Marketing: How would you have done it?

[Tervin]

OK, seriously, did anyone really like grappling in 3.x?

True, grappling was bad. The way they played upon it being bad - also bad. And then they kept using that trick...

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Thou Shalt Not Badmouth Thy Competition (even/especially if your competition is your own previous product).

 

[Darrin Drader]

True, grappling was bad. The way they played upon it being bad - also bad. And then they kept using that trick...

I don't know, I thought the Gen Con '07 grappling stuff was pretty funny and effective. It isn't like they were saying that anyone who used hose rules was stupid for using them, they were just pointing to the most obvious flaw in the system. People laugh at their own flaws all the time, and that's all I saw that as.

 

[Henrix]

Now, I don't think WotC botched it, in any way. They sold out their first print run before the game was released, remember?

Put up the rules section from KotS for free on the net - not make people pay for what many won't use. This would also keep KotS a more interesting product now that the rules are out, instead of making us pay for the rules it twice.

Release the game day Shadowhaunt scenario, for all the gods sake! It's a small, simple, fun scenario that showcases the rules better than KotS!

Get the GSL out in good time and have the 3pp anxious to start (i.e. not make them wait and see if they survive 'til october) - they would have given 4e free publicity, and there would have been more reasons for people to start playing 4e.
Even if there were problems with the legalese and details you could have talked to the major 3pps and told them, informally, what to expect, and see to it that they could start writing the material.
Imagine if Wizards had talked with Paizo, got them on their side, and had them chomping at the bits to get out the first installment of their first 4e Pathfinder AP the very day 4e was launched!

Killing the mags was of course, as others have stated, very, very stupid. You had a loyal fan base and a prime medium in circulation where you could have advertised and had preview articles while making money from it - and you stopped it a year before the launch?!

 

[nothing to see here]

Better sneak peaks or even online demos of the game. On the non internet side of marketing they should have hit the Colbert Report.

What's the crossover audience between Colbert and DND. I can see the sense trying to lure Colbert himserlf into providing some free promo on his show, but that's just a one off. A marketing strategy that is not.

 

[nothing to see here]

Axed DDI from the start, or at least not mention it until I knew it was going to work.

That is very, very true. They made a big splash about all of the different pillars on which D&D would rest (Gleemax, Insider, Virtual Dragon and Dungeon etc). Yet, the only pillar that is functioning are the actualy physical books themselves. Overpromising is a textbook case of bad marketing.

 

[nothing to see here]

I don't agree with everyting Dannyalcatraz is saying, but I commend him for pushing some hard ideas out there/

I would have tried to get endorsements or commentary from any celeb or personality who claimed to play the game. If WoW can get Mr. T, Hasbro could pony up for Vin Diesel, Steven Colbert, Brian Posehn, Patton Oswalt, and Wil Wheaton, among others.

I see two mainstream celebities (Diesel and Colbert) on that list and three more niche celebrities (Posehn, Oswalt and Wheaton) on that list. I wonder, if the psychographic profile of RPG buyers matches those of people who respond to celebrity endorsements. I admit to having no primary data but I am suspicious it does not.

The big question that EVERY version of D&D fudges is this. Are we trying to take a 'geeky' 'niche' hobby into the mainstream, or are we trying to make a product that maximizing profitability and sustainability out of people who already fall into that niche. Those are two totally different marketing proposptions -- I fear WOTC, by trying to do both, risks failing to do either.

Instead of the expensive preview books (which I know for a fact some avoided simply on the basis of cost), I'd have gone with a stripped-down mini-adventure with pregens- possibly even available in pdf format. Marvel, DC and even certain indie comic labels do free or cheap previews all the time- Hasbro/WotC could have done the same. (Plus, in conjunction with the demise of the physical formats for Dragon and Dungeon, those booklets seemed to be a bit of a money grab, at least to some- see below.)

That makes sense. You could argue that the D&D experience was intended to prompt a word-of-mouth marketing strategy, but it's timing and geographic focus handicapped it. Word-of-mouth marketing is one of the hardest forms of marketing to pull off, though in an indentified niche market, it is fair to have expected WOTC to deliver something better.

Use the internet to its fullest potential: Use a little internet technowizardry to host some clips showing some actual gameplay/playtesting highlights.

This I disagree with. D&D is fun to play, but make no mistake, we all look like the dorkiest people in the world while playing it. It's the same for video games -- notice how (with the Wii a notable exception) video game commercials almost never actually feature people PLAYING the game. Because you look like a loser while doing so. (That the Wii's innovative gameplay opens up wonderful marketing visuals is an underreported factor in its success)

How about a contest? People love to have bragging rights about something. Imagine getting an autographed Core 3 for submitting the coolest monster design, included in the MM (...or MM2, perhaps), or a well-thought out village to be used as a setting for an adventure. Sure, its not Eberron in scale, but still!

This I love. Done well it could create wonderful word-of-mouth appeal. There would be IP issues about giving people enough material to work with, but I think gamers would eat it up.

One thing I learned in the course of earning my MBA is you never, NEVER advertise your negatives, even if they're only perceptual. Your press releases should be 100% about your strengths. You let consumers find them out for themselves. If you're going to slaughter sacred cows, don't tell anyone until the beef is at the butcher shop.

I doubt WOTC saw it as leading with their negatives. I would argue it was more about managing audience expectations.

Here's how that would have shaped up in this case.

---> Altered timetable: Instead of making Dragon and Dungeon go pure digital under WotC's control before the release, either work with Paizo to publish them in dual format (it works for a LOT of periodicals) or delay their "digitization" until AFTER 4Ed is released or in conjunction with it. This would have given them an established platform to do piecemeal previews and leaks just like they did with 3Ed and its revision. This also minimizes the backlash against the decision, and gives WotC an additional 6 mos to a year to work out the bugs of their digital revolution. As things were, because of that move, people were already predisposed to be wary and distrustful of WotC's next product.

Yup. If phase one was all about "player migration" as they now tell us, killing off the print magazines when they did was a questionable call. PArticularly since D&D insider is currently not ready to go. If there is a business reason to kill off hte print magainze I would have waited until A) after the 'player migration' phase was over and
B) D&DI was actually ready for primetime.

---> Play your cards close to the vest: don't tell people what you're cutting out- like gnomes and druids- tell them what new shiny things you're including, like the dragonborn or the revised Marshal (now called the Warlord). Again, this minimizes prerelease backlash. The idea behind marketing your product is getting people to say "Yes, yes, yes!" not "Oh, great- look what else they're screwing up." You don't see auto manufacturers telling people the next year's models will be smaller, they say "More fuel efficient!"

Damned if you do, damned if you don't. They are also being beaten up for not producing enough content in their previews. This let all kinds of conspiracy theories run amok -- not a big deal in the mass market but, then again, they're now telling us that 'player migration' was the first marketing goal.

---> Product Linkage: 4Ed is already closely tied to DDM- previews & scenarios could have been included with DDM's concurrent release, or as a special limited edition release featuring the 4Ed Iconics.

Don't know enough about DDM to make a call one way or another.

The books are selling large, so I guess everybody's happy, but Danny is absolutely right that, in several ways they are selling well despite WOTC'sbest efforts.

Cheers.

 

[WayneLigon]

I'm of two minds about it.

One one hand:

I'd have managed publicity a little better:

1. I'd have waited to kill off Dungeon and Dragon until at least six months to a year after I released 4E. If I would have, which I severely doubt.

2. I would not have unveiled Gleemax until it was ready for Beta at the very least.

3. I would not have promised or even mentioned any computer-based anything until that thing was ready to hit the ground with both feet running. I'd have had a closed beta testing for at least six months before going live. I'd have had the character generator, virtual game table and the rest as a pleasent surprise and extra rather than give the perception it was going to be a required part of play by making it such a central tentpole offering.

4. I would not have created preview books for sale.

5. I would have had a nailed-down license agreement ready for publishers six months ago.

On the other hand, I might not have bothered with 'marketing' per se at all, knowing that D&D would basically sell itself. Every month in Dragon, there would be a 1-2 page preview of nailed-down material, or a discussion of what needs to be changed, and why.

 

[an_idol_mind]

Three things that I think would have helped:

1) Don't tear down 3rd edition to build up 4th edition.

2) Avoid redundancy in the marketing speak -- specifically, things like, "fun and fair," "X killed Y and took its stuff," and calling everything cool got annoying and also failed to really describe anything of value.

3) I think it would have been preferable to see some more stuff along the lines of, "here's how you can start playing 4th edition now." There were a few articles like adding Epic Destinies to 3.5, but a lot of those came pretty late in the game. I don't think massive spoilers would have been needed, but showing off a few of the more interesting innovations of the system would have helped.

 

[nothing to see here]

Well, first off, designers are not marketers.

And, I would reckon many designers say "thank god for that.". There are things that the 'suits' actually do much better.

I like many of Darrin;s points

So how would I have done it differently? I would have done the following:

* Not been in such a hurry to kill the printed form of Dragon and Dungeon so that I could use the shelf space they occupy in the mainstream book stores as prime 4th edition marketing space.

The timing of that move was terrible. "We've sold off the minivan but we promise we'll replaced it with a BMW...oops! the BMW ain't ready, hope you like walking." I'm sure, along with the scuttled early GSL release, this would be high on WOTC's 'do-over' list.

* Given the fans some reasons behind the changes they made to the IP. Why exactly was the half-orc dropped? Why add Dragonborn? Why drop the barbarian, druid, and bard (incidentally I can think of several reasons why those classes should be dropped and not brought back under any circumstances).

This speaks to a wider issue I have. The GAME has been changed to WIDEN the market for D&D, yet the MARKETING to date has bee focussed on CURRENT players of D&D. I'll wait to the fall to see the other shoe drop on this, but there is a square-peg round hole element to stripping down a familliar product, and then trying to market it first to the previous products most passionate fans.

* Make a signifficant change to the website so that things felt fresh and new on the day of the launch. With 3E, the website underwent a major overhaul on the day of launch. Make it seem more like a celebration rather than the grim acknowledgment that it was.

A missed opportunity. They probably intended gleemax/DDI to be the "new look" you're talking about, they hinged their marketing on these products being ready to go on June6. This undercut a big chunk of their rebranding.

* Not dissed 3rd edition design to the extent they did (I mean really, how could Monte Cook have not been fuming when he read what they really though of the rules he designed?), but simply state that the changes would make the game easier to play (or something a little easier to swallow for the people who truly enjoyed 3rd edition).

* Allow some of the top 3rd party publishers to cash in by having their first round of products release with the new edition. I mean seriously, if Tome of Horrors 4E was available today, I'd buy it, and then I'd be thankful that WotC allowed that to happen.

* Make the GSL less restrictive, though not as ridiculously open as the OGL is.

Yeah, it's hard to reach out to people when you are busy digging deeper in to your fort. I still believe WOTC's intentions were and are good...just that they are more contradictory then evey they believe.