
Cards Against Humanity’s “$5 More” Black Friday Sale - alexcason
http://maxistentialist.tumblr.com/post/68844686496/cards-against-humanitys-5-more-black-friday
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PaulJoslin
I think this is an important lesson in marketing and getting press attention
that other start ups or entrepreneurs should take note of.

The key to getting press / marketing attention / viral affect is to do
something different that gets people talking.

On black Friday everyone is cutting their prices. If you put out a press
release saying you were cutting your prices too it is unlikely to even
register on the press' radar. However, do something so different and
disruptive that it becomes a unique and funny story and it warrants press
attention and share-ability.

Quite often I notice people on HN reading every post about 'Simple guide to
marketing your app' or other people's success stories, thinking 'If I follow
these steps they used to promote their app, I'll have the same success' \-
however the opposite is true, if you do what they did you're less likely to
have the same impact they originally had.

This applies to anything from the original idea of sending personalised emails
to the blogosphere regarding your new app, to the original
milliondollarhomepage.com.

TL;DR; - Be different, disrupt the expected and gain press by not following
the crowd.

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nollidge
This is basically useless advice. If you're _too_ different people will think
it's weird, or just being different for different's sake, and they'll still
pass you up.

The real key is to be _original_. Except that's also useless advice, because
it's only ever obvious in hindsight.

~~~
Nicholas_C
>because it's only ever obvious in hindsight.

Seriously. We can do case studies until the cows come home and attempt to
market products in ingenious ways and still never get noticed. While a
different company that does something as a mere joke will get heaps more
exposure without even trying. I don't work in marketing, but this must be
frustrating.

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cup
I wonder if the controversy surrounding their dickwolves criticsm and
potential hypocrisy has damaged their branding. I doubt it but it would be
interesting to see the numbers.

~~~
dkersten
The problem with the dickwolves thing wasn't the dickwolves joke itself, but
rather how they responded when people got upset. There is nothing wrong with
cards against humanity criticising penny arcade for this while having similar
content, _as long as_ they don't respond similarly if people get upset over
_their_ content.

~~~
maaaats
And to me it isn't hypocrisy, since the main argument to CAH against Penny
Arcade was that they screwed their expo over by drawing that kind of negative
attention to it.

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kevingadd
The CAH crew has a history of running cute little business experiments like
this. One I remember from earlier this year:

[https://twitter.com/wesleyverhoeve/status/381151177494130689...](https://twitter.com/wesleyverhoeve/status/381151177494130689/photo/1)

~~~
monksy
Just as a historical note: Max also complained that they didn't get much money
out of PAX (where they did this) compared to the amount of money they spent.
[They made their booth VERY elaborate]

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jbrooksuk
I bought the UK version one day before Black Friday. Well worth the full price
as it's kept me amused every day since!

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xiaoma
Interesting to contrast this with Cards _for_ Humanity, which links the same
offensive cards with the goal of donations to charity.

[http://cfh.io](http://cfh.io)

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hanief
david and goliath by gladwell is indeed a good motivational/justificational
book for underdog or lean startup aiming at big corporate.

~~~
booruguru
Why is he being voted down? The book is referenced in the article.

~~~
wmeredith
I can't speak for anyone else, but I auto-downvote comments that lack proper
punctuation/grammar. It's a fast indicator of quality discourse.

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alphakappa
Downvoting for bad grammar? What if this person is a non-native english
speaker? I know plenty of smart people who grew up with a different primary
language, and can make bad mistakes in english while writing.

~~~
wmeredith
Then that's just too bad, I guess. HN is an English speaking site. The ability
to articulate your thoughts in the medium chosen for the discourse is cost of
entry. Poor grammar is a quick indicator of content quality to me. In fact,
it's just about the only thing I will downvote. Maybe it's because I was
raised by an English professor.

Edited: Typo (of course)

~~~
SheepSlapper
"en English professor"

Sorry buddy, gotta downvote you now. Based on that typo I can tell that this
comment lacks quality and doesn't add to the discourse.

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wmeredith
What's good for the goose is good for the gander. Do as you will :)

(I was wondering how long it would take before I let one slip. It never fails
when discussing grammar online.)

~~~
acheron
a.k.a. "Muphry's Law".

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OneOneOneOne
I think CAH understands their customer quite well. Others applying this direct
approach could be perceived as dicks.

~~~
interstitial
dickwolves.

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contextual
I ran a similar experiment with Rejection Therapy a year or so ago. I used big
red "DON'T BUY" purchase buttons and sales went up slightly.

Long story as to why I took them down, and I'm not even sure if I should
discuss it so I won't.

~~~
applecore
Why did you take them down? :)

~~~
contextual
It's a bizarre and complicated story I hope to one day tell, but not today.

~~~
interstitial
Curses to you. I want to know, today. You think the internet has conditioned
me to be patient? No! I want it now.

