New Toys
Yesterday, I saw a commercial for a truck—a Toyota, I think—taking place entirely in the World of Warcraft. A trio of adventurers is gearing up to take down a dragon. One announces she’s equipping explosive arrows. Another announces he’s equipping his epic stuff. A third announces he’s equipping his awesome red pickup truck, and proceeds to attack the dragon solo, before his teammates are ready, driving down the beast’s gullet and exploding out of its belly, whooping about how awesome he is.
The commercial had to add the truck, of course, since red pickups do not exist in the fantasy realm of Azeroth, but otherwise, everything was done with WoW graphics. Setting aside some hairsplitting, the dialogue sounds very much like a conversation held in Teamspeak or Ventrilo, and the truck assault is closely modeled on the celebrated Leroy Jenkins suicide attack filmed for Youtube. Anyone who has played WoW will immediately recognize every element of the ad, and will also immediately understand the basic message: The measure of a person is the stuff he owns, and a Toyota pickup truck is the ultimate gear, trumping dragons and teammates alike.
The message will strike players on a visceral level because, while gear is not technically the measure of a player, it’s a decent estimate given a certain minimum competence among players who have reached the level cap—which is nearly everyone. As a rule of thumb, your gear really is a measure of your effectiveness.
It’s a brilliant idea for an ad; attaching one’s product to the idea of reaching the peak of the gear ladder is guaranteed to strike a chord with WoW players. WoW players crave better gear; the whole game is built around the acquisition of better gear. If the ad were better executed, it would be brilliant, too. Still, it makes me a little uncomfortable.
I’m a little freaked out at the thought that so many people play WoW as to comprise a viable market demographic all by themselves. On some level, I already knew that millions of people play, but seeing that measured against an external measure—in this case, ad-worthiness—is odd. More disturbing is the way that Madison Avenue is seizing on our growing gaming culture. The results can be entertaining, as they are in the Coke commercial parodying the extremely popular and ultra-violent Grand Theft Auto video game with a street tough who yanks drivers from their cars to hand them ice-cold beverages and knocks down muggers in order to return old ladies’ purses. (That commercial must be deeply confusing to anyone who hasn’t seen GTA, just as the Toyota ad would be mystifying to anyone who hasn’t tried WoW.) But it also gives me a vague sense that my entertainment has just been hijacked by the establishment.
In their hunger for more eyes, the ad industry has already started placing their ads on virtual billboards in virtual worlds. As you zap bloodthirsty aliens in a post-apocalyptic cityscape, you can pass surprisingly well-preserved Pepsi posters in the post-apocalyptic subway. Now advertisers are seeking to brand themselves with your favorite games. Every time you think of Zork or Half Life or Warcraft, they hope, you will think of whatever drek they’re selling. That’s uncool. It’s like politicians absorbing the branding potential of rock music, or the Gap stocking counterculture clothes, or military engineers making horrific weapons out of nifty scientific discoveries. What you used to think was just plain fun is now someone else’s intellectual property, and it will be used to shape you. To sell you. What used to be your favorite song is now indelibly wed to Bill Clinton’s face, or Mountain Dew, or Verizon Wireless. Welcome to MacWorld.
Postscipt to “The Indignity”:
Congressman LaHood is proving a fertile source of damning sound bites. Another news story reporting on the general exodus of Republicans in Congress captioned a photo of Lahood with the following statement: “I don't like being in the minority. It's not that much fun, and the prospects for the future don't look that good.” Poor baby. Governing is no longer fun when you can’t shaft people with gay abandon. How could he know the House of Representatives occasionally required actual work?