Wednesday, April 12, 2006

On paint jobs, paint masters and previews...

Posted on maxminis.com by lurkinlidda:
It's time for me to speak up here as the WotC employee responsible for overseeing DDM marketing.

Up until now the only images we've had available for marketing materials (previews, posters, window clings, etc) were those of the paint masters. When the War Drums posters came out we heard your outcry and knew we had to change procedure.

We were already into production of WoDQ at the time but stopped the presses - literally - and had the factory scramble to get final production pieces to us. The possible consequence of this was that the release of product would be delayed. Yup, we took a huge risk of being late with the final product. It was a chance we had to take.

The Art Director and I spent hours pouring over each figure in WoDQ, searching for any with dramatic changes between paint masters and final production pieces. At considerable expense to company resources, and a lot of politicking on my part, we re-shot images of close to a third of the set so that you would see as-close-to final product as possible. Even so, we could not redesign all of our printed materials...you will come across images of the paint masters in a few cases.

At the same time we knew it was time to emphasize the color variation disclaimer. It's nothing different than the disclaimers that all other companies use. As others have mentioned, your hamburger never looks the same as what you see on the billboard. You deserve to know about the differences, and we own up to them. Is the disclaimer CYA? Sure. Is it an omen of decreased quality? No way whatsoever!

So now you know the story. If you need to point a finger at a "bad guy" at WotC I'm the one. I'm also the "good guy" (girl, actually)who scrambles to get the posters to you in the first place. So, get mad at me if you need to, but share the love too. I'm open to constructive criticism and that's why I lurk through the boards.

I give you my cheers and understandably take your jeers,

Linae Foster
Asst. Brand Mgr
D&D Minis
Wizards of the Coast

Comments:

Now that's much more reassuring than a disclaimer.

# posted by  Anonymous : 3:10 pm

 

Foshizzle!

# posted by  Anonymous : 4:22 pm

 

You rock Girl! thanks for taking time to respond to the rucuss.

# posted by  Anonymous : 2:21 am

 

THANKS! YOU ARE WONDERFUL, LINAE!

# posted by  Anonymous : 7:34 am

 

Hello Linae,

As a loyal buyer of the DDM game miniatures, I appreciate you stepping up to the plate and giving us insight into what goes on behind the scenes. I also appreciate that you owned up to the difference between the images we see on gallary page of the miniatures home and the actual mini's from the box.

I am also a student studying of all things marketing right now. So this insight that you gave is wonderful. I might even take what I learned from you and present it as an example of marketing in action. It's very interesting since I just wrote a paper last week for this class on the distribution channels that WoTC uses to market the DDM game.

Again, I applaud you. Great to have a gamer girl behind the wheel.

Knightofwhiteroses

# posted by  Anonymous : 5:13 pm

 

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