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Tech Week: DJ Hero FAILS to excite, even with Em and Jay-Z



When DJ Hero was announced, I was juiced. But when this ad dropped, I lost bout 50% of my interest. A few posts back I talked about the importance of sometimes just letting an artist do their thing and letting your brand ride the wave. More often than not though, you can't afford to do that. I think ipod squandered an ad with Eminem like that once before.

But this ad, it was just mediocre. I felt no connection to the DJ guy, the rappers or the artists (both of whom I really like).

I think to tighten things up, they should have not gone the mashup route. They should have went with the "How could Guitar get better?" Then actually using a DJ for the first ad?? (hows that for original?).

But alas, I'm sure the creative team asked the question "But WHICH DJ?". Fair question. Here is the answer: DJ QBERT, MixMaster Mike, DJ Kid Dragon, DJ Whoo Kid, DJ Kid Kapri, DJ King Tech- Mike Relm...I could go on...all day actually. But I won't.

DJ Hero went out of their way to get a bunch of DJ's to co-sign the games coolness in magazines and TV news. Why didn't they just do that from the START in an ad? The world may never know.

To start DJ Hero ads without a DJ is like starting a car ad with the image of a mechanic sayin' "Its not all its cracked up to be!" You just don't do it. Even in this ad, the DJ manages to play the background...But the game is called DJ Hero...not Rap Hero.

The other thing is, it seemed like they spent so much money on the ad that it didn't even seem to get a lot of rotation.

The moral of the story? If you got a game rooted in DJ'ing, you get the best DJ's on the planet in your ad. The end.

-Beyond Urban Branding

P.S. Go ahead and send the hate mail to beyondurban@gmail.com

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