Pizza.GG Followup.

Ahh Reddit. The place where you can talk about reducing toxicity in the community and the top-voted post will be "THIS GUY IS AN IDIOT". I stopped posting on Reddit a couple of months back, but I do read it from time to time. Less than I used to, but I happened to read the topic that references my audio blog today and I have a feeling some people just don't know or understand when and how they are being marketed to. The fellow in question posted the following.

"How anyone can be such an idiot is beyond me, it was all over reddit, tl, twitter and facebook.
People were spamming it so much that I unfollowed them and they never got tired of bringing up how it is for esports, some where even doing pizza giveaways, others talked about how they didn't even like the food and still ordered, do I have to explain any more?"

This is in reference to my claim that people were not buying pizza FOR ESPORTS, they were buying it because it was 50% off. He justified his opinion that no-one would actually buy pizza for 50% with this deal because other deals existed that you could Google.

"I can google "papa john's 50% off pizza" and get countless results, even where I live most places have 50% off pizza at least once per week.
This wasn't some groundbreaking deal to get cheap pizza that made people participate and justify the reaction they got out of the community, it was very much held as an "for esports" event and those goals were the incentive."

I think this shows a real misunderstanding of how marketing actually works. It might even be a wilful one. I've noticed in many aspects of the gaming scene that people HATE to think that they can be taken in. They despise the notion that they might not be the smart one, that they can be manipulated. Reddit as a whole is particularly notorious for this, to the point where there entire subreddits dedicated solely to mocking that attitude, but it's widespread in general in our society. We're "too smart" to be marketed to, we won't be taken in by those advertisers, no sir, not us, that's for the other sheeple. It's actually a little silly, to the point where people are willing to say "no really, we believed we were helping ESPORTS", rather than simply admitting they were successfully marketed to. There are other 50% offers? Sure, but you're not directly aware of them because they're not being shoved into your face via a targeted marketing campaign specifically aimed at you and promoted by people you respect (or at least know exist). That's the point of advertising. You know Papa Johns exists, they've got past the point of having to introduce their brand to you, what they now have to do is remind you that they are around and get you to buy from them once again. That's the constant battle that large companies must fight in order to get your money. It doesn't matter if there are other 50% off deals available online, you'd have to go out of your way to actively find them, which means you already wanted Papa Johns to begin with, so  why even give you the 50% off? They are marketing to people that DON'T actively want Papa Johns, but they're convinced to do so by a targeted marketing campaign with a strong discount incentive attached to it. The bonuses in question are thematic in nature, they're in there so the campaign can be targeted directly at you. Someone once said marketing is about selling you things that you didn't even know you wanted and that's the case here. You were not actively searching for Papa Johns deals, you might not have even considered ordering pizza from them, but you sure as hell did when they marketed to you. You felt special right? Someone as big as Papa Johns was taking notice of our lil' ol' scene, but at the end of the day what you bought, was 50% off pizza and you did it because you were successfully marketed to. The poster claims people "didn't even like the food but bought it anyway". If you want to call anyone idiotic, well there's a place to start, but not before you consider that it's not a good idea to believe everything you read on the internet.

I'm gonna be frank and honest guys, if you bought pizza to "help ESPORTS" then you are part of the problem here. Something Richard never said, for what reason I cannot speculate, is that some of the blame for this kind of pandering lies with the people who were "taken in" by it. You're really trying to convince me that you bought pizza to "help ESPORTS" and not because you were hungry and there was an offer for cheap pizza right in front of you? I honestly do not believe the majority of the community is stupid enough to buy into the whole "help ESPORTS" thing and frankly as I said in my audio blog, I don't believe it's even that prevalent in the first place. You are not morons, you didn't buy a bunch of pizzas you wouldn't eat just to impress EG and Papa Johns, come on now. So which would you rather admit? That you were effectively marketed to, or that you threw money at a nebulous concept called "ESPORTS" for ultimately pointless rewards that had no deadline on them at all? You can't come out of this feeling 100% smart and above it all, sorry guys. We are all susceptible to marketing, whether we want to admit it or not. Never once does that article ever suggest that you know what, it might be a good idea to be a little more careful with your money. No, it's all the fault of these predatory ESPORTS institutions that are just rolling in their filthy money right at this very moment. To take the view that this is all the fault of the organisations is question is to also admit that you're very easily taken in. Promises should be fulfilled, but please don't tell me that you threw money at Pizza.gg just to get some half-arsed showmatch and a dance video, I want to believe you're smarter than that. You bought and ate cheap pizza, that's the long and the short of it.