Veteran Marketer Proves Booth Babes Don't Work

[blackrave]

I never understood booth babes.
Do they draw attention?
Yeah, 0.3 second glance.
Can you sell your product in that time?
If yes, then you don't need booth babes to sell your product.
When I try to understand message behind booth babes, it goes something like this:
"Hey moron! Yes you! Turn you penis this way! See tits and ass? Now stare at them and salivate, while we pull your wallet out of your pocket and sell you shit, you don't really need."
That's insulting.

Now, I do understand that they are people too and they need this income

Spoiler: WARNING! Slippery slope imminent.

BUT if we follow the same logic
We shouldn't deal with thieves and drug dealers, because they also need money.
Hell, if we go to extremes
We shouldn't punish rapists and serial killers, because they also need to rape and kill, to feel good.

But you know what?
I would also like to get paid just for shoving my ugly face and hanging around in some location.
But for some reason I do get paid only when I do something.
And I don't understand why.
No matter how hard I try to figure it out, answer eludes me.

snip.. radical feminist that I am.

Why, oh why you needed to add this last bit here?
I was reading and agreeing on most things, and when I got to this my head simply dropped down and hit the table (luckily glasses remained safe).
What is the connection here?
It's like saying that I don't stomp kittens and don't eat shrimps because I'm a glass blower.
You want professional environment and respectful attitude, not because you are radical, feminist or radical feminist, but because you are professional and decent human being with common sense intact and 2+ brain cells.

 

[Extragorey]

I have this thing called empathy,

Cool, what's that? Can I have some?

But seriously, I've never understood why our society still upholds such sexist traditions. It's like the Gold Coast Meter Maids. Or why girls do that to themselves... I don't get it.

 

[blackrave]

It sounds as though someone failed to notice the sarcasm in a quip and perhaps gave away more about themselves than they should hope to.

God dammit! Of all people I should be the one picking sarcasm over the internet the best, yet I failed.
How could I fall so low?

I don't really consider myself a radical feminist only because that term has no meaning, though on many web communities my expectation that professionals should act like professionals would get me called one.

I think proper term is "feminazi"

Now excuse me, I'm going to go to the rooftop and wait for a rain (winter, FUCK YEAH!!!) to cry on my knees and yell "WHY?", "NO!" and "BLARGH!", since I've humiliated myself yet again.

 

[Epic_Bubble]

I find booth babes uncomfortable and especially when it comes to games. I tend to wonder what the makers are hiding by trying to sell their game through sex rather than through say game play.

For certain events they work...Car show comes to mind but thats more purely in terms of eye catching not actually in depth discussion about the product. But at game cons meh.

Way to make a introvert like me feel even less uncomfortable around people.

 

[Simalacrum]

Especially for gaming, considering the growing number of women gamers in the industry, I think its a good thing to move away from the booth babe model of things; or, at the very least, make it a gender-neutral field. Anyone for some hunky guys at your local EA booth? Eh?

...no?

[small]ok...[/small]

 

[SinisterGehe]

I am going to be honest. Whenever I see booth babes I skip the booth because I think like this: I find that if the product needs that to get attention then it apparently cant stand on it's own. (I assume that and I am a lost customer at that points, the marketing to me has failed)
Also... I don't feel right to go to a booth because I get this feeling that others think I am there because of the babes.

In professional conventions and events which I attend, either I want to, have to or forced by job. I'd rather speak to someone who knows what they are talking about and understands what I am talking about. Than get a pretty face to stare.

 

[4Aces]

While I tend to agree with his conclusion, correlation does not equal causation. Sure, he tested it numerous times over the course of 1 year, but it is going to have to be put to far more tests and studies if it is to be proven.

Then again, this is me just nitpicking. I think commonsense would dictate this to be the case, but then again, I have overestimated the human race before.

Your logic is well founded. His correlations do not indicate *any* sense of the products being marketed. If I were to staff grandmothers in French string's at the Fallout 4 booth, I would still have 10X the business than Victoria Secrete Swimsuit models trying to sell Fable 4. The products sometimes sell themselves. Other times, it could be the swag they are handing out. So claiming causality proves he is simply selling his opinion.

P.S. I find the booth babes great fun to talk to. They are willing to tell you just about anything as long as you can distract them from the mind-numbing boredom of their jobs, or the boorish behaviour of their bosses. Some are actually intelligent people just earning a little extra cash (you can usually spot them - they do not sport hooker tats).

 

[Dragonbums]

While I tend to agree with his conclusion, correlation does not equal causation. Sure, he tested it numerous times over the course of 1 year, but it is going to have to be put to far more tests and studies if it is to be proven.

Then again, this is me just nitpicking. I think commonsense would dictate this to be the case, but then again, I have overestimated the human race before.

Your logic is well founded. His correlations do not indicate *any* sense of the products being marketed. If I were to staff grandmothers in French string's at the Fallout 4 booth, I would still have 10X the business than Victoria Secrete Swimsuit models trying to sell Fable 4. The products sometimes sell themselves. Other times, it could be the swag they are handing out. So claiming causality proves he is simply selling his opinion.

The thing is if we are to truly do an accurate test on the subject it would have to take the effort of A LOT of companies.


In all honestly, I think that his conclusion is probably of conventions that don't center around sexuality, and/or porn.

The only way for this to work is to have for example- Bethesda to agree to having various booths at cons. To make sure the margin of error is minimized the cons in question should preferably have around the same amount of con goers. Then you implement booth babes in some of the booths, and regular/no salespersons in other booths. From that point on it's simply a matter of not only counting how many people visited your booth, but how many of those individuals were unique (not booth visit regulars). At the end of the year Bethesda can tally up the amount of people who went the booth with hot babes, and the amount who went to the booth with no babes.

Repeat this process with a slew of other game companies with notoriously popular games

For most games, I'm fairly certain there will be an indifference. Maybe even a slight negative or positive.

However this may damage family friendly studios like Nintendo (then again I don't think the folks at Nintendo would agree to such an experiment to begin with.) afterall, image is everything.

 

[Hero of Lime]

I find the whole affair to be awkward, both for the booth babes and those they are trying to appeal to. I don't really like the idea myself, marketers thinking hot girls=sales and interest never appealed to me. Same reason I find AXE body spray and Go Daddy commercials annoying, I hate the soulless pandering.

Not sure if this study is really conclusive or definitive, but I certainly feel as though booth babes don't really add much to a marketing campaign.

 

[wulf3n]

Wow, a website actually published that article straight faced! Techcrucnch isn't an affiliate of The Onion is it?

The level of fail in the original article is astounding. It's practically insulting given the use of words like "test" and "results".

I just wanted to state that if you were so inclined to take up this debate, I can offer you a sound business reason to support your opinion: Booth babes don?t convert.

No Mr. Chen, no you can't. You might want to do a bit of reading on the Scientific Method before making such bold claims.

 

[Chemical Alia]

I have no problem with the booth babes themselves, since they're just doing their job, but I do frown upon any studio that chooses to use them, and I wouldn't feel comfortable representing a company professionally alongside them.

If you're going to pay people to dress up, I'd much prefer to see people dressed as characters from the games themselves. That tells me at least SOMETHING about the product.

I was at the launch party for a certain highly-praised Aliens-related smash hit last year, and there were men and women wearing badass marine costumes hanging around. They weren't there to be sexy, just create a fun atmosphere. That was probably the best part, much better than the raging migraine and all that damn noise blasting that you young people call music these days.

Yeah.

 

[Jandau]

I avoid booth babes simply because even if I have legitimate questions regarding a product, both the "babe" and everyone else will likely think I'm talking to her for the tits. By using oversexualized marketing tactics companies create encounters with a sexual context, which is not something I (and many other people) am looking for at a convention.

Unless it's a porn convention. I'm guessing booth babes are perfectly fine at porn conventions.

Also, if I see a booth babe (i.e. scantily clad girl of well above average looks staring vacantly into the distance), I'm going to assume she knows next to nothing about the actual product. This isn't a sexist thing, I'm just aware that she's likely been hired as a booth babe and as such can't really help me with anything...

 

[mindfaQ]

I don't really see the sense of the booth babes. Then again I am not strictly against them, as beautiful women certainly can be a pleasure to the eye.

 

[Headsprouter]

Hell, yeah, if I saw some skimpily-dressed fine-ass ladies standing around something you can guarantee I'm not taking a step in their direction.

Girls are scary.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

That's interesting. I'd like to see a more scientific experiment but those results are very interesting. Same show, same stall, different staff, triple the results. Wow.

I imagine it might be something to do with the shy/nerdy beta male being "intimidated" by the semi nude hottie staffing the stall. Whereas the kindly grandmother or same sex seller is perhaps more approachable. I don't think booth babes are sexist and I couldn't give less of a damn whether they are or aren't to be quite honest. What they are though, is pandering, almost patronising, a little insulting and quite frankly makes me question the worth of a product that needs eye candy to market it.

 

[II2]

Many attendees find their presence intimidating and the ones they do attract "were always the overconfident weirdos." Most objections to booth babes are based on the sexism inherent in the role; perhaps Chen's observations will offer a more practical reason for doing away with them, and be more successful in making it happen.

Honestly, if a pretty girl showing some skin intimidates you from approaching a kiosk showing something you're interested in, that's YOUR hangup. They're just people, at work.

That said, these are models or otherwise attractive young women paid to look cute and be friendly. Don't take that as an invitation or sign of interest, in the same way you wouldn't bother a sexily dressed traffic director on duty. It's fine to flash a smile, say hello and be polite, but don't be a fucking clingy creep and hang around. Is it truly that hard?

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

This doesn't particularly surprise me. A lot of people are likely to avoid them, purely so they don't get thought of as a pervert.

Then there is the possibility that some women might find them awkward, and some heterosexual men might find them insulting, as though they need see a scantily clad woman to be gain interest in something. Which is essentially the purpose of them in the first place.

As somebody who has never attended a place that has had them, I've never been particularly bothered by the idea. But at the same time I have also never really seen the point.

I can understand having people dress up as characters, if it is from a work of fiction. Beyond that it just seems kind of juvenile.

I'll be damned if I can add to this. I'd be more likely to avoid them, even if I was interested in the booth's contents. I just don't want to be seen as someone who falls for such a simple and stupid marketing ploy that runs exclusively on the expectation that physical exposure = more sales. I hope this falls out of favor.