If you’ve been driving around the Twin Cities recently or watched football games on television last weekend, you may have seen a strangely familiar ad over and over again.

“Black Ops at Your Home Guaranteed,” read billboards and silent TV commercials showing a man with his arms outstretched in a pose familiar to nearly everyone living in Minnesota.

But the man holding out his arms isn’t local Realtor Kris Lindahl, known for the infamous “Guaranteed Cash Offer on Your Home” billboards that have sprung up by the hundreds around the Twin Cities in recent years.

Instead, there’s a long-haired, bearded man in a suit known as “The Changer,” a sort of mascot of the Call of Duty Black Ops video game series, which released its sixth episode last Friday. First introduced in 2013, the character steps into people’s lives to “replace” them so they can forget their responsibilities and play video games.

Interestingly, Changer is played by Swedish actor Peter Stormare, who starred as stoic psychopath Gaear Grimsrud in the 1996 Minnesota-based Coen Brothers film “Fargo.” For those who don’t remember, he’s the guy who was caught feeding Steve Buscemi’s character into the wood chipper.

Activision approached Lindahl

Microsoft-owned video game developer Activision approached Lindahl more than a week ago about using its branding to advertise the game in the Twin Cities as part of its international marketing campaign. Lindahl said he was happy to get on board.

“I thought it was a great branding and marketing strategy on their part,” he said, explaining that Activision was looking for “icons” they could change in their marketing campaigns. In addition to local names such as Lindahl, internationally famous names such as singer The Weekend were also “replaced”.

“This created tremendous visibility for our brand,” Lindahl said. real estate business Social media has already seen an increase following more ads being posted online. He said he had heard of the strategy described as a “capture of local icons.”

National brands have used similar strategies before. In 2016, Taco Bell released an ad Featuring Minneapolis TV pitchman and comedian Fancy Ray McCloneyKnown for her energetic and flamboyant performances in spots for local businesses. happened part of a national campaign At the time, City Pages reported, crazy local TV personalities were being hired.

Local takeover

Lindahl isn’t the only local icon to be “replaced” by the new Call of Duty game. A commercial released a few weeks ago features The Changer in an on-court interview, replacing Timberwolves shooting guard Anthony Edwards.

Lindahl said the idea to use his ads in game marketing came from someone who worked at Activision in Minnesota. The game developer has offices in Eden Prairie, which is home to the company’s quality assurance division. Minnesota employees worked on Call of Duty Black Ops 6According to an industry publication report.

Billboards featuring Lindahl’s advertising style began appearing in the Twin Cities last Friday, the game’s release date, and have been on the rise ever since.

Changer heard that Kris Lindahl was one of America’s hardest-working real estate entrepreneurs, and when he offered Kris Lindahl the chance to take some time off and play #BlackOps6Kris accepted with open arms pic.twitter.com/ahKqwbEyox

— Call of Duty (@CallofDuty) 28 October 2024

Along with the billboards, there are also social media posts and a silent 30-second TV spot in which The Changer’s arms slowly begin to extend towards either side of the screen. The ad, a parody of Lindahl’s local Superbowl ad from earlier this year, aired on NFL broadcasts and CBS’s 60 Minutes on Sunday.

Lindahl did not say whether he was a gamer, but said he was working with Activision on the video game livestreaming platform Twitch.

“We have a few steps to make this path even bigger,” he said.