Kris Lindahl Responds To Copycat ‘Call Of Duty’ Billboards In Minnesota

One of Minnesota's most recognizable businesspeople just issued a response to a bunch of billboards that look an awful lot like his own that popped up around the region.

Between Minnesota-based realtor Kris Lindahl and personal injury lawyer Russell Nicolet of Nicolet Law, you might be able to argue these two guys are the most recognizable businesspeople in the state partially due to their faces being all over billboards across the Land of 10,000 Lakes.

While they each have their own brand - Nicolet with his iconic sunglasses and beard and Lindahl with his red billboards with his outstretched arms, there's no mistaking when you see one of their ads.

That is, until billboards for the latest Call of Duty video game started popping up.

Billboards started popping up this fall for Black Ops 6, the latest Call of Duty game sporting a man (Peter Stormare) with outstretched arms on a billboard with the same color scheme as Lindahl's billboards.

Look familiar?

Stormare plays/voices the role of The Replacer in the Call of Duty franchise, also playing the role of a Kris Lindahl stand-in in these look-alike ads that have popped up in Minnesota promoting the new game, which came out on October 25.

The game's maker, Activision, clearly heavily leaned into the well-known billboards for a clever marketing campaign of their own, and now the original inspiration for these ads has responded.

In a social media post on November 4, Lindahl posed in a selfie with one of the Black Ops 6 billboards in the background and explained in the caption that the game's makers reached out to get licensing worked out to spoof Lindahl's billboards.

Lindahl even shared a video clip on his YouTube channel showing off the billboard with The Replacer showing off his best outstretched arms pose.

In his social media post, he explains that he and his company have " received thousands of messages, calls, comments, and views" reacting to the billboards.

Lindahl explains that this was a collaborative effort between his company and Activision, making clear that they are using the marketing concept with his permission. He is very protective of his trademark outstretched arms brand, even filing a lawsuit a couple of years ago against another realtor using it in their marketing.

Get our free mobile app

He called Activision wanting to borrow his highly recognizable marketing "an honor", saying he is "proud of what we’ve built and feel fortunate to share this recognition with our community".

In the end, Kris is excited about the collaboration as well as the big launch. He highlighted the huge numbers the game has seen in total number of players, hours played, and total matches in the first weekend after the game's launch.

Lindahl ended his post by saying "We have more BIG plans on the horizon, so stay tuned!!"

It's unclear if that means more branding collaborations like this or other Lindahl ventures, but I'm sure we'll be learning more soon enough.

In the meantime, Black Ops 6 is out now for Playstation 5/6 as well as XBOX One and XBOX X/S. In addition, Black Ops 6 is also available as part of an XBOX Game Pass subscription, so you can play without needing to buy the game if you have Game Pass.