World of Warcraft is a MMORPG (massive multiplayer online role-playing game) that has millions of players. There's been several commercials using celebrities such as Mr. T, Verne Troyer, and William Shatner. Even Toyota has been involved in making a World of Warcraft commercial.Vic Mignogna is a voice actor who is best known for his role as Edward Elric in the anime Fullmetal Alchemist and also played in anime roles such as Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle Case Closed, and Bleach. (for a full list go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vic_Mignogna) He created an unofficial World of Warcraft commercial just for fun.
The use of celebrities and cars results in a situation where the celebrities are paid to do the commercial and Blizzard and Toyota can receive more business.
Image is everything. Instead of using actual players, celebrities are used. If celebrities are seen playing World of Warcraft and promoting it, there is greater effect than if it were just regular players. Is this because there is more of a sense of familiararity if someone sees someone famous promoting something rather than some random person? Is it because they want to try the game simply because someone sees a celebrity playing it?
List of these commercials:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u15HmEMp2Qc - Toyota
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esLlxObAD_Y - Mr. T
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ouSrpsAHf8 - William Shatner
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae6U-WAJ1mw&feature=related - Verne Troyer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-ZqcW-xu5c&feature=related - Vic Mignogna
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
With our image-obsessed society, it is quite probable that some people try WOW because they see someone famous enjoying it. I think that the use of celebrities to advertise a product sort of lends some integrity and appeal to that product. We see famous people that we look up to in some way having fun, and we think that if they enjoy playing the game, then we will too. For example, one of the new McDonald's ads uses athletes to advertise its new chicken sandwich. It doesn't say that they are Olympians, but in a way, the ad implies it. I think that when people see that ad, they make the connection that if it's good enough for star athletes, then it's good enough for me. As a result, the use of celebrities is extremely successful in getting people hooked onto a product.
-Sejal Shah
I suppose if you did take the time to think about it our conclusion will end up the same: we are self absorbed people who only care about how we represent ourselves to the world. As Sagel said before me, we only 'enjoy' products that are seen used by celebrities because they are used by this people who are worshipped and revered by many. We think that by using such a product, we too will somehow be popular just like the celebrities. It's a pretty sad thing that we are easily persuaded by such things but as Postman said in his book AOTD, our culture is now pushed forward by electronic media without ourselves realizing it because we are too oblvious and too caught up in our telivision and computers.
I am actually one of the players of World of Warcraft but I played because I had previously been playing Warcraft III. I became hooked to that because of my uncles. After, I moved to World of Warcraft partially because my uncles started to play that. I still liked regular Warcraft but I really wanted to try World of Warcraft. When I saw the commercials I just laughed because of how they were advertising.
Post a Comment