How Do You Market to Enthusiasts?

In my conversations with Chris over at AMD, he's displayed a keen understanding of how you handle marketing to the enthusiast set. Traditional marketing techniques don't work when you're talking about a group that Malcolm Gladwell would call "Mavens". They're the people that HATE walking into retail stores, because they frequently know more about a product than the people selling them.

How do you market to groups that know more than you do? Simple ... you don't. You have to find different ways to get them involved, get them engaged. Most importantly, it's going to go against everything marketing students (like myself) learn in school. You can't plaster your brand all over it, or it'll be seen as cheesy and fake. The experience needs to be ultra-high-involvement in order to keep their attention. And it needs to get them talking to everyone about it, as Mavens are wont to do.

This was something he mentioned to me on the phone today, as he casually reminded me that I forgot to mention AMD's involvement in the game in my last post (which has since been rectified). One of the best ways a company can "manage" something like Vanishing Point is to simply get out of the way. If you're doing your job right and creating an immersive and engaging experience ... don't worry about it. They'll figure out you're behind it. They always do.

Speaking of Vanishing Point and AMD, my interview with Chris, and the rest of the video from GearLive is posted at The Bleeding Edge. Check it out!

By the way, you'll see some pretty cool ice sculptures in the video. Regardless of anything you might hear on the Internets ... I absolutely did NOT lick the ice Vista logo.