I had a good laugh tonight.  I was bored off my ass passing some time until I had the energy to take care of some things I needed to do before dawn approached.  So, I was reading some of the posts here and happened to read one of the advertising banners that flash over the top of the forum.  Nothing I hadn't seen before yet I actually read it this time (I rarely pay attention to advertisements be they in print, on TV, radio, etc.  In fact, I actually will often make my choice of the exact opposite since I see advertising most of the time as making up for a deficiency rather than extolling a virtue).

Anyway, there I was bored and reading some advertising banner.  Some crude little thing was hanging from some other thing's arm and said "Duely noted."  Well, of course I immediately burst into laughter.  It should read, "Duly noted."

Now, this just happened to strike me as all the funnier because I'd been discussing advertising with someone online the other day.  We were discussing the poor quality of advertisements many MUDs post on these forums (and even worse on another forum where the average advertisement seems to be made by an ten-year old with a kindergarten education), complete with spelling errors and exaggerated claims regarding features and quality.

Proofreading is always a good thing when you're advertising, unless you want the quality of your product to be judged by the lack of quality in your advertisement (regardless of whether or not they're by the same people).  Even funnier are advertisements for and from builders describing the quality they desire/possess.  If you don't spell half the words in your advertisement correctly, what makes you think others will look at your advertisement and think "here's the kind of quality I'm looking for"?  As for the ad that made me laugh this morning, they usually don't have this problem (and their ad may not be of their design anyway).  I hope that if the MUD in question paid for the creation of those advertisements, they get their money back.

Of course, even worse are those MUDs that advertise "unique" features like warrior classes or talk about their incredible role-play in their "RP-encouraged" MUD.  I'm sure there's a sucker born every day that buys into that crap, but for every one that does, there are probably a dozen people with an ounce of intelligence who read those sorts of things, shake their head, maybe laugh, and then move on, making a mental note to avoid that pile of crud.  You may think you've got a quality product, but at least recognize the qualities and limitations of your MUD.  If you haven't been in operation for years, don't claim it's been around since the Carter administration.  If you haven't done much to it besides modify the name on the title screen, don't claim it's "mostly original".

In any regard, it's a lesson for anyone advertising or thinking of advertising their MUD.  Proofread your advertisement BEFORE you use it.  And if you don't want to have the advertisement picked apart, for god's sake, don't exaggerate.  Lying may get more people to look at your MUD, but honesty will get more to stay.

Take care,

Jason

I've noticed some of that in reviews (which exist as a form of advertising). There's one game with a couple of recent reviews, each of which makes special note of a player's ability to <gasp> Take flowers from a vase!

I mean, unless the vase is empty, or inside a closed cabinet, why wouldn't someone be able to take flowers from it? Have these folks ever played any other game, that they don't realize this isn't something worth mentioning?

Both reviews also extoll the virtues of being able to <drumroll> sit at tables!

Really - if this is a new thing for your game, your REALLY should try other games before writing up a review.

What's more funny is your take on advertising. You're refering to one of the flash ads done for us by the guys over at nuklearpower.com. We noticed that typo right after I first put the ad up, but decided to keep it to see what would happen. Lo and behold - it is our best performing Imperian ad overall. Heck, you thought about it long enough to actually write a post about it. That's awesome.

Promotion is a far more subtle art than you seem to grasp, and the only thing that really matters, unless you're big enough to do purely branding campaigns (like Coke, Budweiser, etc) is return on investment. I don't know what it is specifically about that ad that seems to work well, and I don't know if it has anything to do with people doing a double-take when they see 'duely' as opposed to 'duly' (or even whether most people notice), but that ad rocks.

--matt

Advertising is about getting people to buy something they don't want and could probably get better elsewhere. I'm sure that's applicable in this case. If so, the idea is to present the best possible image of the product, not leave those viewing the advertisement questioning the quality of what's being hocked.

How long's the ad been up and how many ads have you had for the MUD? It's probably been up for a while and if it really worked, I'd have noticed it earlier. I didn't, because I didn't bother with the ad. So, no it wasn't effective, at least not with me. It was humorous though because it showed a high-profile example of the lack of quality advertising done to promote most MUDs and gave me a nice lead-in to a post I was already going to make regardless.

I understand advertising, I'm just not feeble-minded enough to fall for it. I question everything and my first rule when looking at any advertisement (if I do at all) is to assume that everything presented is false. However, when you see a typo like that, it's even more telling because advertising is about setting up an illusion. If the reality of poor quality makes it through what is supposed to be a carefully-constructed attempt at propaganda, it says volumes about the lack of quality inherent in the product.

I highly doubt 1% of the people that have seen the ad were influenced, especially not influenced positively, by the typo. All it really says is that the guys over at nuklearpower.com can't spell. If they charged you for such poor quality and you honestly believe that the typo has been noticed by people other than me, you should demand a refund because I doubt many people see a typo and say, "Now, I want that kind of quality!" If so, wouldn't it stand to reason that all the typo-laden, amateurish posts in the advertising forums would trump the much higher-quality (excepting the "duely" ad, IRE's ads are high-quality attempts, I do not dispute that) banner ads. They don't though because the implication is that the more unprofessional an ad, the more likely that the same could be said about the MUD.

Take care,

Jason