Classic Commercials & Such

[Mystie]

Spoiler

Sorry for double posting, just wanted to share an ad that I've always been baffled by. Why? It existed, because that's enough for me to be confused by this... thing.

Because I like ranting and it doesn't cost me much time at all, I'll point by point this:

• A pretty good way to get your product ignored is making the advertising obnoxious and annoying. Nothing says "please mute the TV" quite like crop metal and a distorted, robotic voice. I get that 1996 was a very edgy year for America; we just came out of the grungefest and that evolved into some weird thing and media in general was very dark and weird, but that doesn't excuse this commercial's image one bit. If anything, Sega's attempts at marketing the Saturn throughout its existence was the vile, grotesque mildew that spewed from this kind of mid-'90s attitude. If you aren't familiar with the Saturn's various ad campaigns, ohohhhh boy, let me tell you, this isn't the odd one out at all.
  
• Another great way to lose potential customers is by making false claims. Guess when NiGHTS was released? August 31st, 1996. Guess when Descent was released on the Playstation? March 12th, 1996. More than 6 months earlier. What's the significance of this? Descent is precisely what this ad tried describing NiGHTS as: a real-time 3D, full, and fluid flying game. What's the significance of that? The ad quite blatantly mocks the Playstation for not having a game like that at all.
  
• In general, the whole attack-ad vibe Sega were going for really lost steam by this point in time. It may have worked for them in the early '90s when both the aging NES and the not-as-cool-to-preteens SNES were easy targets, but trying to pick on the Playstation? Bullying a dragon, Sega...
  

...soooo yeah, I guess you could say I'm not a fan of this ad!

To be perfectly honest, every American Saturn ad was shit. Every single one was either frightening and disturbing as hell, or extremely annoying and "2edgy4u". It's almost as if Sega of America wanted the Saturn to be a complete failure.

Also, I find it appalling that they marketed NiGHTS as an edgy and badass game, when in reality, it's a beautiful and moving tale about two children facing their fears.

[Rystar]

To be perfectly honest, every American Saturn ad was shit. Every single one was either frightening and disturbing as hell, or extremely annoying and "2edgy4u". It's almost as if Sega of America wanted the Saturn to be a complete failure.

Also, I find it appalling that they marketed NiGHTS as an edgy and badass game, when in reality, it's a beautiful and moving tale about two children facing their fears.

The Saturn's launch campaign is something I always find a way to go on a tirade about everywhere ever since 2007 when I rediscovered the ads on Youtube (thus confirming my fears: they were real commercials).

For those of you who don't know, before Sega was trying to be edgy and spike their competitors by pretending to throw their products off building or pretending to shoot them down like clay pigeons, Sega thought it would be an absolutely FABULOUS idea to make nonsensical, deliberately creepy commercials that make little sense in the realm of sanity.

You've got everything: Bizarre imagery, twisted synth music probably made on a Korg M1, ridiculously sharp camera angles combined tilted camera angels that slowly zoom in to make you feel like you're being sucked into the ad I guess (you know what I'm describing here: it's pretty much a staple of '90s advertising in itself), and a desire to mess with your head in ways only Sega could. What's a cool, inventive concept that could be used to positively market a product? How about "ways our product is deadly, and to visualize this, we'll put on a disturbing play showing how the human body reacts to our product that can't make up its mind on how far into the body it's making a metaphor for." No, of course not; not only is that a terrible idea that is counterproductive to actually selling your product, I also intentionally worded it to point out its flaws rather than try and actually pass it off as a useful marketing strategy... but you probably already know where I'm going with this.

Aside from that, Sega made it their unholy mission to confuse customers and alienate existing fans with their bizarre advertising. To this day, I'm still not sure if Sega of America insisted on this kind of stuff or if the ad agency they hired would soon file for bankruptcy. Either way, it was total shit and is a huge factor in the Saturn placing a distant third in the 5th gen console wars over here.

[Jermungandr]

Apparently Sega thought that a good way to advertise Sonic Adventure was to show him dying in brutal ways:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wUQSgZbWz4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yt2QjbSe2hc