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Video: Affliction announces Fedor Emelianenko for their January 2009 MMA fight card
By Zach Arnold | October 22, 2008
You’ll notice right away what makes this ad both effective and ineffective.
Topics: Affliction, Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 14 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
1. Doesn’t tell you how to get the card.
2. How do they expect to have any sort of high buy rate when they are sandwiched between two different UFC cards?
I thought they should’ve showed Arlovski highlights as well. The promo makes it look like it’s going to be a squash match.
As someone who is in advertising and marketing, I will say that both Huddle and zack are correct.
Marketing 101: where is the call-to-action? Not enough information at the end of the ad.
And not showing Arlovski is just silly. He had several highlight-reel moments on the card – why not show off the flying knee strike or the punch combinations?
Why not fade from back to live action, and show Fedor destroying Sylvia…but have a voice over in between clips saying “Fedor is the #1 fighter in the world…but there is one man he’s never defeated” (show clip of Arlovski kicking the shit out of Rothwell) “The two top heavyweights in the world battle for the sport’s richest prize” (show the belt going around Fedor’s waist)
Or something like that.
You guys are all foolish. Atencio and Affliction’s templgraphics department know way better than you how to market to men. You guys just want things to make sense or have informative & emotional impact.
Yeah, I think this vid is all about “hey, we got Fedor.”
I think Affliction was really afraid the Japanese would poach Fedor for NYE and make this matchup improbable.
They knew they could get Arlovski on the other hand.
It shows the weakness of their hand, and even more so just how weak the fight industry is in Japan at the moment.
Lol, Asa had me going at first.
For a teaser, it’s ok, still plenty of time for a future ad with a proper CTA. Needed rope stretching sound effects on the choke however.
Perhaps, but is anyone going to remember a non-informative teaser? The event is still 3 months away, and between then and now there’s a couple of huge UFC cards.
They badly need to ramp up some conflict between Fedor and Arlovski, as Ultimo Santa said. The standard “show badass kicking ass” ploy only works if the badass strikes some fundamental chord in a person’s soul, the way Kimbo and Tyson do. Fedor doesn’t, he’s a stocky pleasant-looking Russian guy.
They should be selling this fight on the back of Arlovski trying to take out the invincible, unbeaten god of MMA, not on “hey look at this guy kick ass!”
Two former Soviet Republic fighters going at it? Yeah, that’s going to sell a whole bunch…
Fedor is the real deal but it does seem like Affliction might be making a similar mistake that EliteXC made, you can’t put all your eggs in one superstar’s basket. For a company that has several of the best heavyweights in the world under contract it’s sort of odd that their whole event marketing revolves around Fedor. They might as well of put Arlovski’s name in a tiny font under Fedor’s in that ad.
Who is Fedor?
That promo showcased the great champion EDOR. EDOR WILL RETURN.
Sure, Fedor is a great fighter but he’s not marketable enough to sell a sizable amount of PPV’s to make a profit. Given his past history as a headliner to American Audiences(PRIDE, BODOG, & Affliction), it would probably take a miracle for this 2nd Affliction card to achieve over 100K legitimate buys.
Overall, Fedor is a great fighter but he’s also a money pit with a meager ROI (Return on Investment). Plus, it doesn’t help that he’s a Russian, who scheduled to face a Belorussian. Like it or not, Fedor is better off facing Ken Shamrock in order to generate more PPV buys.
Even though Hardcore fans, such as myself, would love to see him fight Arlovski, it is the MAINSTREAM (American) Audience that will inevitably buy most of the PPV’s and determine the success of this card.
IMHO, Affliction should stick to the fashion industry, their real core competency.
Have Fedor fight Kimbo and AA on the same card.