of its duration. Also there could be complications with integration because game titles can take years to develop.