Ubisoft's Murray Pannel

I imagine the reason they're doing that is because TV is so very, very expensive - and to some extent as a marketeer you have to watch your costs. Does a big TV advertising campaign work for every product? Probably not, but for the big ones I certainly believe that nothing else will give you the broad reach - and speed of reach - that TV will deliver.

We were very lucky this time last year I suppose when TV audiences were growing, but the actual cost of TV advertising was going down. Due to recessionary forces, TV became relatively cheap compared to other media to buy.

That's slightly reversing now into 2010 as costs go up, but I still think there's an opportunity on TV to get brand awareness out there as quickly and broadly as you possibly can. I'm not going to be reducing TV budgets necessarily on big titles, but I am certainly looking at costs and efficiencies.

Digital can help bring both of those, because to some extent you can measure exactly what's going on. That said, I'd certainly not move all of my money out of TV and into digital - because I think you have to look at a campaign objective. What do you need to do with this game? How many people do you need to reach, and how quickly do you need to reach them? How much awareness is there in advance through PR and other media - and how quickly can you activate through retail?

So to just say we're not doing TV any more, for Ubisoft, is probably the wrong thing to do. You balance your marketing campaign according to the objectives you've got there, and somettimes digital is the way to do it, sometimes TV is the way to do it.

I think this became almost a perfect storm of product, positioning, marketing and price point as well, to some extent. There was definitely a macro-trend in social circles about dance, it was somehow taking off in the UK. If you look at the TV shows, they were all about dancing - on Sky, on the BBC - and people were reacting well to that.

The product was coincidentally in development, and we thought it was going to be successful. Did I think it was going to be as successful as it was? Probably not, if I'm honest. But from a marketing point of view the key success factors were getting the product out in people's hands early - so, a trial tour around shopping centres very early on - and when you do that, they absolutely love it, they can't help getting engaged.

That was critical - and getting PR as a result of the general trend towards dance in the social medium - and then it came out at Christmas, when people are having parties, having fun and enjoying themselves.

Coupled with a very good price point, mid-twenty Pounds, that all made it an accessible game that people could pick-up-and-play, and enjoy, be they young, old, families, young couples playing together... So it was just a perfect alignment of the stars, really - once it had landed in the market and people were playing it, it snowballed. Word of mouth got bigger, we continued the marketing, and it's been our most successful Wii title to-date, with over 1 million units sold.

It was, I'd say, sneered at by the general games industry - asking if it was relevant for us. I think that's understandable to a certain extent - it isn't a core gamer's game. It's very simple to pick-up-and-play, and as a result very enjoyable for those people who don't play hardcore games.

The music tracks were fantastic, the accessibility second-to-none, and we've been very pleased with it, as you can imagine.