Back in the 1990s, I was at a small internet security startup called Internet Security Systems. ISS was filled with young, hard charging techies that were going to change the world. In some ways, we did, but we made a bunch of mistakes along the way.
Electra Snoophard was one.
The marketing department was looking to be creative, and to grab some attention from the press - always a difficult task. They also wanted to highlight the fun, hard charging, "break the rules" company culture. And so instead of a traditional ad campaign, they made a comic book. Let me set the Wayback Machine to 1998 so you get the flavor of this from someone on the outside:
We could be heroesYuk, yuk. Alas, I have no picture of Electra Snoophard (although somewhere I do have a copy of the comic, and so I guess I could scan it). But it really doesn't matter - picture that description of a comic book "saucy minx", and you have precisely the right idea.
What do these words remind you of - Kapow! Bam! Thwam! Biff! Splat!?
No, it's not the aftermath of a distributor's Christmas party, it's actually a nice little summary of Internet Security Systems' (ISS') latest 'hello, please notice our company' marketing campaign type thing. The idea centres around a cartoon featuring ISS' own superhero, who saves the day. The only problem is that instead of giving its main guy a dynamic name like Batman or Superman, ISS has called its hero RealSecure, which oddly enough is the name of its new product - fancy that.
According to this pile of pulp fiction, RealSecure protects your network from dastardly villains like a nasty cyberpunk bloke and saucy minx Electra Snoophard, who would like to get her hands on your 'illegal lengths'. Imagine, if other techie companies used their products in this way, then maybe slogans like 'keep your hands off my token ring' could one day become a reality.
I wish I had a dollar for every female customer who reminded me of Electra Snoophard. Some were explicitly offended, some pointedly questioned whether ISS was mature enough to do business with, some took a more lighthearted angle - but it was clear that they didn't bring it up because they thought it was nifty neat-o keen.
They remembered, for years. And the ISS marketing department at the time had no idea that they were about to dig a hole that they'd have to spend years climbing out of. They just didn't have any idea.
Breda sees something similar in gunnie land:
So, sure...I understand gunbunnies. Or Sniper Babes, or Hot Shots, or Ammo Girls...or whatever you want to call them. Paid to be the pretty giggle and jiggle that will hopefully hypnotize gun nuts into forking over cash. If a little tits and ass makes a guy buy more bang and brass then hooray, capitalism! I get it. Really. But I don't have to like it.There's an old saying that you should never make an enemy by accident. Marketing, sadly, if filled with examples of companies that haven't learned this. Like the ISS marketing team, they just don't realize they're doing this.
Companies that employ this tactic perpetuate the "guns are a guy thing" myth that for so long has kept women away from the gun culture and, consequently, the most reliable self defense tools available.
I think that this was Breda's point. Not that sex sells (as she repeatedly pointed out in the comments), but that the companies just don't Get It that they're peeing in the cornflakes. The "empty headed" ones aren't the booth bimbos, but the marketing directors.
Brigid likes to say that confidence is the best cosmetic. I'd add that confidence sells. The "Thin is sexy" Kahr ad was a huge miss, because instead of highlighting the model's actual quite compelling marksmanship skills (confidence), it played to cheesecake. Why not get Electra Snoophard?
One "oops" offsets a dozen "attaboys". Given how hard it is to get even a single attaboy in marketing, this seems like it would be the easiest thing for the industry to fix. But what do I know? The industry seems fine with using murderers as pitch men.
Fail.
13 comments:
I knew a couple of people who worked at ISS back in the 90's when I lived in Atlanta. The one I remember most is Michael Warfield. He use to haunt the local meetings of the Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts. Great guy.
Another was some kid who didn't wear shoes. I think he ended up at MindSpring or something.
Brigid is right. Confidence is personal strength. Nothing better in a woman, as far as I am concerned.
I'll say it here since there aren't 30 bazillion comments. Yet.
Oleg has a shot of one of the shoot organizers. She's wearing the same outfit as the ladies running ammo. She wasn't wearing a silk smoking jacket while the bunnies served ammo in high heels and white ears.
Sure the outfits tended more toward sport than burka, but it's a perfectly reasonable outfit for women planning to run 300 20 yard sprints outside all day (sporty) while looking somewhat composed (black with a collar).
From outside, it sounds like a lot of noise signifying nothing. My wild assed guess is that LuckyGunner needed temp people of a wait-staff variety. It just so happens that younger ladies dominate that particular working group. So they pulled from the deck stacked with young ladies and got, wait for it, a stack of young ladies.
Your point about the inexperienced not seeing marketing fail in progress is 100% valid. It might have played a role here, and Breda certainly believes it did if I understand her position correctly. But I'm also getting a lot of a looking-for-persecution vibe off this and I think that sucks.
people never remember the good things you've done, and they never forget the bad things.
You should read Kevin's OTHER post about it - LuckyGunner, it's not about the booth bunnies but about the PayPal FAIL and finding us bloggers - and going from $250k per year to $3.2 million in sales... Fail? Also another point, the "waitresses" weren't tied to a hot-stove in the kitchen, held-back, doing their nails while waiting to get their time-cards punched by a leering Assistant Manager - they were out SHOOTING too, machineguns!! And some had NEVER shot before AND they LIKED it! (Of course ythey would!) How many new-shooters were made that day, the converted? - is that FAIL? Sometimes we look too close at out own buttons.
DirtCrashr,
Generally, I have no problems with the way the shoot was run.
Actually, I have a lot of praise for it, and Angela deserves most of the credit; there is no doubt about who did the lion's share of the grunt work keeping all those balls in the air at once.
Personally, I just saw an interesting meta point about the gun industry in general to be made here.
Tam, Since I wasn't there maybe I should shut-up, but I agree with your observation and the meta-point - it's a real point and no getting around it.
And apparently hypnotized gun nuts WILL fork over cash when they get angry with PayPal, and I'm shocked at the size of our largesse - esp. since I don't have that kind of financial leverage...
I disagree that the "ammo waitresses" were a marketing failure. I don't believe those young ladies deserve to be lumped in with cheesy cheesecake marketing. There is a huge difference between the "ammo waitresses" and the women hired to staff some of the European importer's booths at SHOT Show. As a male talking to those companies at SHOT, I have to wonder they stay in business at all.
Jacqueline didn't have to ask for ammo at the shoot and there was no shortage of "ammo boys" supplying her ammo, so she didn't have to leave the line. Some of those "ammo boys" worked for LG, some were bloggers. Would that be a failure too?
Seeing Tam's clarification, I agree with her meta point about the industry. There are some really bad ideas on how to market in the firearms industry, but the market will weed those out.
That should read, "I have to wonder how they stay in business at all."
You were at ISS in the 90s? Were you still there in '99?
That's when I became an outside instructor for the various ISS product lines and course offerings.
ISS, RSA, Checkpoint, and Nokia all in the same year... busy year (it's the year I went into the reserves and back into the civvy workforce).
Oh and the MCNS, the MCSP security, and Netscreen (engineer, administrator, and instructor).
Chris, sure was. I was there until 2001. If you came to any of our partner meetings where roadmap was briefed, we might have met.
Small world.
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