I was watching Rescue Me on the good old PVR on the weekend and the Mad World commercial for Gears of War came up. Watch it here.

What a great commercial. I had to watch it again. Then I could not figure out who sang it. Was it Crowded House? Nope. A quick net search and I found it, Mad World, Tears for Fears.

Ad Age has an interesting article on the ad here.

But maybe the most mind-blowing — and clever — salvo in the game wars comes from the oldest new console on the block. The Xbox 360 camp’s “Mad World” is one of the most drop-dead, gobsmacking and, yes, highly effective ads I’ve seen in a while. The ad/viral touts the release of Epic Games’ Gears of War, which in itself is the best possible ad for the console; the game is the kind of insanely anticipated sci-fi shooter that sells millions of copies and moves consoles in the process.

A friend told me that the commercial had driven significant sales of the song (But an iTunes search brought up a different Mad World song which was causing some confusion). Sure enough, it is No. 2 on iTunes this week.