Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="ferratus" data-source="post: 3856753" data-attributes="member: 55966">There is a program on CBC radio called the "Age of Persuasion" which deals with behind the scenes explanations of what drives advertisers to make their decisions and what makes for successful marketing.   It is hosted by a man who is an advertiser himself, and has a great passion for his craft.  Since I'm referencing him, I might as well give a plug to his blog:<a href="http://www.oreillyradio.com/" target="_blank">http://www.oreillyradio.com/</a>Anyway, one of his points he made on his program was that there has arisen a non-official contract between consumers and advertisers.   Consumers will listen to the ad, but expect a gift in exchange for listening to your pitch of a product.   The most offensive forms of advertising (telemarketing, billboards, advertisements in theatre movies) are seen as breaking this contract, while television, radio, and webpage ads pay for the content that the consumer wants.This I think plays directly into the debate people have about these preview books.  To some, the content is worth the pitch that has been made.  Some are willing to buy it for the artwork, while some are D&D fanatics enough just to pay just to have some information early.  By and large though, I think the reaction has been largely negative, because they don't feel that the product will be worth the cost paid, and the fact that it is supposed to function as an advertisement makes it particularly offensive.The first poster talked about offering benefits for electronic content, I think he was really trying to restore that contract.   Essentially they would be paying for the DDI insider content that they really wanted, and then they would listen to the advertising pitch in its pages.    I think this is an awesome idea in a couple of ways.  First, it expands the reach of the product to another segment that isn't interested in the artwork, and it encourages the consumers of the product to get involved in another aspect of the electronic medium that you are trying to encourage.Heck, I would offer a month of free DDI to anyone who purchases any D&D book. Your most avid consumers are likely the ones who are DMing the games and encouraging at least 4-5 others to stay in touch with the hobby.  So you bring 4 people to D&D insider to play online on his games.  Plus, since many people will want to use DDI to game with friends that they knew in high school and college and had to move away from (that's most of us I think) it might be a way to cut down on a small percentage of piracy.  Extra content would function well for that, though you have to keep in mind that content will also be needed to advertise in the first place... to fulfill that unofficial advertising contract.</blockquote>

Verification