Monday 22 December 2008

Do I want to be Harry Redknapp?

OK, so this post is a bit rant inspired but, I was driving down the M4 into London yesterday afternoon and noticed a Nintendo poster hosting a picture of Harry Redknapp and the line “Play Mario Kart like The Redknapps”.

For some reason it really pissed me off and took a bit of the shine off my own love of Mario Kart (virtually unbeatable as Luigi I might add!). The ad was rough and ready, unimaginative and very, well, not-Nintendo. But there was something else that bugged me that I couldn’t put my finger on. It’s not that I disapprove of celebrities advertising products, I actually quite like the matching TV ads showing the Redknapps, Patrick Stewart, Girls Aloud and co having fun with various Nintendo stuff. So what was it? What was different? (Other than the fact one’s a poster and one’s on tele.)

This got me thinking about Carl Hovland. Whilst working as part of the US World War II propaganda machine Hovland examined various ways to present a persuasive message. He concluded that the most effective approach to persuasion is to present an audience with a logical argument showing how changing their attitudes or behaviour will benefit them. For example:

Or, in the case of the Wii TV ads, we’re told that we should buy Mario Kart as playing it with all the family means we’ll have a great time, as shown by the Redknapps doing exactly that. Sounds pretty logical. What about the posters? Here we’re told that if we buy Mario Kart we can be like the Redknapps.

Now this is a different message and where I think they’ve gone off piste. I don’t actually want to be Harry Redknapp (despite having Louise Redknapp as a daughter in law); I just want to have fun with my family like he does on the tele.

Hovland developed his theories further and, in 1953, presented the “Yale Communication Study”, the basic premise of which remains well known and well used today. In trying to persuade people there are four main variables: Who says what to whom by what means.

In the case of the Mario Kart example not only has the ‘what’ (message) and the ‘means’ (TV to poster) changed, but also the ‘who’. For the TV ads it was the Redknapps telling me that Mario Kart was great, on the posters it’s Nintendo.

It is generally agreed that, amidst a range of factors, the degree of involvement of the ‘who’ with the ‘what’ (message) affects the audience’s interpretation and evaluation of it (Social Judgement Theory). For instance, we’re more likely to believe our neighbour who owns the same car as the one we’re considering buying than the retailer who’s trying to flog it to us. Similarly, we’re more likely to listen to our pals the Redknapps who, after all, look just like our very own happy family than we are Nintendo, the manufacturer of the game.

Of course, I’m not suggesting that companies shouldn’t advertise directly (that would just be silly) more that the posters have missed the crux of the Nintendo campaign. It’s meant to be about the Redknapps showing how good the game is, not Nintendo trying to turn us into minor celebrities.

Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I just don’t want to be told so overtly that I want to be like the Redknapps because secretly I do? Or maybe I’m worried little Louise Redknapp would actually whoop my Luigi alter ego? Or maybe the posters are just crap?

I think I’m with the latter. (Luigi would definitely win.)