Practicing Change: Respecting Audiences when Advertising your Campaign

By: Vinayak Ahuja

We've seen a lot of the same in regards to marketing and advertising strategy in what seems to be the most expensive presidential campaign in American history, and we've also come to see a few new web strategies to keep up with the information age including social networking pages, viral video, websites and more. But there still remains a need for change in the messages that we deliver. Certainly mudslinging will always be a large part of campaigns that will be held in the near to distant future, but we need to be more respectful of the information and strategy we choose to take, else end up with a monster of ignorance that could destroy us from within.

We've seen the effect of propagated ignorance on the American public by Republican campaign supporters and certainly, from what I've seen at least, this seems to be the worst of it from either side. But then I see ignorant viral campaigns and meaningless ads that, although certainly not at the caliber of the aforementioned, is propagating ignorance none the less by providing nothing but fluff, pretty faces, and a level of peer pressure that should have nothing to do with my choice; to quote both senator John McCain and Joe Biden, "That's not change, that's more of the same". Despite who said what first, campaign professionals need to respect the intelligence of our countrymen and meet the responsibility we've given them to provide us with as much honest and concrete evidence as possible when making reports and giving information.

In my line of business, some professionals may not see me as anything short of a pussy for saying something like this: our JOB is persuasion - to rally and induce deep emotion, and get our audiences to think and act the way we wish them to. And to arm them with no more or less information that we deemed fit to meet our campaign needs; anything to the contrary would be unproductive, waste resources, and devalue our primary objective.

But in a presidential election, don't the campaign managers indirectly work for me? Regardless of which party they're representing and who wins, am I not the boss? Since when did the duel-party system become this oligopoly of staffing agencies where the interest of the company are lost and the only matters that matter are the ones that make the sale?

Again, I accept as a communications professional, mudslinging will always be present in our campaigns - some dick is always going to try and get me excited about a particular candidate despite the fact that they may not be in my best interest, and some jerk I hardly know who works for company that has no relation to my own is always going to try to sell me the guy I don't really want.

And when that happens, I hope that dick and that jerk will do their part and stick to the issues I'm interested in, because I plan to take advantage of the information age, do what I did this election, and inquire about the information fed to me: I'm going to ask more questions than when I go to buy a camera at Best Buy, I'm going to read more reviews and ask more friends about the things you say than when I pick a sushi-bar to order a tuna roll from, or when I'm making a choice between phone plans.

If we don't respect and foster this culture for inquiry that has been inspired by this Presidential Debate, America will be doomed to repeat the tragedies we've faced in the last 8 years, may be even risk becoming a nation divided between those who accept what they hear and those who do their homework. The same lesson applys to any other communications professional reading this: you need to be honest about the product or service you market and mention both their pros and cons, else you may end up with some out-of-control and angry voices making death threats.

Please note that the criticisms made on the ads in this blog were not meant to be made on their sources directly; in particular to Moveon.org. I am only criticizing these two particular ads and campaigns which I did not like for the reasons I mentioned and I encourage readers to check out more videos and make their own evaluation of the organization (I haven't investigated the organization enough to make a full criticism as of yet, nothing draws me to them as of now if you're curious). If you haven't voted already, please take the time to do so, and try to do a little bit of homework before leaving the house :-)

Battle of the 1990 Console’s and the Birth of Segata Sanshiro

By: Vinayak Ahuja

Marketing will always play a huge role in shaping our lives, from what soap we use in the shower to which man we select to run our country (something I’ll be touching on in my special November 4th article). A strong marketing concept can help keep you in the mind of your consumers almost indefinitely and become that sweet golden egg laying goose that keeps you keep afloat when times get rough.

One of the most proficient life preservers I’ve had the pleasure of learning about took place during the mid 1990s. You gamers out there may be familiar that around this time three powerhouses (Nintendo, Sony, and Sega) were locked in an all-out royal rumble trying to find a place in the world’s home entertainment system market place. In the west, Sega was tossed out of the ring faster than the heel, but in Japan, a particularly strong marketing concept going by the name of Segata Sanshiro kept them in the game well into the turn of the century.

“Segata Sanshiro” is a parody of “Sugata Sanshiro”, a popular fictional Japanese martial artist and hero. The name is also meant to sound a lot like “Sega Saturn Shiro”, which loosely translates into “You must play Sega Saturn”! As a master of all martial arts, his goal was to punish kids who wouldn’t play their Sega Saturn enough. Here are some of my favorite commercials of the character: baseball, soccer, and fish is a particular one that I’ve come to respect.

The campaign was such a large success that it had reclaimed and began to gain ground on both Sony’s Playstation and Nintendo’s Nintendo 64 in Japan. Segata Sanshiro had become a loveable icon for the Sega Saturn Product Brand similar to 7-up’s Cool Spot or Domino’s Noid. Unfortunately, Sanshiro was an icon of the Saturn, not Sega, forcing Sega to end the concept with the release of their new console, the Dreamcast.

This isn’t the first time a successful product brand icon has been let go in order to continue promotion of new products from the same brand. What I can’t understand is the abrupt discontinuation with no transition from one concept to the next. Not to say that the Dreamcast marketing strategies weren’t popular – the US campaigns looked amazing and were very well crafted, but it seems to me it’d be more productive to utilize the popularity of the character and make the transition with more ease for loyal fanatics who were deeply invested in the Segata Sanshiro concept. It’s something I plan to look into for my article Wednesday. Be sure to check it out then and tomorrow’s special Presidential Election Day article (which will also make up for Friday’s missing article). Until next time my fellow chias.