Celebrity Sell Out

Wavnig arms and shouting a lot - it's my job

Ozzy Osbourne may have snorted fire ants to impress poodle perm rockers Motley Crue, but in his defence at least he could say he wasn’t playing World of Warcraft. For those who are not acquainted with the geeky world of goblins and elves, World of Warcraft is an massive multiplayer online (mmog, to you mate) game for sweaty young men who are nervous around girls. A generalisation I’m sure, but if you play it, and you believe I’m wrong, then you’re in denial (pulling an elfin princess doesn’t really count).

I wont go into detail about the game, but if you’re curious and want to find out more without playing it then let this gentlemen tell you about it.

So Ozzy is appearing in an TV ad for Warcraft – the game’s makers are obviously looking to raise subscriber numbers. But you wonder how. The ads feature Ozzie shouts and swears about him being the Prince of Darkness and not the Lichen King, who is the king baddie in the game. For added value Ozzy’s avatar appears in the animation jumping around and doing various things in front of the aforementioned character.

So Ozzie likes to play Warcraft and he’s a married man? Wrong, you don’t actually see Ozzie playing the game and for good reason as I doubt he’d be very good. Ozzy has what you could describe as good hands for making cocktails. So why pick a knackered old rocker with shaky hands to appear in a computer game ad, because he’s probably not all that cheap (after all, his manager is Sharon Osbourne and she knows how to cut a deal)?

This question brings me back to a theme of earlier posts, default celebrities. Just as Beyonce is a must-have for brands looking to appear hip and appeal to teenage girls, so Ozzy is the spokesman for an altogether different and very male demographic. Yes we’re talking sweaty, spotty males in their 20s (it is essential they are born after Ozzie’s 70s heyday), living with mum in a darkened bedroom. And while physically male they generally have the life experience of a 13-year-old.

But whereas we criticise brands for using this default this time I’m going to sympathise with Blizzard, the makers of Warcraft, who are literally raking it in on the back of the game. One can imagine them sitting there saying crikey we’ve got all this money to burn but how can we reach our target audience when they’re all in their bedrooms on the internet?

Ozzy is the obvious answer, and not only because he looks like a character in the game. He’s fairly likely to have some sort of resonance with the target audience who associate him with the MTV programme.

The only problem is the ads say absolutely nothing about the game and the target market will only see it when their mums call them down for their tea.