This Company Paid for Negative Reviews (and It Worked)
GTA, one of the best series of games ever released.
(Besides the remastered definitive edition, we don’t count that mmkay?)
Anyhoo:
When they first released GTA you wanna’ know what they did?
I’m willing to bet you have a hint from the title of this email.
They paid for negative reviews.
Why?
Controversiality.
I’ve spoke many times about the power of polarity, from Trump to 6ix9ine, now GTA.
They intentionally paid right sided media publications to publish negative reviews.
You know, get the outcry from parents and christian people going.
“This game was made by Satan worshippers.”
“This game will produce mass shooters.”
So on.
And, you wanna’ know what it did?
Increase sales.
There’s a famous debate of “there’s no such thing as bad publicity”.
Which is true.
But here’s the deal:
Some people will dislike you off the bat.
Other people you’ll catch their attention, they’ll try out what you have to offer, and give an honest review.
If you have a good product, building controversy is only increasing the eyes on your product.
If you have a bad product, then sure, controversy is bad.
But you were destined to fail from the beginning that way, anyways.
That’s why when I write emails I intentionally write to my audience, in my voice.
In fact, when I write for other people I of course mimmick their voice & match their brand, but a bit of my style rubs off too because I insist on being authentic.
Which more or less means not being afraid to piss off the wrong people to attract the right people.
Part of being a good copywriter is catching attention.
(Controversy does this, so do other things, but controversy works great.)
The next part is being able to build a relationship with the right audience.
(Controversy can do this as well, but more specific polarity. Think they either love you or hate you.)
Once you have a relationship, you have trust.
Once you have trust, an offer basically sells itself.
Make of this what you will.
Talk soon,
Colton
