Promos

YOU COME to expect that
with cach passing Yuletide
season, certain things can
thankfully be forgotten for yet
another year — Perry Como
albums. variations on turkey
surprise and feigned goodwill
towards idiot relatives, to
name just a few,

By Greg Potter
News Reporter

But here we are, more than a
month afier wishing LC. a happy
birthday and scl the colossally
irritating din of Xmas-oriented
video-game commerciats continues
to issue forth from the tube,
resounding like aftershocks from
the California quake.

The synthetically generated,
automatonic squiaawk thar is the
Sega-Genesis trademark
(SEGA!) succeeds in being
instantly recognizable -= and
instantly annoying — but arch rival
Nintendo has likewise mniauiged to

hire un advertising team capable of

driving anyone mentally or chrono.
logically past he age of six into a
jaw-dropping stupor,

This is. in itself. a feat worthy
of such cultural condesceasion as

Hughes or the operas

of Andrew Lloyd Webber — all of

them proof that a waste is a terrible
thing tomind

Someone — no one | know, by

God — actually buys into this crud

66 There they are,
slopping back a nat-
seating, phlega-like

substance, FF

eemeeterinenerminntermnne

and catapults it right to the top of
the heap.

Yor dont want to Know whi
on the boviom,

But back tothe vid-games.

Hi would be casy enough to
atlack the gratwitous violence
inherent in them, but that’s a tired
old story and even less interesting
than the games themselves,

Instead, let's go back to the
adverts,

Take, for exampie, the stunning-
ly offensive litte gem produced by
Sepa that depicts a hillybilly-esque
chin hunkered around a primitive
TV and cackling like the cast from
Ong Flew over the Cackoa's Nest.

There they are, the family
Neanderthal, slopping back a nau-
seating, phlegm-like substance and
playing -- you guessed il —
Nintendo.

The obvious implication is chat
Only those folks actively engaged
in “Ozark family fun” -— better
known around these paris as
“inbreeding” -— are tikely to pur-
chase such an inferior product.

Needless to say, Nintendo took
umbrage at this slight and raised
holy hell. Most networks subse-

quently dropped the ad.

They did. however, continue to
run the athers,

Yes. the one with the dim-wit-
ted and gatfawing heavy-metal kid
who pots plistered against the wall,
the one with the dull-oyed delivery
guy who gets fattened by an
oncoming vebicle and the one with
the dog that goes nuts (presumably
after dosing a round of Nintendo),

In seme kind of perverse con
pensation, each of these unfortu-
Nites gets to eroak, “SEGAL
before being annihilated,

Nintendo's ads are slightly less
original and, therefore, stightly fess
obnosious,

Nonetheless, they too utilize the

trivd-and-true MTV-ish formula of

lightning-fast editing, speed-metal
soundtracks and moronic aclion-
hero voiceovers.

The onty consolation around
Christmas was that if you were
inclined to watch more than 15
minutes of television a day. you
simply knew itl had to end on
Dee. 24. .

After all, these bozos would
have blown their annual promo
budgels by then, right?

‘To. borrow a phrase fram Sega,
“Wrong answer, man,”

The combined sales for the two
companies in 1993 exceeded 3.5
millton copies in Canada alone,
grossing more than $200 million in
sales,

And that-buys an awful fot of

airtime,

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OAK BAY
ARINE GROUP

oie a 4
NEWS phate Mike Waketleld

THE AGGRESSIVE year-round marketing assault by video-game
manufacturers leaves little doubt that certain advertising execu-
tives should be whacked over the head with their joysticks.

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