Angry Birds developer Rovio announced today that you will see Angry Birds characters appear in a Super Bowl commercial advertising the Rio animated film. The ad represents huge exposure for Rovio, which was barely known more than a year ago, and its blockbuster Angry Birds mobile game.
The deal shows how quickly a brand can emerge in the digital age. The paid version of Angry Birds has been downloaded tens of millions of times. That has given Rovio so much brand clout that it was able to cut a deal with Twentieth Century Fox, which will co-market Angry Birds with the Rio movie. Rovio is also doing a Rio version of its Angry Birds game. The commercial will appear in the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl today.
Meanwhile, Rovio said that Android smartphone owners in Finland will now be able to buy the Mighty Eagle and other in-game content using its new Bad Piggy Bank payments system, which was previously announced. Rovio will also issue an update for both iOS (iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch devices) and Android phones with new levels and a new Super Bowl promotion that goes live today.
At some point the Bad Piggy Bank system could spread beyond Finland. Rovio had to do its own SMS text message payment system because the Android Market was broken. But the Android Market is getting a big upgrade soon, with the launch of in-app purchases. That starts with the availability soon of the Honeycomb version of Android, or Android 3.0.
Update: The Super Bowl commercial had a brief scene where it revealed a code for a Golden Egg. Check out the video below for how to use it in the game. [image credit at right: Kotaku]
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Companies: Rovio, Twentieth Century Fox
Companies: Rovio, Twentieth Century Fox
Dean is lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He covers video games, security, chips and a variety of other subjects. Dean previously worked at the San Jose Mercury News, the Wall Street Journal, the Red Herring, the Los Angeles Times, the Orange County Register and the Dallas Times Herald. He is the author of two books, Opening the Xbox and the Xbox 360 Uncloaked. Follow him on Twitter at @deantak, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.
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