This has some really interesting implications that are not restricted to gaming.

  • ChicoSuave@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Traditional marketing is dead. No one likes ads. But the amount of people watching game streams? Enormous. Slay the Spire is the typical tale of how streaming sparked a deck building gold rush and it started when a streamer played a few hours and got some word of mouth going.

    Marketing is still a very viable approach to figuring out how to sell a product. But ads themselves are actually poorly regarded and when folks are given the option of how to receive retail information, they don’t want unstoppable messages for things that don’t appeal and will never be purchased. And it sours the brand to viewers who have to watch.

    But getting some charismatic people to have fun with your product? Guaranteed to get some eyeballs who are willing to be there. That’s what ads will start to look like: appeals to friendship.

    Marketing is still working but unskippable billboards on the gates of our entertainment are dying off.

    • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️@yiffit.net
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      8 months ago

      You’ve just described astroturfing with the appeal to friendship thing. You may not always know if a random dude on social media who talks about a thing is doing so because they actually like it, or if they’re a paid shill. They even sometimes run smear campaigns against competing products, so if someone is badmouthing a thing, they could have been paid to do that also.

    • funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works
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      8 months ago

      “Marketing” is just the publically exposed arm of a go to market strategy. It will never die as long as money exchanges hands for goods and services.

      The methods and language change, and sometimes some of the methods of delivery, but regardless of how a market operates - it will always have a function that bridges the product and consumer, provided there’s a plurality of both.

      A W-shaped, multi touch funnel to nuture MQLs into a RFQ is just more sophisticated version of yelling “Fresshhhh Fishhhh” really loud as the boat comes in.