Activision to Promote Guitar Hero: World Tour with Star-Studded Ads

Activision is pulling out all the stops for the October 26 release of Guitar Hero: World Tour with some “Risky Business”-inspired ads featuring well-known celebrities. Each ad will feature the rich and famous dancing about in their underpants and doing their best Tom Cruise impression to Bob Seger’s “Old Time Rock and Roll” while playing different World Tour instruments or lip-syncing.

Debuting today, the first commercial features sports stars Kobe Bryant, Alex Rodriguez, Michael Phelps and  Tony Hawk “jamming” in a form reminiscent of the first “Risky Business” Guitar Hero ads starring American Idol alumni David Archuletta and David Cook which you witnessed if you happened to watch the May 21 season finale.

Directed by Brett Ratner (X-Men: The Last Stand), these commercials were apparently produced to inspire everyone to “unleash their inner rock star”:

“With the first ‘Risky Business’ ads we wanted to excite fans by combining two pop culture sensations to create something even bigger. Those commercials were such a hit with Guitar Hero fans we decided to give them the same iconic ‘living room rock star’ moment they love, but as experienced with the new full band version of the game and with an entirely new cast of characters.”

Activision and Ratner have no plans to stop there though, because according to Activision CEO Bobby Kotick, we can expect more commercials featuring actors and even supermodels:

“To appeal to the multi-generational Guitar Hero fans out there we tapped a wide range of athletes, actors and even supermodels to unleash their inner rock stars and live out their rock and roll fantasies.”

Supermodels huh. For some reason I just cannot see someone like, oh say Tyra Banks or Heidi Klum, playing Guitar Hero in real life, but then again commercials like these are pure fantasy to say the least.