WWE’s gotta kick Rock out of some of these ads

[Clash, Never a Meter Maid]

So I’m listening to F4W and Bryan and Mike are talking about how old the NXT audience is (and really WWE’s audience as a whole). I think one problem is that they advertise way too old.



I get why they’d want to put them at the front of these Battlegrounds game ads, they were massive stars. But this is a bad habit they have. If you want your top stars to feel huge, they’ve got to be in the spotlight of most of your campaigns. Charlotte and Sasha Banks should be the first thing the viewer sees, Kofi and Fiend should be at the front of the cover.

It doesn’t matter (no pun intended) if the younger stars aren’t as ultra-charismatic as Rock (who is?). You have to shove your hot prominent talent in people’s faces if you want them to get bigger. Like on the NJPW World ads, I’ll see a brief clip of Inoki or Hashimoto doing something, but Tanahashi is the first wrestler you see and they close with Okada and Naito clips, the post-Tana aces on top. That’s how you build long term.

And it’ll probably help them become more confident and able to better exert themselves. The younger wrestlers will see the ads and think “wow, I’m right in the center, I made it!” I guarantee it’ll translate into their work.

I love Rock and Austin, but too much nostalgia = an aging audience.

(EDIT: actually, that one NJPW World ad was just all the current roster. There were a couple with 80s/90s clips before, but it was still mostly new guys)

[eJm]

I really get what you’re saying and I agree but honestly, they’re the people who actually made money for the company so they’re going to be prominent on this stuff.

Whether that’s because of presentation or not (it is) and whether it’s because of booking or not (it f***ing well is), that’s how it is.

And also, they have the license to use him on merchandise and anything else, they’re going to milk the hell out of that.

[Clash, Never a Meter Maid]

Aug 22, 2020 9:13:36 GMT -5 eJm said:

I really get what you’re saying and I agree but honestly, they’re the people who actually made money for the company so they’re going to be prominent on this stuff.

Whether that’s because of presentation or not (it is) and whether it’s because of booking or not (it f***ing well is), that’s how it is.

And also, they have the license to use him on merchandise and anything else, they’re going to milk the hell out of that.

The issue with WWE is they (meaning Vince) have gotten less patient. If they keep the attitude of “eh, it is what it is”, the problem will just continue. I’m not saying Rock should be wiped out of all the material, he still makes plenty of money for them. But this is a similar problem that MLB has now. There’s a new generation of exciting young players today, and most of the ad clips have a ton of Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson, Ted Williams and black/white footage. That’s not good, and it’s also turning off potential new fans I suspect.

And I’m not specifically talking about the booking of younger talent here, which isn’t good as a whole either but that’s a completely different topic. Just the marketing.

[eJm]

Aug 22, 2020 9:33:19 GMT -5 Clash, Never a Meter Maid said:

And I’m not specifically talking about the booking of younger talent here, which isn’t good as a whole either but that’s a completely different topic. Just the marketing.

I mean, it is but it also isn’t.

I know it’s real sport but let’s take the cover star of FIFA 21. It’s Kelvin Mbappe, a 21 year old striker who plays for PSG in France, he’s won many French league titles already and tonight he could win PSG their first Champions League title (basically the European Cup for clubs).

One of the key reasons he’s the cover star is not just because he’s very very good but also because he’s been made prominent by PSG but also global football. He is still young and has years to play, you could write stories about where he’d fit in other European teams (he’s linked with Liverpool on an hourly basis it seems), showing how he plays with his team mates and, like this year, make him the star of the video game.

People still remember Beckham or Pele or (Brazilian) Ronaldo or other past star names but because Mbappe is a genuine name and showcased as a present and future star, the chances are higher of selling the game off of him.

WWE, on the other hand, has shown that no matter who they put up front, they never give them the same marketing or push on TV to make people go “Wow, Becky Lynch/Roman Reigns/Seth Rollins etc! I need to buy the game if they’re on the cover!”

Thus, you appeal to the people who made the big bucks back in the day because, well, Networks executives aren’t a target demographic.

[Citizen Snips Has Left]

The weird part is this looks like the spiritual successor to WWE All-Stars, which had a cover that perfectly balanced the more well-known legends with the (then) current stars

Edit: I wrote "then current" before realizing 3 of the 4 "current" stars from 2011 are still in top positions today, sheesh.

[Clash, Never a Meter Maid]

Aug 22, 2020 11:21:39 GMT -5 Citizen Snips Has Left said:

The weird part is this looks like the spiritual successor to WWE All-Stars, which had a cover that perfectly balanced the more well-known legends with the (then) current stars

Edit: I wrote "then current" before realizing 3 of the 4 "current" stars from 2011 are still in top positions today, sheesh.

Yeah, for this particular era, that works better. It should be at least Rock fighting Kofi now, or along those lines.

[thecrusherwi]

I agree. I get that nostalgia is cooler these days than it was when I was a kid in the 1990s, but I can’t imagine wanting a bunch of WWF Attitude merchandise with Bruno Sammartino and Ernie Ladd on it. Steve Austin is a legend, but he hasn’t wrestled a match in 17 years.

[XIII]

The Rock is one of the biggest stars in the world. I’d put him on everything too. lol

The only people that are going to check something out if Rollins, Charlotte, Sasha, Wyatt, or whoever else are on the cover are wrestling fans and likely more specifically WWE fans, So it makes sense to put the Rock and Stone Cold on it, at least then maybe you’ll get some lapsed fans or Rock fans to check it out. Not like anyone currently in the WWE was selling out the house before covid(not that it’s all their fault)

[111111]

Aug 22, 2020 12:34:14 GMT -5 XIII said:

The Rock is one of the biggest stars in the world. I’d put him on everything too. lol

The only people that are going to check something out if Rollins, Charlotte, Sasha, Wyatt, or whoever else are on the cover are wrestling fans and likely more specifically WWE fans, So it makes sense to put the Rock and Stone Cold on it, at least then maybe you’ll get some lapsed fans or Rock fans to check it out. Not like anyone currently in the WWE was selling out the house before covid(not that it’s all their fault)

Yeah and the people who are going to check it out if Rollins Charlotte Sasha etc are on the cover are people who’ll already know about the game and would have bought it anyway.

[Dave the Dave]

^^^^the last two post are kind of the point. If WWE worked harder at making their stars bigger now they wouldn’t need to use the Rock and Stone Cold 20 years on from their prime.

[Hypnosis]

If they don't, they can.....kick Rocks.

But seriously, not booking the current roster better is a huge problem that's preventing most of the talent from reaching the levels that Austin and Rock did in popularity while still in their prime years.

[Bad Moon]

Aug 22, 2020 12:40:49 GMT -5 Dave the Dave said:

^^^^the last two post are kind of the point. If WWE worked harder at making their stars bigger now they wouldn’t need to use the Rock and Stone Cold 20 years on from their prime.

This.

I started teaching this year and I actually had a single kid in my class (5th grade so he would have been 11-12) who was a WWE fan. We started talking, I asked him who his favourite wrestler was and he without hesitation said the Rock. I asked him what he thought about Reigns and Strowman and he had no opinion on them at all, not even that they sucked or he hated them, just nothing. It turned out he doesn't even watch Raw or SD, he just plays the video games and watches Attitude era content on Youtube (although he defined "Attitude era" as lasting up until ~2006)

The absolutely miniscule amount of new fans they're still getting don't even care about the current product because all the big stars were in their past.

[crowley1986]

Aug 22, 2020 12:40:49 GMT -5 Dave the Dave said:

^^^^the last two post are kind of the point. If WWE worked harder at making their stars bigger now they wouldn’t need to use the Rock and Stone Cold 20 years on from their prime.

this, but other than Cena (who appears once a year), Big Show, Lesnar and probably Orton, the casuals/lapsed fans haven't a clue about the majority of the current roster...and thats wwe's fault for the "brand is the star" crap

[FinalGwen]

As others have said, you can include Rock and Austin as marketable names, but not even having a current star facing off against them feels like a huge missed opportunity to show off your roster and make yourselves seem somewhat current.

[Deleted]

As a Marketer myself, Roman, Braun or The Fiend should be on the cover of this. They sum up the larger than life feel the game has.

[Deleted]

Look at their sandwich bars...

Macho, Roman, Cena, and Becky.

From a business standpoint it makes sense to have some of the most known names in WWE history featured.

But they also need to build their current brand.

[111111]

Aug 22, 2020 12:40:49 GMT -5 Dave the Dave said:

^^^^the last two post are kind of the point. If WWE worked harder at making their stars bigger now they wouldn’t need to use the Rock and Stone Cold 20 years on from their prime.

Yeah but its a chicken and egg thing.

The people who market these games are going to go for who has the biggest name value, it’s up to WWE to get the wrestlers to that point, you can’t put them on the cover of the game first and expect the booking to follow suit it has to work the other way around.

[This Player Hating Mothman]

If the Attitude Era marketing consisted of Hogan and Ricky Steamboat on the cover of everything, it would have been a joke, too. Hogan never had to fight Bruno Sammartino for advertising space. To build your new stars up to the level of the old ones, you have to at least portray them as being on the same level. Vince used to know this. They know their audience demographic numbers, they can see what effect this nostalgia overpush is having. People have said that clinging to the old timers wasn't sustainable years ago and now here we are, in a year Goldberg has held the world title again.

[tenshi]

It's a minor detail but I notice that The Rock has flaming fists while Stone Cold has electric hands despite the fact that Rock's gimmick is bases on him having electrifying charisma.

[Dave the Dave]

Aug 22, 2020 14:29:21 GMT -5 111111 said:

Aug 22, 2020 12:40:49 GMT -5 Dave the Dave said:

^^^^the last two post are kind of the point. If WWE worked harder at making their stars bigger now they wouldn’t need to use the Rock and Stone Cold 20 years on from their prime.

Yeah but its a chicken and egg thing.

The people who market these games are going to go for who has the biggest name value, it’s up to WWE to get the wrestlers to that point, you can’t put them on the cover of the game first and expect the booking to follow suit it has to work the other way around.

Yep. I think that’s what we’re all saying