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Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="nothing to see here" data-source="post: 2140095" data-attributes="member: 16432">Thanks for chiming in Samothdom...it's good to have a professional with first-hand experience in this dilemma, contributing their two cents.  I also work in marketing (well, sorta) which is why I posed the question...however my expertise (political marketing) leaves me well behind the curve in findinga solution.I've heard some great ideas from many of the posters.  I like the idea of an infomercial because, as hot-type visual media go...it quite portable.  An infomercial is designed to be self contained...so a well produced piece could be used not just as a late-night stop-gap...but as a travelling promotional piece at stores, conventions etc.  However much we may ridicule infomercials...they do have proven track record at developing product (if not brand) identities...(laugh if you will) lending an additional crediblity to traditionally marginalized product lines.I do disagree with the notion that there is a particularly large RPG-D&D gap.  I think it was Ryan Dancey who made the original argument...that the growth of the RPG market will always have a disproportionate impact on the industry leader.  Since D&D is the overwhelming industry leader in the category...the risk that people might get turned on to RPG's yet turned off to D&D feels, to me, like an unlikely outcome.Marketing more through wargamer or other such hobby magazines would seem to me to be a short term hit at best.  A concerted professional push could probably (though not necessarily) bump sales to a quarter, as a latent early-adopter set opened up to the games crossover appeal.  I doubt that market segment is very large though...I stand to be corrected.I also disagree with the idea of celebrity tie ins.  Don't get me wrong...it's great that Vin Diesel plays.  However the marketing allure of celebrity is based on lifestyle appeal.  Celebrities who tinker with RPG's...do not represent gamer lifestyle.  In fact gamer culture tends to run counter to celebrity culture most of the time.  Quite frankly...on the list of sellable items about RPG's...'gamer lifestyle' ranks damn near the bottom.  Two many comic bookstore-guy stereotypes out there already.And certainly I disagree with any tinkering on the design of the system.  The posters to this thread have, admirably, avoided the storied tragic flaw of geeks...confusing mastery of a subject with mastery of its marketing...the "if only George Lucas did XXX the Star Wars franchise would be bigger than ever right now..." effect... ("if only D&D were classless everybody would play!") the barriers to D&D's growth have aboslutely nothing to do with it's design.  No matter how simple..or complex...no matter how teenager friendly...or mature...certain demographics will remain inaccessible at all times to the game...but, more importantly, there are certain demographics who might be accessible, yet don't yet 'get it' And herein lies the dilemma.  The Trial/Regular/Lifestyle gamer continuim cited from WOTC is an interesting model for developing a sustainable (i.e. regular purchaser) player base.  However if you extend that model two more steps..you can identify a large "inaccessible" uninterested consumer demographic...yet also, a substantial grey areak group...of people predisposed to D&D's subject matter, if not the RPG medium itself.  Market development is (relatively easier) than market growth.  To use the jargon of political marketing, it's easier to turn soft-support into hard support...than it is to convert the undecided into soft-support.That's why I like the idea of targeted mass marketing, within budgetary limits.  Do you want to advertise on ESPN or MTV...no...however, a cabe acess horror or action show channel...maybe...depends on costs, of course, but the fragmenting of the cable universe and development of TiVo technology is forcing television advertisers to move from a broadcast advertising model to an electronic one (mirrored on web advertising)...a shakedown that's only just begun</blockquote>

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