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Oh the N-Gage had far far more disturbing ads. To sort of set the scene, Sony were well known for their off the wall "The Next Place" ads that generally promoted the console as a generally mature device, though disturbingly explicit ads. Nokia's attempt was to play up the angle of it's multiplayer capabilities, back then pairing up with Bluetooth.    I think there was others suggesting creepy sexual overtones set in a car backseat and in a tent in the night. But you can see why this really failed. Plus having a gaming ad that implies you lost doesn't quite carry it's message far.
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Jan 2, 2015 14:48
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Doc Morbid posted:I wish I was making that up, but I saw the poster several times at the local game shop back in 2003. I'm guessing that one didn't make it overseas. I get the innuendo, but it's such a psychopathic interpretation of "gamer victories". Microsoft had their own share, again pulled in the UK. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLPj8cgDOVk For causing distress to pregnant women - I do suppose the snapping of the umbilical cord was a bit much. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZcNXe20dXI For "glorifying gun violence."
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Jan 5, 2015 11:39
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I was always a fan of outpost.com's stuff. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cmT8M_67ow There's a book called F'ed Companies which detailed the shifting sands that was the .dotcom crash. It was based off a blog that routinely got many angry letters from lawyers claiming defamation for reporting firms that sunk or just how useless their services were. The general killer for dot-com startups were offering services that tried to replicate online! something easily done in life, like coupon collection. Or they offer free delivery and other incentives without really thinking how fast their investments will burn. Or failing to really take into account the severe limits of bandwidth of the time and try to push forth high concepts like internet television. Other causes of death were assorted forms to launder money, namely Flooz, or other early forms of "digital currencies". Or offering too useful a free service that users didn't buy the pro, such as myspace.com's early days as a file-storage host which offered a whopping 40mb of space, and became a hot ground for piracy. As for Y2K, this stuff hit well around the late 90's. Computers were pretty common enough for most people to own at least one or to use one on a regular basis, even if it was within a public place like a cafe or library. It was the tipping point where PCs were becoming daily life, yet the surge of the digital revolution was still viewed as terrifying for many. There's a great breakdown from Nick Davis who writes in Flat Earth News, how a simple hypothetical turned into a global hysteria resulting in billions being spent in testing completely useless devices for Y2K compatibility. I even saw CD-Roms being installed with yellow Y2K complaint stickers. It also had stuff like this produced. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEhEQEG43RU
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Feb 19, 2015 13:13
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Aristophanes posted:What I find interesting is that Starbucks here in NZ (at least in Auckland where I live, where the vast majority of Starbucks are located) is pretty okay and is fairly successful. Adelaide is curiously devoid of many of the major franchises giving such emergence of international brand names a somewhat exotic feel. For instance Krispy Kremes were so highly regarded, people would return from interstate trips with large boxes of the stuff. The report also states how over-saturated the market is; Melbourne definitely is one area that outshines the country in regards to coffee as you find one on any corner at almost any hour of the day pumped out of machines that cost more than your car. Sydney just has far more real estate to cover so Starbucks has survived as the competition is more spread out. Adelaide's challenge is that pretty tough to market in as just within the main shopping strip of Rundle Mall there's at least several dozen well established coffee chains and outlets that had rusted on clientele and much of their successes are strongly reliant on one on one engagement with their clients as Aussies have our set ways in coffee that we usually go for the atmosphere. As the report correctly states people only shopped at Starbucks because of the brand power (or the power plugs to charge a laptop) before quickly getting turned off by the prices and general in-out nature. While you do have percolated coffee that sits cooking in a pot all day, that's usually reserved for McDonalds and tight arse servos. Or if you're feeling really masochistic; the coffee vending machine, which is a grade below instant coffee and only really keeps you awake on account of being scaling.
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Mar 25, 2015 13:50
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Coke actually tried to present their product with a "myth busting" "check the facts" style advert here in Australia, which was aimed at the guilty mums demographic. The myths brought up included the "Coke has cocaine in it" that sat alongside claims that Coke cannot cause tooth decay or make you fat or has loads of caffeine - a fact skewed with comparing Diet Coke's caffeine level with that of tea or coffee. The idea they were going for was that Coke could be enjoyed in moderation, but the ad completely ignored the general impact Coke had on kids. Coke ate humble pie and printed a new ad apologizing for the mess. It didn't do the actress who spruiked it much good either as the copy had her sons mentioned in there so she was painted as a sellout after the paycheck ($70,000).
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Apr 5, 2015 04:22
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reformed bad troll posted:Whereas in Britain you get the manly pies. Down in England they shove all sorts of meats and veg in there.
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Apr 19, 2015 10:27
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The Console Wars book goes into a little about how this came to pass. Consoles straddled quite a few markets as it wasn't quite an electronic toy and not quite a typical entertainment device like a CD player in an industry that had completely imploded with the console crash and no one wanted to touch it. Kids got it, adults didn't which sort of set the stage as SEGA clawed it's way to get market domination by pushing through the image that Nintendo was something your younger brother would play and then hooked into the MTV trend to push the "punk rock" feel across during the mid 90's to capture kids entering their teens. Those ads pretty much defined the stage for video game advertising as you were targeting an incredibly switched on audience who, much like today's millennials, were becoming very very aware of marketing. And the ad campaigns had to deal with a shifting age bracket and try not to sell it as being "too young". The book gets amusing at the end when Sony starts gate-crashing SEGA's PR events by flooding areas with PS branded balloons and napkins, which ironically upset the SEGA people who saw it as crossing the line, despite their many ad stunts designed to poo poo on Nintendo's presence at trade fairs. And SONY kept it up with 1999's infamous Nipples advert being aware that kids were getting out of their teens. 
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Apr 21, 2015 04:11
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Try filming em  It's hell being on a crew that's in tow the entire day having to remain invisible from something like 7am to midnight. Which is always a nightmare when trying to film in churches and not get in the way, especially with the more traditional ceremonies where everyone clusters around the pair and you have no room to get a decent shot without having to physically tap people on the shoulder and feeling like an utter dick. The place I worked for prided themselves on being "affordable" which attracted the thrifty clientele stretching every penny. And if you think you had any quiet time in the reception you had to keep an eye on the pop-up photobooth to stop kids smacking the photo button (they were too short to be seen, so often tried to time the snap with their jumps) and throw away the drunk dick picks that would appear as the evening wore on. I do regret having to bow out of the heavy metal wedding, as that looked like a blast and pretty much threw tradition to the wall for an excuse to have ear splitting music that made Greek weddings look quiet in comparison. (Protip: earplugs). The winner was one groom who just didn't want to be there and I had to cut around him drinking through the whole day until he disappeared midway through their dance to get more drinks out the back. At least I didn't have to directly deal with "we want to see all of the footage!" requests. While the pay-on-the-day was handy, driving home at 3 in the morning after spending almost the whole day on your feet was getting really unsafe despite leaving with cash in hand at the end of the day.
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May 2, 2015 15:50
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Wheeze posted:Speaking of misguided attempts to appeal to the kids these days, here's Chevy's latest press release: Even back then people were aware enough that 1337 was a holdover from old BBS and found the idea pretty silly - but the competition wasn't that unreasonable. Though it's barely up there with Acclaims's infamous marketing strategies which went from the weird, such as a bus shelter that dripped blood or planning to have branded pigeons to swoop in during a Wimbledon match. Then to the insane which included paying to name a kid Turok, getting your tombstone endorsed with an ad for Shadowman and offering to pay people's speeding fines to promote Burnout 2. On another level here was the Starforce PR blunder where to counter the claims that their copy protection was breaking your CD drives they offered to pay you $10,000 if that was the case. The catch? Transport your computer at your own cost to Russia. Surprisingly no one took up this offer. But that still doesn't top radio station KDND's "Hold Your Wee for a Wii" contest which subsequently killed a woman from water intoxication. The contestants were in the studio and had to drink til they couldn't cope. That cost them $16 million in damages. BogDew has a new favorite as of 00:27 on Jun 23, 2015 |
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Jun 23, 2015 00:24
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Zaphod42 posted:Its always EA, isn't it? It blew up as the British press (who didn't attend) simply took the images and copy "endless barbaric killing" at face value and wrote increasingly morbid tales of how the guests were offered ""still warm intestines uncoiled from the carcass of a freshly slaughtered goat".  Sony wrote back saying at no point was anyone allowed to touch the dead beast, and the only thing eaten was traditional Greek soup.
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Jun 23, 2015 06:06
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Panic! at Nabisco posted:The difference is that usually, in a somewhat competent company or agency, someone will be there to step in and go "hey, uh, that kinda looks like a swastika" or "that imagery evokes a penis pointing at the client's head" or whatever. Misspellings are another great one in rush-to-print, "sweat treats" or "heart-punding adventure" are two I've witnessed.
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Jun 24, 2015 04:28
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Speaking of donuts and marketing disasters, here in Australia Donut King decided a great idea would be to have a commercial featuring former politician Pauline Hanson. For those not in the know, she was a chip-shop owner turned leader of a far-right wing party who declared Australia was to be swamped by Asians and anyone coming from South Africa was guaranteed to have AIDS. Her very insular views and thick as bricks comments did strike a chord with "everyday" voters and propelled her into parliament before her party disintegrated and her ending up arrested for electoral fraud. Somewhere after that bloodbath she tried to regain her political power and I suspect spruiking donuts was an attempt to get back into line with the voting public. The ad firm's excuse was that they were focusing on people who had their five minutes of fame, such as former Big Brother contestants and ex-weather reporters. Needless to say the Australian public found the whole concept surreal and the ad quietly vanished.
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Jun 24, 2015 16:01
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Oh to be back in the days when EA released bonus cars for Need for Speed on their website. Nowadays each one would cost $10. Bethesda also released little armor and weapon quests from time to time. I recall another early one from the horse armor days that was roundly mocked was some Japanese air-fighting game where there were unique skins based off some anime characters. The kicker was that if no one else had brought the skins only you were able to see your pretty pink plane in deathmatches.
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Jun 25, 2015 06:50
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Everquest 2 did try to fight back with "no server wait times" ads. Didn't it also have an in game pizza command?
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Jun 28, 2015 23:40
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Also the saga of Butterfly Labs. Basically when the boom started everyone who was on the ground floor got up and going with GPU based miners, this eventually gets superseded by application-specific integrated circuits - ASICs - and BFL arrives promising special units for your bitbucks. Prices ranged from $150 up to around $20,000 - and the orders rolled in - around $20 to $50 million. Initial shipping was to be in 2012 and soon that date began to slip. People started ordering everything in the hopes of winning the lottery. Cue very very desprate posts of people literally begging their postman to keep an eye out for "the package". Of course as the delays rolled so did the window in which Bitcoins were actually profitable.and there was much speculation that they were trying to keep up with the times as faster chips and more insane mining arrays were being built. Any units that did get made were met with complaints as things broke or were broken on delivery or in other cases found to be set slower than recommended to not melt down. That didn't explain the dust some had. Lo and behold it transpired that BFL had been giving these machines a good run to mine as much as possible before handing them off to customers to take advantage of when the coin was easier to mine. Oh and if you wanted a refund, not a chance. In fact order paperwork was quite slim to boot. The growing lists of complaints soon got the FTC curious to what was going on. The FTC filings strongly allude that most of that cash ended up being spent on personal things, like cars and saunas. One recorded bit of infamy was boxes of foam torches declaring "Y U NO SHIP – BFL IS LATE!" There's far more to this story as well - such as displaying models of the cases at trade shows where they weren't much more than an empty chassis lined with fans, and an android tablet displaying a picture of a probable performance chart.
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Jul 4, 2015 16:33
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Games Workshop has to be the only company I've seen which seems actively against promoting their product and developing a community. Not to say others haven't made dumb moves, but they at least eat humble pie and try and repair the damage. Allegedly the video games market was frowned upon as they feared people would just play that instead of buy more models - allegedly why you'd never see every race or a large amount of unit types in a game (that and balance issues). This changed when their share value peaked around 2004/5. THQ was providing a good share from royalties. This warchest wasn't enough to pay damages from attempting to take on Chapterhouse (and loosing) and then the GFC hit. Another example was them ditching supports for official tournaments. There's a hefty writeup here of just how bad this got. The TL;DR version is that GW realized how expensive hosting a tourney was (irrespective of any flow on effect) and started cutting corners, cheaper prizes and then dropping off the radar leaving everyone to do the heavy lifting. For a short time they found a compromise and offered auxiliary support ($2000 prize vouchers), but that was hampered by poor scoring apps and their bloated rules which caused them to pull down their forums from protests. And apparently the stores have a very testy relationship with GW. Independent stores struggle to get into their good graces and be allowed to stock things, there's tales of people running afoul of GW's demands regardless if they're official or not. And then there's buying things online - Mark Wells explains that due to shifting currencies you are not getting a "free-ride" on our bandwagon - because we don't want to loose any fiscal edge. In other words if stock is traded outside of Europe, there's hefty markup. Which is why everything is incredibly expensive in Australia. There's a massive writeup of what went wrong after 2004. Oh and salting the earth of the fanbase by demanding popular sites to be removed, due to supplying rumors, and clamping down on any fan films that look too good. Oh and regarding 3D printing, that is happening but I suspect the cost and time is marginally cheaper. Adding: and before that it was possible to get cheap re-casts from the Ukraine, which is allegedly why GW changed up their model materials a few times to try and get in more details that you can't replicate from creating a mold. Of course that leads to the debates of plastic vs white metal vs pewter vs resin. Apparently the resin casts are a bit too fragile and come with air bubbles - plus are more expensive. Mizuti posted:I wonder how Games Workshop still has any pull? BogDew has a new favorite as of 04:33 on Jul 5, 2015 |
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Jul 5, 2015 02:50
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GePUXH6X7z0
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Jul 30, 2015 04:13
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Surprisingly, just lots more of that "dick" mug and this... :NSFW: http://i.imgur.com/hGi00tM.jpg :nsfw: (It's a mug with a ceramic dick handle).
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Aug 15, 2015 16:16
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B&O have moved more into providing accessories for existing devices, like iPods and so forth over or providing something with finely crafted gloss, like their TV that automatically adjusts it's position depending on where you are sitting. They're pretty much designer electronics nowadays. They also have moved into partnering with companies like Audi and HP to provide brand-name flourishes on devices, such as that Asus laptop. And apparently they're so good at doing things in aluminum that they offer that as a service to other companies.
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Aug 21, 2015 02:36
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Well Nokia is still going strong in 2240!  
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Aug 21, 2015 07:06
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DARE also crossed over into Australia - given "drugs" also included alcohol. Alcohol is so ingrained into the Australian mindset that you are a complete wuss if you didn't sneak off into the bushes with a smuggled out six-pack before you were 15 to awkwardly sample beer. In the few cases where I've seen DARE work it creates people who have a paranoid revulsion to anything drug or alcohol related which would make a hardened rechabite look at you as if you were mad. I knew someone who just went on and on about how alcohol is a poison and that a casual beer would lead immediately into binge drinking and everything you saw on the ads. Also the idea that weed would immediately invoke a schizophrenic reaction.
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Nov 1, 2015 13:19
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Learning about STI's at the dawn of the internet made for some  viewing of diseased genitals filtered through 8/16bit gifs and kinda kept you wary of sticking your dick into everything.
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Nov 1, 2015 15:03
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Fear is a common tool in the ad-making toolkit and that can be as simple as "I fear I will stink." Of course public awareness ads have a very long history with taking no holds. The Government here got into a bit of hot soup when it remade a failed ad campaign from 2007. It's literally shot by shot with the 2015 version flipping the line of action. The problem is many people find the ads too horrifying to really be effective or roll their eyes at the exaggerated depictions of the risks of the drugs taken - studies showed that even if people who were watching had experimented with ice they weren't shocked with images of desperate users turning into scabby prostitutes as in their experience they'd tried some it felt good and then continued on with their lives. The testing only really scored highly with a younger audience or adults who were more than happy to buy into the graphic imagery as it fitted in with lurid tales that float around the media - such as the one about the guy who was so psychotic he ate his own eyeballs. Also some of the ads were seen as a bit too real that it's been noted that once during audience testing a former addict got inspired to light up in the bathrooms. HIV had a similar thing in the 1980's with the infamous Grim Reaper commercial scaring a whole generation of kids. Grim had been seen as an icon of early road safety ads dating back to the 50's who warned you of ending precious lives with your bad driving - namely with a much mocked radio commercial. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U219eUIZ7Qo But the big problem was that ad didn't shift perceptions of HIV being something you got from touching or kissing. While it spooked many people and has been constantly mentioned as being the ad that helped fight HIV the reality was that new ads came about that promoted realistic discussions about using protection and so on - however it's legacy is entombed with every new major anti-something campaign trying to shock you into abstaining out of fear. In comparison the famous "Slip, Slop Slap" campaign was better at raising awareness over skin cancer prevention as it didn't push you into a barrage of graphic images of cancerous moles eating holes into people - it just encouraged with a nice animated jingle.
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Nov 2, 2015 06:06
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Zaphod42 posted:Wow, where do you live? Canada? We had all sorts of commercials like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfYWAcRIviw Plus others with diseased organs being shown off. Of course every kid in the 90's no doubt loved these gloriously un-PC lollies:  And that's on the low-end of candy cigarettes, others would come with authentic branding. Some had powered sugar in them that you could blow out as "smoke". They slowly got pulled as studies were coming out to show they made smoking look completely harmless Nowdays they're still sold,with look-alike-branding, but most are called "candy sticks".
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Nov 10, 2015 07:47
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C.M. Kruger posted:IIRC Jack Daniels similarly tried to market a premixed "Jack Cola" that was pretty dire. Jack Daniel's "dumb move" in Australia was to drop their premix alcohol content from 6% to 5% which saw backlash as loyal buyers moved to other brands that kept up the alcohol content. Jacks got the hint and you now can get a "double jacks" version which has 6.9%. Which still costs $25 for 4 375ml cans.
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Nov 10, 2015 10:45
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Sentient Data posted:I know I may come off as an alcoholic, but even the 6% sends crazy low to me. I'm assuming Jack in Oz is still the usual 40%. At the bar it's not much cheaper, a mixed shot will set you back $8+. Almost every spirit is mixed with something in Australia.
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Nov 10, 2015 13:19
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Croccers posted:We taxed it and just made underage and binge drinking worse I Australia during the first half of the 20th century we tried our own attempt at enforcing morality and temperence. The key moment was a riot spurrned on by disgruntled army personel who drunk the suburb of Liverpool dry and started looted the rest. So the idea was struck that pubs be closed at 6 O'clock to stop large gatherings of people in one bar who would get drunk and rowdy. This stuck in the law books till about 1967 in some states when the times were slowly relaxed. Enter "The Six 'clock swill" where everyone rushed from work to get down as much as possible in the hour. It had the opposite effect intended as people would buy several pints at once to drink and some venues even had a massive hose hooked up to the taps to pour the entire pub a last round. Bar owners were desprate to keep any form of income from a cut-down serving time so rennovated their pubs remove billard rooms and increase the area of the bar into. Others cashing in set up dingy little pubs that were dubbed "tiled urinals" and some had stainless steel troughs that you could piss into so you'd not loose your spot at the bar. Failing that you still could got to the bottle-o and buy drinks to take home. Others opened up sly-grog bars in their houses as it wasn't illegal to drink at home after six. And to no one's surprise this resulted in a massive increase in alcohol related incidents between 6:00pm and 8:00pm as everyone was quite tanked and either drove into something on the way home or had a biffo with the wife and kids. BogDew has a new favorite as of 00:11 on Nov 11, 2015 |
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Nov 11, 2015 00:09
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ToxicSlurpee posted:The U.S. has laws where you aren't allowed to show people drinking alcohol on screen. There's been more of a crackdown to when a beer commercial can be seen, which has lead to concerns that many are being snuck in during sports events "This coin toss was sponsored by VB" where you just show the brand and it kind of influences kids. The general rules: Drinking must be kept in moderation and be seen as responsible - that is always a social event in a group, never on your own. So while you can be seen drinking in a commercial it can't be done to excess. Most of the time you get around it by setting the scene in a pub vs a house or office. In recent times I've noticed they don't bother showing people actually drinking as the more outlandish commercials would imply you and your mates got drunk on rum and tried to build a boat or setup giant trebuchets in the city - branding has become more important than the drink itself. Alcohol can't be seen as an influence on behaviour or cause success as a result of it's consumption. So no depictions of having a pint before scaling a cliff. In any social scene the alcohol must already be there, not brought to start a boozeup. However the key word is drink you can be perfectly fine holding a beer as long as the actions on the screen are not implied to have been caused by the beer being consumed. Which makes this sort of ad impossible to air nowadays as it implies sporting prowess through beer. Also Boonie was infamous for once drinking 52 cans of beer on a flight from London to Sydney so by association it implied irresponsible drinking. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3C-Rzo2Iwo As for more bad ads from Australia. Domino's Australia "Many Toppings" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UblEKKuFSg0 BogDew has a new favorite as of 14:44 on Nov 19, 2015 |
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Nov 19, 2015 11:23
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Ahh the days before CGI when the delicious slathering of chocolate in commercials were done by using thick brown paint. Also microwaving wet tampons to make instant steam.
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Apr 12, 2016 03:11
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Keep in mind with Loot crate anything remotely cool you just get off eBay.
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Jul 12, 2016 02:45
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GrandpaPants posted:Married With Children lost its theme song on DVD release. The Door Frame posted:It's very rare for games, even for non-functional ones like Arkham Knight, to get actual lawsuits brought against them. However they dropped their investigation from No Man's Sky, unless there's another active lawsuit that's still going. I think SEGA/Gearbox god away with the Colonial Marines debacle as the class action suit was dropped in 2015 and unless the plaintiffs are following up with some other deal nothing's seemed to have been reported since.
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Jan 17, 2017 23:49
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bitterandtwisted posted:Horse meat is actually a common staple in the UK
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Jan 28, 2017 21:08
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Dear loving lord it's the perfect reminder of graphic design from the early 90s as it was getting out of its 80s phase. And yeah with Google drive offering 15gb for free I can see why they're trying to look fancy before their IPO.
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Oct 5, 2017 12:47
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Depressio111117 posted:Gosh, nobody show these pearl clutchers ancient Roman graffiti.
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Nov 5, 2017 07:42
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mllaneza posted:We're still hating the switch to USB-C, sourcing cables in quantity has been a real pain.
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Nov 22, 2017 03:33
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I think he means the studio that was behind Dallas Buyers Club attempted to sue Aussies who pirated the film by trying to get ISPs to hand over any ids of whomever matched the ip addresses they had. Aussie law with pirated stuff generally means if you get caught you pay the dollar amount of the worth of the item, so say $35 per copy you had. We don't have speculative invoicing as a legal tactic here so their case was thrown out because they were intending to charge people insane amounts based on theoretical numbers based on the idea they seeded it to 100,000 people. They tried this in Singapore and were told no. There were successful settlements in the states.
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Nov 29, 2017 17:21
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