Ubi Soft Satisfies KBP’s Videogame Desires

LOS ANGELES Ubi Soft Entertainment has hired Kirshenbaum Bond & Partners West to handle advertising for two of its videogame titles, the agency said.

KBP will help Ubi Soft launch Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and Beyond Good and Evil. Billings are estimated at $10 million.

The San Francisco shop was selected following an informal review. The other contenders were not disclosed, and representatives for the client in San Francisco could not be reached.

Work for Prince of Persia will include TV, print and online advertising as well as Web site development. Beyond Good and Evil is slated to receive print advertising and possibly TV support. The Prince of Persia Web site will launch in August. Ad campaigns for both games will launch in October, and the games are slated to be released in November.

“There are a lot of cliches and similarities in ads in this category,” said KBP managing partner and general manager Nigel Carr, adding that the win offers the agency the chance to “do work that is better than you currently see in the category.”

The shop had been trying to land a videogame client for some time, Carr said. KBP had been involved in the early stages of the review for the $20 million Activision account, which in March was awarded to Secret Weapon Marketing in Santa Monica, Calif.

While KBP here has no category experience, its guerrilla PR division, Lime in New York, worked on the launch of The Crocodile Hunter game. In addition, KBP group account director Alfred Link previously worked on Electronic Arts at Odiorne Wilde Narraway & Partners in San Francisco.