If you’ve been driving around the Twin Cities recently or tuned into football games on TV last weekend, you may have done a double-take at an oddly familiar ad.
“Guaranteed Black Ops in your home,” read billboards and silent TV ads showing a man with his arms spread wide in a pose familiar to almost anyone who lives in Minnesota.
But the man extending his arms isn’t Kris Lindahl, the local Realtor known for his notorious “Guaranteed Cash Offer On Your Home” billboards that have proliferated by the hundreds around the Twin Cities in recent years.
Instead, it’s a bearded, suited man with long hair known as “The Replacer,” a sort of mascot for the Call of Duty Black Ops videogame franchise, which released its sixth installment last Friday. The character, who was first introduced in 2013, steps into people’s lives to “replace” them so they can forget their responsibilities and play video games.
Interestingly enough, the Replacer is played by Swedish actor Peter Stormare, who appeared in the Minnesota-centered 1996 Coen Brothers film “Fargo” as stoic psychopath Gaear Grimsrud. For anyone who might not remember, that’s the guy who gets caught feeding Steve Buscemi’s character into a wood chipper.
Activision approached Lindahl
As part of its international marketing campaign, videogame developer Activision, which is owned by Microsoft, approached Lindahl more than a week ago about using his branding to advertise the game in the Twin Cities. Lindahl said he gladly got on board.
“I thought this was a brilliant branding and marketing strategy on their end,” he said, explaining that Activision was searching for “icons” they could replace in their marketing campaign. Besides local figures like Lindahl, internationally famous people like singer The Weekend have been “replaced.”
“It has created a massive amount of exposure for our brand,” said Lindahl, noting his real estate business has already seen a boost from social media following the release of more ads online. He said he’s heard the strategy described as “local icon takeover.”
National brands have used similar strategies before. In 2016, Taco Bell ran an ad featuring Minneapolis TV pitchman and comedian Fancy Ray McCloney, who is known for his energetic and flamboyant performances in spots for local businesses. It was part of a national campaign recruiting zany local TV personalities, City Pages reported at the time.
Local takeover
Lindahl isn’t the only local icon who has been “replaced” for the new Call of Duty game. An ad released a few weeks ago has The Replacer stand in for a courtside interview in place of Timberwolves shooting guard Anthony Edwards.
Lindahl said the idea to use his ads in game marketing originated from someone with Activision in Minnesota. The game developer has offices in Eden Prairie, home to the company’s quality assurance division, and Minnesota employees worked on Call of Duty Black Ops 6, according to an industry publication report.
Billboards featuring Lindahl’s advertisement style started appearing around the Twin Cities last Friday, the release date for the game, and have ramped up since.
The Replacer heard Kris Lindahl was one of America’s hardest-working real estate entrepreneurs, so when he offered a chance to take some time off and play #BlackOps6, Kris accepted with open arms pic.twitter.com/ahKqwbEyox
— Call of Duty (@CallofDuty) October 28, 2024
Besides the billboards, there are social media posts and a silent 30-second TV ad, where The Replacer’s arms slowly begin to stretch toward either side of the screen. That spot, which is a parody of Lindahl’s local Superbowl ad from earlier this year, ran during Sunday NFL broadcasts and CBS’s 60 Minutes.
Lindahl didn’t say if he was a gamer, but he said he’s got something in the works with Activision on the videogame live-streaming platform Twitch.
“We got several steps down the way that make this way bigger,” he said.
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