Oh, the middle of June. E3 has washed over us and now the Mac nerds hunch over their iPads to read live blogs of WWDC. Don’t get me wrong – I want iOS6 and Mountain Lion is the most badass name for an OS ever. Yet, I can’t help but revisit E3 one last time. When you don’t attend E3, you don’t miss much. All the news is on the web and G4 within minutes, if not live. Sure, you miss out on long lines for food and outrageous parking prices, but I doubt you’ll file grievances for that. There is one aspect you miss out on – inventive marketing.

Most companies use the same tactics to draw you to their booths and put coal in the hype train. There are bright lights, a giant toy of something from the game, and dubstep or bass-y whole notes matched with shit blowing up on a video screen. It’s too much. It almost instantly becomes white noise. However, there’s always some company doing something unique that stops people in their tracks. This year, Telltale Games pulled a super awesome guerrilla marketing stunt to promote episode 2 of The Walking Dead: They turned people into zombies.

They didn’t really turn people into zombies. There was no T-Virus to be found. I didn’t see any bath salts anywhere. Instead, they handed out turkey legs that were jammed into a torn off hand or foot. Then people would walk the floor looking like they were finishing off some poor soul waiting in line to play Borderlands 2. I first encountered this brilliant idea while waiting in line for something. Of course, I struck up a conversation with them. This was a test to make sure they weren’t actually zombies. They passed. I ended up palling around with them for awhile. We couldn’t go two minutes without someone stopping for a picture and asking where they could get one.

Bravo, Telltale. Despite being trapped in a room full of cubicles, you managed to remind everyone you rock and The Walking Dead game is awesome. Speaking of guerrilla marketing, here’s a commercial that takes the title literally:

 

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