Sunday, October 7, 2007

zOMG WoW

8 comments:

Shell said...

ow. it hurt. in fact, it still hurts. Make it stop!

I had been in the meeting where in the agency decided that the key market demographic for Tacoma Trunks is WoW players. I don't see the connection. I guess they are trying to be hip, but by making the WoW reference they are sort of proclaiming exactly how unhip they really are.

This is bad advertising. Just plain bad.

J. Goerner said...

i would have to agree . . .

though i did laugh due to the leeroy jenkins parallels

Shell said...

Leeroy Jenkins and the fact that it sounded like the guys from red vs Blue are the only reasons it's even kind of funny.

Thus making it even worse advertising than I previously thought.

Whoever made this should be fired and I should be given a job... I'm better than this right?

J. Goerner said...

you put the bier in beer

L said...

Wait, you were in the meeting? Or do you wish you had been?

I really enjoy it. I'm sure a lot of people have already said this, but I think internet culture is going to really change advertising to where advertisers can afford to play to smaller, more specific demographics.

Shell said...

I don't know if I entirely agree. Niche marketing is becoming more and more appealing, and has been over the last 10 years. And I do think a big part of that is the explosion in media options as well as the ever growing online world.
However, I don't think that this is a good example of using the internet, or its culture, to target a small, smart, audience base.
Say you wanted to market a new style of gamer chair or something, then I can see taping into the WoW target - in that case you have thought to yourself; who needs this product? Gamers. Whats one of the largest and most influential gamer groups? WoW. That makes some sense.
But there is no really smart connection between Tacoma Trucks and WoW players. The idea is kind of funny, but ultimately they have alienated a much broader demographic to appeal to a niche. Maybe they have some survey or data that says "70% of World of War craft players drive pick up trucks". But even then, what about football fans, construction workers, country hics, rugged men, etc. Any demographic you look at, especially with such a general product like "trucks", you can scrounge up data that supports a need to advertise. It's not the smartest choice, I don't think.

It's like those Churches Chicken commercials that say "I know what good is. Good is building your own computer from scratch. Good is Churches Chicken". Somewhere, someone decided that x number of Churches Chicken users have an interest in computers and therefore, we should blow a shit ton of cash tapping that super specific subsection of our larger market. Doesn't make sense.

L said...

i found your halloween costume. there's a link a the bottom to purchase. you can thank me when i see you on sunday.

http://www.marksprojects.com/costumestrans.htm

L said...

i just read this and wanted to add it to this way-old discussion because, well it's interesting, dammit!

http://www.boingboing.net/2007/10/21/more-us-warcraft-pla.html