Dropping CoD brand a mistake for MW2?

Modern Warfare 2 sees consumer awareness levels drop from 40% to 20%.

According to tracking firm OTX, the decision to remove the Call of Duty brand from the title for upcoming sequel Modern Warfare 2 has seen the game lose around half of its consumer awareness.

"Up until the beginning of May, OTX had been tracking the title as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. More specifically, we asked a representative group of gamers in the U.S. whether or not they had heard of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. At that time, approximately 40 per cent of all gamers in the U.S. claimed that they had heard of this title," said Nick Williams of OTX's GamePlan Insights division.

Things changed quite dramatically once OTX ran the survey having dropped Call of Duty from the game's title.

"... the consumer survey, and the awareness levels dropped to 20 per cent. In other words, the Call of Duty brand association essentially doubles the awareness for the game. That is quite a remarkable statistic," added Williams.

It's not all doom and gloom for Activision's big hope though, as Williams pointed out.

"Despite this dramatic drop in awareness, the purchase intent for Modern Warfare 2 remains very strong," he explained.

Williams concluded: "The intensity of the purchase intent is particularly impressive, as illustrated by the high levels of Pre-Order Intent, which is the highest of any title currently being tracked."