Editor's note: I love Kevin Butler's PlayStation ads, but I never stopped to think about what he might mean for the games industry's actual leaders. Rob did, and he's got some great points. -Brett
It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that fake Sony executive Kevin Butler has been the marketing success story of 2010. Butler has somehow managed — through a combination of perfectly pitched humor and on-target messaging — to straddle the great divide between corporate shill and hardcore gamer. It's not that gamers believe that Butler is real, but that we wish deep down that the profit-hunting businessmen running the megacorps atop the ziggurat of our favorite pastime were more like him.
We want impassioned speeches that perfectly encapsulate the enthusiasm we have for our hobby. We want humor. We want to feel that we understand — and are understood by — these alien creatures called CEOs, when so often that isn't the case. (Whether that's what the games industry needs from these men, the Bobby Koticks and John Riccitiellos of the world, is an entirely different matter.) What Butler has brought into sharp focus is how an expertly crafted marketing push can fill the void Kotick et al are incapable of crossing, and in an industry where brand loyalty forms such a strong part of gamer self-indentification, the man who can achieve that is worth his weight in gold.
So in the current world of instant communication and 24-hour news, do VPs and CEOs need to be both astute businessmen and forward-facing publicity figures? Nintendo of America has Reggie Fils-Aime, who seems to walk the line with aplomb, while Satoru Iwata's regular appearances on the Nintendo Channel speak to an attempt to make Nintendo's president a more approachable figure. Microsoft cycles through attempts to celebritize their mid-level executives to varying degrees of success, while Sony struggled with the waning stars of Kaz Hirai and Ken Kutaragi before switching tack to let the fictional Kevin Butler take the strain of the brand's public face, letting the actual executives get on with running the company.
[embed:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaVsmnpEtE0 ]
The danger to the Butlerian approach is simple enough: Unless the writing and characterization — not to mention grokking the audience — are pitched to perfection, the message risks coming across as insincere, particularly when the message contrasts sharply with traditional impressions of a company's working practices. This was the case at the beginning of the PS3 era, particularly in Europe, where the arrogance and downright cockery of PlayStation executives successfully undid a good deal of the goodwill carried over from the PS2.
In short, we don't need you to be hip, CEOs. We don't need you to be down with the kids in their 'hoods. If necessary, hire someone to entertain us while you get on with the business of making games, 'cause hell, we don't have the greatest attention spans in the world. Do what you have to, but don't confuse keeping out of the limelight with an excuse to pour disdain upon gaming culture from your lofty heights.
Or if you do, expect to be called out on it.