So why doesn't Hasbro/WOTC....?

[starwolf]

OK, two threads on Celebrity Gamers...makes me have to ask...

Why is it that Hasbro/WOTC don't try to increase the market for D&D instead of all of these cuts to make the current market more profitable?

Imagine an honest to god advertising campaign with some Celebrity spokespeople.

This ain't Monoply (which every one has heard of)
Or Tickle-me Elmo (which the media hypes for you on the 5 o'clock news for free).
Or Pokemon with a free 30 minute infomercial everyday after school.

Spend some money on marketing for pete's sake..

 

[Crothian]

Imagine learning for a new RPG product in someother way besides word of mouth. Sure, I read a few press releases here and there, but most of the products I hear of first are from other gamers who heard it from who knows who.

 

[Ranger REG]

I honestly don't know. I used to rant on Wizards who makes TV commercials for Magic: The Gathering (but no D&D) and air them on such shows as WWF Smackdown! earlier in the days but no more.

I feel like we still have the stigma akin to social drinkers, but then NBC decided to break the taboo of airing hard liquor commercials, albeit showing them during late night.

 

[Samothdm]

It's really a budgeting issue. Magic and Pokemon are the two biggest money-makers for WotC. Compared to the money that those two games generate for the company, D&D's profits are pretty small. Most marketing budgets are based on a percent of sales. As sales go down, the first thing most companies do is to lower the marketing/advertising budgets. I've seen it across several different product categories in my 10+ years in advertising.

Yes, it is counter-intuitive. You have to spend money to make money. If your product isn't selling as well, wouldn't you then spend money on advertising to tell people that they should buy your product? Yes, you should. It's basic Marketing 101. But, most people who end up in decision-making positions at companies (and I'm talking about ALL companies here, not just WotC/Hasbro) forget their marketing skills when they have to start answering to the bottom line.

That's why the first things to go are marketing/advertising budgets, followed closely by employees. Those are two huge expenses that, once cut, can make a bottom-line look much healthier.

You can check out my other rants on WotC's marketing/advertising (or lack thereof) on these two threads:
1. http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=17794
2. http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=264106#post264106

 

[Umbran]

Well, for one thing, television advertising is expensive. Aside from paying the network to run the ad,you have to produce it. That's a lot of cash to fling around.

For another, actually, the stigma is probably an issue. You have to remember that to an unfortunately highly vocal minority, our hobby equates to evil. Would you want to try to get a network to run an ad when the network knows it's going to get outraged phone calls about it?

 

[Henry]

Budget really does hold the answer here.

Back in the year 2000, when WotC was flush with "Poke-cash" there actually was talk by Ryan Dancey and others about making one or even two D&D commercials. Now, it doesn't look very likely. Have you noticed you haven't seen even many Magic or Pokemon commercials lately? Even those have fallen by the wayside, as their market share fell. The last new Magic the Gathering commercial I saw was the "Kezzerdrix" commercial, and that was two years ago.

Creating a new commercial and running it nationally costs MILLIONS of dollars. On a product that makes fractionally that much in profit per year, it doesn't sound that enticing, to blow your budget on ONE commercial.

I would personally love to see a D&D commercial highlighting real people or celebrities playing the game, but unless the game becomes a breakaway hit, or some TV network exec who is a closet gamer devotes free air time to WotC, then I doubt we may ever see one.

 

[Samothdm]

Henry, you're correct in that the production of a TV commercial (at least one that looks good and is eye-catching) would cost several hundreds of thousands of dollars, plus an additional several million dollars of airtime for the media. I think that everyone thought that once Hasbro purchased WotC that they would invest in these kinds of monies to help get additional exposure for some of WotC's brands. It looks like this did happen for the first few years, but has trailed off quite drastically recently.

The real thing to look at, though, beyond the cost of the production and media is the payout. What is the potential number of new sales that will arise from an advertising campaign? That's what they should be doing, not simply slashing the adevertising budgets due to poor sales. No advertising = fewer sales. It's that basic. People can't/won't buy your products if they don't know that they're available.

 

[kengar]

I got rid of my TV 5 years ago and haven't looked back, so I'm probably not the best-informed opinion on this topic, but it surprises me that there are/were Pokemon & M:TG commercials and the didn't even try D&D commericials on stations like the SciFi channel or UPN during Star Trek, or WB during Buffy. I guess the last one, at least, would be pretty expensive (is Buffy still on and/or popular?).

 

[Zappo]

They probably think the extra sales wouldn't be enough to justify a costly TV commercial. They are probably right, too.

 

[Ulrick]

It'd be cool to have a commercial with celebrities in it.

I could just picture Britney Spears, Robin Williams, and Tom Hanks sitting around a table playing D&D with Vin Diesel being the dungeon master.

But seriously, if people saw mainstream celebrities playing the game I think it would bring more people to the hobby. Though for the rest of us it'd be a little weird watching Britney rolling a d20 and saying "I'll attack with my greatsword. Yes! A critical threat!"

Edit:

Tom Hanks would be the annoying Rules Lawyer
Robin Williams would be the Rabid Role-player
Britney Spears would the Munchkin Powergamer
Vin Diesel would the the Killer DM.



Ulrick